8 min read Europe

The Georgia Itinerary

The Georgia Itinerary
Georgia itinerary 101

Generally when we plan trips, the country and places are the first part of the plan. Then we figure out the itinerary, flights and airlines. For the first time ever, we planned a trip the other way round - our airline was fixed, now we had to plan a vacation!

If you’ve been following this blog, you would have read our crazy adventure on the way to

Uzbekistan

. And by the end of it, we had a bunch of Air Arabia vouchers (no, we didn’t travel by Air Arabia on that trip). We had one year to utilize those vouchers - before June 2024. We opened Air Arabia’s website and checked out all their destinations.

By elimination, we landed up with 2 choices - Tbilisi, Georgia and Yerevan, Armenia. And, that’s the story of how we picked these 2 countries for this trip.

Let’s get our bearings right with some Geography

Georgia is often considered a “transcontinental” country straddling Europe and Asia. It forms a major part of the Caucasus region (the area below the Caucasus mountains and between the Black and Caspian Seas). Russia lies to its north with the mountains acting as the border and Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan lie in its south.

Due to its transcontinental location, it has historically been subjected to multiple invasions from all sides - Turkey, Central Asia, Persia and Russia. Even today, there are disputed borders and autonomous regions within the mainland of Georgia. It was one of the first ever countries in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion and it has had a major influence on the culture and architecture as well. Georgia used to be on the ancient Silk Road as well.

Georgia is a country with something for everyone - city life, beautiful snowy mountains that are perfect for treks, long winding roads for amazing drives and a one-of-its-kind wine region. The oldest evidence of wine production in the world comes from Georgia in 6000 BC - this was more than 3000 years even before the pyramids were built!

We’ll be covering all these places in our upcoming blogs including the process of wine making in clay pots and jars, so stay tuned! Let's get into the details of planning your Georgia itinerary!

This blog contains:

  1. Let’s get our bearings right with some Geography
  2. Best Time to Plan your Georgia Itinerary
  3. Getting to Georgia
  4. Visa
  5. Currency
  6. Local Travel
  7. How many days to spend in your Georgia itinerary
  8. Our Georgia Itinerary

Best Time to Plan your Georgia Itinerary

To avoid the large summer crowds, skip July and August. Thanks to global warming, temperatures can be expected to easily soar into the mid-30s in these months. The best time to plan your Georgia itinerary would be...

May-June, which is when we visited as well. However, if you want to be in time for the grape harvest and wine making season, September-October would be the ideal time. A lot of locals we met kept saying that we should visit again in September to really enjoy Georgia to the fullest. Our recommendation is that you should visit in September-October if possible.

Getting to Georgia

The easiest way to begin your Georgia itinerary is from Tbilisi, the capital city. You can fly into the international airport in Tbilisi and then explore the rest of the country by road (more on that below). You can also drive in from any of the neighboring countries like Armenia and Azerbaijan. Since Armenia and Azerbaijan have had a complicated relationship, Georgia would be a great buffer in the middle of your itinerary if you are planning to visit all 3 countries in one trip.

If you are travelling from Yerevan, you can even consider taking the overnight train to Tbilisi.

Even Russia has an open border with Georgia but the major Russian cities are quite far away and would entail a really long journey.

Visa

The visa was a scary part. There are tons of articles online about how the visa for Indians has been randomly rejected without any reason and also cases of Indians being denied entry at the immigration counter and later deported. Thankfully, we didn’t have any issues at the application stage or at immigration.

For Indians, Georgia requires an e-Visa. You can apply for it on their website and it is typically issued within a week. While the e-Visa portal itself does not require many documents (your passport and a photo would suffice), you need to upload a lot of stuff on the DUVerify portal which needs to be filled right after this one. I couldn’t find much information online that there were 2 portals to be completed within 24 hours and had to scramble to get all the required documents in order quickly. The list of documents is similar to a typical European Visa (bank statements, income tax statements, previous visas, flights and accommodation). One tip is to link your Aadhaar card when they prompt you as it gives a much higher chance of approval.

If you have a valid US/UK visa, then you can walk in with just your passport - this is of course, the biggest travel hack for weak passports - get a powerful visa on it and use that to travel.

Currency

The currency in Georgia is called the Lari. 1 Lari is made up of 100 tetri and the conversion factor was roughly 1 Georgian Lari (GEL) = 30 INR at the time we travelled in May 2024. As always, convert only a minimum amount at the border/airport and the rest in the city center so that you can get the best conversion rates.

Georgian lari currency
Georgian Lari (GEL) notes

Local Travel

There are broadly two options to explore the country - road and train. Trains can only give you access to places like Kutaisi and Batumi in the west. You can even take the train all the way to Yerevan in Armenia. We didn’t opt for the train as we were not travelling to the west and the border crossing would come at a really odd hour at night - we didn’t want to handle two toddlers and a sleepy immigration officer while holding Indian passports at 2 AM.

