Travelogue: Georgia
A road trip through the beautiful Caucasus Mountains.
My family and I spent a couple of weeks driving around Georgia — between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea — this summer, and it was incredible. (Just to be clear, this is not a story about traveling through the U.S. state of the same name.)
Why Georgia? Well, first of all, we enjoy traveling in off-the-beaten-path places, and this is about as off-the-beaten-path as you can get. (We did our honeymoon in Laos, and have been to places like Papua New Guinea and Bolivia, so Georgia is quite on-brand for us.) I honestly did not know anything about Georgia until a couple of years ago, when I discovered this incredible Georgian restaurant in Washington DC called Supra. The food was amazing, but even more so the culture, language, and wine all captivated me, and I wanted to learn more.
After coming home, I made a video with some of the drone footage and photos I took on the trip, which you can check out below.
My son, who is a linguist, is also very interested in the complexities of the languages in the Caucasus region, so it seemed like a natural place to visit. Once I dug in more and learned about the amazing mountainous geography, the ancient cultures and traditions, and of course the ubiquitously awesome food, I was sold.
By the way: If you are looking for a good resource to learn about Georgia, check out Emily Lush’s incredible blog, Wander-Lush. This was our #1 resource for planning our trip, and nearly everyone we met in Georgia knew about it and had referenced it heavily.
The route
We had about 10 days in Georgia, and one of our primary destinations was the mountain village of Ushguli, so we needed to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. I also wanted to limit the amount of driving each day to no more than about 4 hours or so — more than this and everyone would get really sick of being in the car.
Georgia is a great place to travel independently and with kids. Our kids (11 and 16) are adventurous eaters, but if they had not been, invariably every Georgian meal features khachapuri — essentially a sauceless cheese pizza — how can you ever go wrong with that? Apart from the sometimes harrowing traffic and questionable condition of some of the roads, it was a very easy trip overall, highly recommended if you want to see some amazing scenery, ancient architecture, and eat really, really well.
Tbilisi
We started in the capital of Tbilisi, which is a delightful city but, compared to the rest of the country, extremely crowded. By way of comparison, while Tbilisi has a population of around 1.2M people (about a third of the entire country), the next largest city, Batumi, has only about 180,000. The old city is beautiful, with cobbled streets, quaintly crumbling buildings, and is very walkable. You only feel the size (and the traffic) when trying to drive in or out of the city itself. The town itself has a bunch of fascinating churches, museums, and shops, very few of which we bothered to see in our short time there — being more interested in getting a good nights’ sleep before heading out of town. Riding the cable car up to the hilltop overlooking the city was very much worth it, though.
Stepantsminda and the Georgia Military Highway
After a day in Tbilisi, we rented a car and drove up the Georgia Military Highway — towards the border with Russia — to the mountain town of Stepantsminda. Once getting out of Tbilisi, the drive was fairly pleasant, although the amount of traffic on the highway as we approached the border — and went over a couple of the high mountain passes — was quite harrowing. Trucks line up for many miles along the shoulder of the highway waiting for their turn to cross the border, which effectively reduces the width of the highway by a half lane. Given how people drive in Georgia — suddenly overtaking without slowing down, tailgating at full speed, etc. — it’s a bit of a stressful drive, but overall not too bad. The incredible mountain views on the way up into the mountains more than makme up for it.
Stepantsminda was not the picturesque mountain hamlet that we imagined, though. It is kind of a dirty, busy place with a lot of shops, gas stations, and guesthouses running right along the highway, reminding me a bit of places in Nepal like Syapru Bensi, the last point on the highway before the Langtang Valley trek. Fortunately, we were staying at a beautiful guesthouse up on the hill, away from the town itself, which had incredible views (and an even better restaurant next door).
The real highlight of Stepantsminda is the 14th-century Gergeti Trinity Church, which is perched on the hilltop overlooking everything around — it is a stunning location.
After a couple of nights, we drove back down towards Tbilisi, stopping on the way at the Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument, built in 1983 in a spectactular location overlooking the mountain valley. We also swung briefly through the Tbilisi suburb of Mtskheta to visit the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, built in the 11th century.
