A car is essential for doing the wooden church circuit properly. The eight UNESCO churches are spread across multiple valleys — the Iza, the Mara, the Cosău — and the distances between them are short but the roads connecting them are winding and often unpaved. Without a car you will be limited to the churches near Sighetu or to the few that can be reached by local bus. Renting in Cluj-Napoca or Baia Mare and driving in is the most practical approach.
There is no public transport between the villages worth relying on. Local minibuses (maxitaxi) connect some of the larger villages to Sighetu on market days, but the schedules are irregular and designed for locals doing errands, not for visitors visiting churches. Do not plan a church circuit around them.
Within individual villages, and between adjacent villages in the same valley, walking and cycling are both viable and pleasant. The distances are manageable, the roads are quiet (horse-drawn carts are still more common than lorries on the back lanes), and the pace suits the landscape. Several guesthouses can arrange bicycle hire. The Iza valley in particular, which runs east from Sighetu through a string of well-preserved villages, is excellent cycling country on a dry day.
Sighetu Marmației itself is easy on foot. The main sights — the Memorial museum, the ethnographic museum, the open-air village museum on the edge of town — are all within walking distance of the centre or a short taxi ride.