Let’s move to the more viable option - road. You can easily rent a car and drive it around yourself or get one with a driver. We rented a Subaru Forester from Local Rent, a very reliable website that is available in around 15 countries. There were 4 adults and two kids with lots of luggage, so the Subaru was a good choice. The car cost us around 40 USD per day with petrol being extra.

The roads in Georgia are really good even in the remote areas (with the exception of one mountain pass which was under restoration after landslides), so driving there was a lot of fun! It took us some time to get used to driving on the right side of the road with the steering wheel on the left, but it was a lot easier than I had anticipated. We had taken an automatic transmission which gave us one less thing to worry about.

You may have read some articles online about how drivers in Georgia are rash. Trust me, if you are from any Indian city, then the drivers there will seem extra gentle. Those articles are typically from people who are used to the European style of driving and road rules. There’s nothing to worry about as long as you are following the rules and driving carefully.

If you’re driving in the Kakheti wine region, you may want to have a driver for a day so that you can enjoy sampling the wine. Here are a couple of drivers who we found that we would definitely recommend - Mamuka Jangualashvili (+995 555 15 67 15) and Rezo (+995 598 24 01 53). Both of them speak good English, know the region really well and have more than reasonable rates.

Within Tbilisi, the best option is the cab hailing app called Bolt. We almost got ripped off at the airport by a guy who claimed to be a Bolt driver and even showed us a screen on his phone to prove it along with the rates. He kept saying that the rate shown in the app is the minimum fare, there would be an extra per-kilometer charge and we would know it only when the ride ended. When we opened the app on our phone and checked the rates, it was almost 10x lower. Always book through the app and it will be super smooth - don’t fall for these scams.

How many days to spend in your Georgia itinerary

The recommendation here is to spend a minimum of 6-7 days as part of your Georgia itinerary to get a glimpse of what the country has to offer. You can divide the trip into regions - Tbilisi + Mtskheta, Stepantsminda, Kakheti (including Sighnaghi, Telavi), Kutaisi + Svaneti, Batumi. We covered the first three and spent a total of 8 days in Georgia and felt that we could have squeezed in 1-2 days more.

Our Georgia Itinerary

Day 1: Arrive in Tbilisi, rest and sleep well.

Day 2: Go out for a relaxed breakfast (details of places to eat will be out in the next blog). Take a walk along Rustaveli avenue and Liberty Square. Visit the Dry Bridge market, have dinner and go up the funicular to Mtatsminda park for the night view of the city.

Day 3: Visit the Holy Trinity cathedral, walk downhill and have some amazing Kakhetian wine at Old Generation. Take the cable car and go up to Narikala fortress for amazing views of the city. Come back down, cross the Peace bridge and walk towards the Clock tower. Take a cab to visit the Chronicle of Georgia. Have an authentic Georgian dinner.

Day 4: Collect the rented car (make sure you check the parking rules and pay the fees (typically 1 GEL per hour) to avoid any fines. Drive to Mtskheta and visit the Jvari monastery. Drive further north to the Zhinvali reservoir and Ananuri fortress. Continue to Gudauri and visit the Panorama friendship monument. Enjoy fresh strawberries, cherries and raspberries. End the drive at Stepantsminda.

Day 5: Drive up to the Gergeti church and enjoy the views from this remote place. Continue towards the Russian border and visit the Gveleti waterfalls. Continue the leisurely drive and explore the tiny remote villages of Sno and further towards Juta.

Day 6: Drive to Telavi via Tianeti (this will easily save you 1-2 hours as compared to the Gombori pass). Enjoy the beautiful landscape with the forested hills changing to fields full of wild flowers. Visit Telavi town, the Batonis-tsikhe fortress. Drive to the Alaverdi monastery and finally back to the town to the hotel.

Day 7: Visit the town of Sighnaghi, Bodbe’s St Nino’s cathedral (the woman who brought Christianity to Iberia, which then became the modern Georgia). Hike down the hill towards the spring. Check out the Sighnaghi wall, have lunch at Pheasant’s tears winery. Drive to Wine Yard N1 in Kvareli and learn how wine is traditionally made in a qvevri at Georgian homes. Stop at Gremi and take some pictures and then back to the hotel.

Day 8: Drive to Tbilisi via the Gombori pass, take our next car to cross the land border to Armenia.

Here are some suggestions to modify your itinerary as required:

The Trek-lover - You can add Svaneti (in the north-west of Georgia) to your itinerary. That would require an extra 3-4 days as the place is quite remote and you will need a 4x4 to get to the remote villages there.

The “Time-is-not-a-constraint” traveller - Spend an extra day in the Kakheti region and stay in Sighnaghi to really experience the city better. You can also visit the David Gareja monastery which is at the border to Azerbaijan. If you’ve already been to any of the gulf countries, I wouldn’t really recommend Batumi.

Hope this helps you kick start your Georgia itinerary. Check out our detailed immersive travel experiences in Georgia in these blogs.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them below and we’ll be happy to help. Do subscribe and share this with your travel loving friends and family.

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Anand Menon