Uplistsikhe and Nika Vacheishvili’s Guest House
From Mtskheta, we turned west on the main highway running through Georgia. Our first stop was Uplistsikhe, an ancient cave city that was inhabited from 2000BC all the way until the 19th century. It was an interesting place to wander around, however, there wasn’t very much information on site about each of the chambers and rooms, making it hard to know very much about anything we were looking at.
One of the main attractions to Georgia was the opportunity to experience the food, wine, and hospitality in a traditional farmhouse setting — to the extent possible. Fortunately, we found a number of charming guesthouses in the country offering just that: a cozy place to stay and incredible home-cooked food (and homemade wine). We booked a night at Nika Vacheishvili’s Guest House, about 20 minutes from the city of Gori (known as Josef Stalin’s birthplace). It was a little tricky to find — and we were glad we had a 4WD vehicle once we saw the condition of the rocky path we had to drive up to get there — but it was well worth it. I love that there was no menu, just a ton of amazing food and wine without having to think about anything but keeping the cats from stealing something off of our plates!
Kutaisi and Zugdidi
At this point we were back in the lowlands of the country, and pining for the mountains again — it was hot and getting progressively more humid as we got closer to the Black Sea. Before getting to the mountains again, though, we had a day of driving to get to Zugdidi, in the westernmost part of the country, and had a stop in the city of Kutaisi on the way for a delicious lunch and to poke around the large green market there.
On the way, you pass through a little village called Surami, where along the highway are dozens of little stalls selling nazuki, a sweet bread that the area is famous for. Of course we had to stop at one of the stalls where the old woman was waving down cars, spoke no English, and sold us a couple of loaves for, I think, 2 lari — not even a dollar.
Lunch in Kutaisi was at Lilestan, where the Imeretian sampler board, listed for two people, was more than enough to fill up our family of four. One thing to keep in mind is that meals in Georgia are never “quick.” No matter how little we tried to order, we would always end up with something like twice the amount of food we could eat, and it would take an hour and a half, minimum (often much longer). We started to realize we needed to set aside a couple of hours for lunch each day, which was just fine, given how incredible the food is everywhere we went.
We made it to Zugdidi after a very long day of driving. Using ChatGPT for suggestions, we came up with a “Georgia Road Trip Bingo Card” that included commonly-seen sights along the road: cows blocking the highway; a shirtless man working on a Soviet Lada; a road sign with five consonants in a row. The next day we wandered around the sprawling market in Zugdidi before hitting the road again in search of the mountains.
Sisatura Ethno Village
Just about 15 minutes outside of Zugdidi is Sisatura Ethno Village, a reconstruction of a traditional Georgian village with old houses, agriculture demonstrations, and (of course!) a delicious lunch of local cuisine. We were really excited to visit and the family that runs the place were so welcoming. Normally they are only open for organized tour groups, though the owners of our guesthouse in Zugdidi managed to set up the visit for us.
Mestia
Another few hours up the road and we were finally back into the mountains again. Unlike the road to Stepantsminda, getting to Mestia does not involve any crazy road traffic and very few trucks; it’s literally a road to nowhere, except the remote mountain villages, of course. Mestia is also much more beautiful and peaceful than Stepantsminda, although there is a lot of new development in terms of guesthouses and restaurants everywhere. Still, the town retains some charm, and there are lots of good places to eat and drink.
The real reason to visit Mestia is to explore the unbelieveably beautiful mountainscapes, along with the unique architecture and culture of the Svaneti region. Mestia is home to dozens of ancient stone towers — some dating back more than 1000 years — which were used for defense. As everywhere in Georgia, the churches are similarly ancient and beautiful, and the 9th-century Laghami Church in Mestia is no exception.
There is a combination chairlift and gondola that will take you to the mountain ridge overlooking Mestia and the entire valley beyond, which is well worth the trip, and a great place for a hike. (They get a ton of snow in the winter, so it’s also a popular ski area.)
Ushguli — The Highest Village in Europe
We spent a couple of nights in Mestia before pushing on to our ultimate destination — the remote mountain village of Ushguli, known to be the highest inhabited place in Europe, at 2100m in elevation. Ushguli is famous for having hundreds of centuries-old stone towers, and a way of life that has not changed much in this time.
