The country of Georgia, not to be confused with the US state with the same name, is a small former soviet bloc country bordered by Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. I was extremely excited to visit Georgia, even though I did not know a lot about this former soviet country. I had seen a few overlanders on YouTube travel through Georgia, and the beautiful mountain scenery, along with the accepting attitude towards overlanders stuck with me. Since we had already driven all the way to the easternmost point of Turkey we decided, fairly last minute, that we would try to keep going and visit Georgia as well.
Travelling through Georgia can be a unique, and rewarding experience. To get the most out of your trip to Georgia there are a few tips you can follow. Some of these tips include not travelling in the winter when the capital of Tbilisi is cold, grey and damp. Georgia can also be surprisingly expensive, but if you find out where the locals shop you can save a lot of money. These are just some of the tips to bear in mind when planning your next trip to the country of Georgia.
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Although Georgia allows you to stay in the country for up to a year on a regular tourist visa, we did not end up spending as much time in Georgia as we expected. This ability to be completely flexible with your plans and itinerary, is in my humble opinion, one of the greatest benefits of van life. I had very high hopes for Georgia, and although we had some good experiences along the way, the country did not draw us in the same way that Turkey had. With that being said, we have every intention of returning to the country again, but next time we will follow the lessons we learned below, and have a much better experience.
What Not to Do in Georgia: 5 Things You Need to Know
1. Do Not Visit Georgia in the Winter
Winter is most definitely not the tourist season in Georgia, and you will find that a lot of places are closed. Even when things are open, you might struggle to reach the destination because the prettiest mountain locations such as the mountain village of Mestia are almost completely snowed in. Indeed if your main objective is to visit Tbilisi I would strongly recommend that you avoid doing so in the winter. If you do make the journey in the winter you will find that it has the typical central European winter climate, which means that everything is constantly wet, grey and frankly miserable.
If you leave the city and travel into the mountains you will find a good amount of snow, which in my opinion always makes winter a bit more palatable, probably because the snow reflects the light making it feel like the day is brighter. Naturally the snow also makes it a bit more difficult to get around, and although you do not necessarily need AWD you should absolutely make sure that you have some good winter tires on your car, if you intend to drive through Georgia in your own vehicle during the winter months.
Of course the benefit of visiting outside of the peak tourist season is that you get incredible sites all to yourself. We spent 3 days parked up in the visitors parking lot of the Vardzia Cave City enjoying the incredible views, and soaking in the vast history of the place. Even though we had visited a lot of cave cities in Turkey, the Vardzia Cave Monastery was well worth a visit. The vast amount of cave homes, and interconnected passages made it feel a little bit like the underground city of Derinkuyu that we visited in Turkey, but in Vardzia the next passage would often lead to a stunning view of the river, and towering mountains. Another fascinating aspect of Vardzia is that it is still an active monastery with three monks currently residing there.
2. Do Not Travel With Your Dog to Georgia
Our first trip in our self converted 1993 Mercedes 711D took us all the way from Northern Sweden through several countries. Typically as the countries became poorer we found that there were also more stray dogs around. When we arrived in Turkey, especially towards the east of the country, we thought the homeless dog situation was really bad. Little did we know that Georgia would be even worse. On our very first night in Georgia just a couple of hours from the Turkish border we saw a pack of 7 dogs roaming the streets, looking for food in the garbage bins. This sight turned out not to be unusual, and as we drove through the countryside we saw a significant number of neglected, and dead dogs. Needless to say, as dog lovers and owners, this was an incredibly sad, and heart wrenching sight that made it very difficult for us to enjoy the otherwise pretty scenery.
Even if you are not travelling with your own dogs in Georgia, which I would absolutely not recommend, you can also run into issues with dogs in the countryside. These dogs are not strays, as the vast majority of strays are very friendly, but are either livestock guardian dogs, or guard dogs meant to keep away unwanted visitors. We were told by locals that if you go for a hike in the countryside, you should bring a large stick with you, in case one of these guardian dogs tries to attack you. This recommendation may simply have been for this specific area we were in where there was a lot of agriculture, and I suspect that it would not be as much of an issue if you were hiking in more remote areas. However, your best bet is, as always, to talk to people who live in the area, and ask them what their recommendations are.