Given that it is only a couple of hours from Mestia (by a very good, and newly-paved road), we were expecting to see a lot of the same development in Ushguli. Not at all — while there are a few “guesthouses” and “restaurants” dotted around the village, many of these seemed to just be a family home and wouldn’t be open unless someone came knocking looking for a place to sleep or something to eat. Now that the road through Ushguli continues on to Lentekhi, though, I would expect a lot more tourists in the coming years as Ushguli is easier than ever to reach.
There isn’t a lot to “do” in Ushguli, though it makes a great base for hikes around the area. A lot of places will rent out horses, which is what we did, going for a short ride around the village and the surrounding valley. Just soaking up this ancient and starkly beautiful place for a couple of days was enough for us. It felt like one of those little remote villages in the Himalayas — although reachable by road, it felt like modern society has hardly touched the place.
Sasashi, Prometheus Cave, and Balda Canyon
After a few days in the mountains, it was time to head back to the lowlands and start making our way back towards Tbilisi. From Ushguli, we took the (newly paved and very good) road over the stunning Zagari Pass, to the little village of Sasashi in the Lower Svaneti region. Here we stayed at the delightful Jor’jinn guesthouse, where the owner (as you can expect by now!) cooked us an incredible meal.
The next day we drove down out of the mountains, in the general direction of Kutaisi, but planned to stop at the Prometheus Cave en route to an overnight in Balda Canyon. The Prometheus Cave is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Georgia, which is evident from the absolutely massive hordes of people that they cram into each half-hourly group going into the cave. Look, it’s an impressive cave, but you aren’t going to be able to enjoy it very much with 300 Russians crowded around you trying to take selfies in the dark. This was the one thing on our trip that I wished we had given a miss.
We were similarly hoping to visit the nearby Martvili Canyon, which is supposed to be really impressive, but similarly crowded and over-touristed. Indeed, when we got there, there were multiple people directing cars into their own private “parking lots” not very close to the entrance, and it was clear from a mile away it was going to be a cluster, so we bailed in favor of a peaceful and relaxing evening at our guesthouse along the (much less visited) Balda Canyon. Parna Cottage was one of our favorite places to stay in Georgia; they have rooms in the old, 120-year old house, or a brand-spanking-new two-room house with all the mod cons. As always, the food and wine were excellent, and the family running the place were tremendously hospitable. You can even hike down to swim in the river nearby.
Back to Tbilisi
Our final day was a lot of driving — about 5 hours — to get back to Tbilisi in time to return the rental car before our flight the next day. Since it was mostly on the freeway it was fast, and we got a chance to stop at the incredible farmhouse restaurant Lia Deida on the way. You would think after nearly two weeks eating lobio, pkhali, khachapuri, and other Georgian dishes everywhere, we’d be sick of it, but no. The food everywhere was mind blowing.
For our last night in Tbilisi, we decided to check out the music and dance program at one of the higher-end, and somewhat touristy, restaurants in town — Ethno Tsiskvili. In most countries, I would chalk up a restaurant like this, where the house band plays traditional instruments and songs and dancers come out every fourth song or so, as a total tourist trap and not worth visiting. Not so here: It is clear that Georgians take great pride in their cultural traditions and Ethno Tsiskvili (one of several restaurants run by the same group around Tbilisi) does a great job showcasing them. The only caveat: later in the evening the traditional folk band was swapped out for a trio doing terrible Georgian-accented covers of Air Supply songs; just make sure you’ve drunk enough chacha before this starts.
Wrapping up
This was such an incredible trip and I’m already missing Georgia. I’d definitely recommend a visit for anyone looking for beautiful outdoor scenery, fascinating history, superb food and wine, and really not very many other tourists. Other than the Prometheus Cave, and maybe the Gergeti Trinity Church, most places we visited were not very crowded, and often we were the only ones there. Ushguli and Mestia did not disappoint, and Tbilisi is a cool city to explore.
Georgia felt very safe and very welcoming, everywhere we went. I’ve been to around 50 different countries, and visiting Georgia was not unlike, say, Greece or Italy, in terms of ease-of-travel and overall tourist infrastructure — just with hundreds of times fewer tourists. You need to carry cash in the more remote areas, as credit cards are not widely accepted, and plan a little in terms of where you are going to fill up your car’s gas tank, but other than that, there were really no hassles getting around at all.
I will absolutely be going back. Hope you enjoyed this and happy to answer any questions in the comments.