3. Skip the Wine Tasting
Wine tasting is almost always listed as one of the top things to do in Georgia, and you will find a lot of excellent blogs dedicated to researching all the different wineries, and highlighting the regional differences. Georgia was one of the first countries in the world to start making wine, and the oldest examples in the world of wine have also been found in Georgia. What sets Georgia apart is the method with which they traditionally produced their wine.
Keen to try wine made in this traditional, and unique manner we began searching for wineries that were still open in the winter, and who still made traditional Georgian wine. This proved to be trickier than expected, but in the end we found Temi Community, which is a charity that sets out to help people with disabilities, and women that have had to escape abusive relationships. To sustain the people living in the community the charity grows the majority of the food they consume themselves. This self sufficiency also extends to making traditional Georgian wine. We chose them because they operate biodynamically, were less expensive than some of the other options, and because we preferred supporting a charity instead of a for profit corporation.
There are a staggering amount of wineries in Georgia, and they all seem to have discovered that tourists are happy to pay extortionate amounts for a wine tasting experience. It is not uncommon to find wineries charging over €50 per person for a wine tasting. Although I have absolutely no issue with wineries charging a nominal fee for wine tasting, €50 is not cheap, and for that sort of money you can easily buy 10 good bottles of wine in France.
Instead of paying huge sums for wine tasting, especially if you are travelling as a couple or a family, I would recommend going to a large supermarket and picking up a variety of bottles from the local producers. These bottles are still not cheap when compared to Italy or France, but for $50 you can easily pick up 4 interesting bottles of wines, and then have fun tasting them in the comforts of your own accommodation with no sales pressure.
I suspect it is fairly obvious that we were not entirely impressed by the wine industry in Georgia, although we absolutely enjoyed our wine tasting at the Temi Community. With that in mind if you are in Georgia, and want to see and taste traditional Georgian wine I would recommend visiting Temi Community in the summer, or a similar place, where your money goes to supporting at-risk people in the local community.
4. Do Not Drive Yourself in Georgia, Especially in Tbilisi
If you consider yourself to be an excellent, and extremely confident driver, then feel free to ignore this recommendation. Driving in Georgia is like a real version of the bumper cars they have at carnivals, they usually manage not to hit each other, but you will be spending your entire time panicking at close calls. Driving in Tbilisi was especially bad, there are seemingly no rules for merging, or staying in your lane. Luckily we were driving around in our large van, and most people had the common sense to let us merge when faced with a 7 ton van towering over them.
Driving in the countryside is a little bit better, mainly because there is less traffic, but you will find a lot of the roads to be in fairly poor condition, especially compared to Turkey. In addition you have to deal with Georgian drivers going extremely fast on rough roads, seemingly not caring about their vehicles suspension or their own safety as they rush to overtake you around blind mountain road corners.
5. Do Not Travel to Georgia on a Budget
Georgia can be really confusing to a budget conscious traveller. Some things are very affordable, like bread at a local roadside bakery. We quickly learned to be on the lookout for these pop up bakeries where locals would bake fresh flat bread in huge wood fired clay pots, similar to Indian tandoori pots, by shaping the dough and then sticking it to the walls on the inside of the pot. These places were very rarely listed on Google, so we quickly learned to keep our eyes peeled, and be ready to stop quickly. If your efforts bear fruit you will be rewarded by delicious, warm fresh bread for only 1 Georgian lari.
On the flip side we spent the night at a small craft brewery in the countryside, over an hour outside of Tbilisi, and were shocked at how much they were charging for their beer. A small pint – 400ml – was between $7-8 which is more expensive than the US, and even more expensive than Germany. With that being said, the owners were very friendly, and the food they served was also very good, but it was still a shock to pay European tourist prices in Georgia. We also found restaurants to be quite expensive in Tbilisi, even when we tried to find more local places. I suspect some of our pricing shock was due to having just spent almost 3 months in Turkey, where we never needed to cook for ourselves because eating out was both affordable, and delicious. Nevertheless the prices in Georgia were more in line with prices in Germany than in Turkey.
It is possible to travel on a budget in Georgia, but you have to find the truly local places, like the little ‘pop up’ bakeries that became one of our favourite things in Georgia. The other benefit of travelling in Georgia is that fuel is quite cheap, so exploring the country by van will not cost you an arm and a leg.
If you enjoyed learning our lessons from travelling through Georgia then please take a look at our post on top activities to avoid in Turkey, where we give you even more insider tips on how to have the best experience when visiting the vast, and varied country of Turkey. If you’re thinking about travelling to Cappadocia, read our posts on the top 5 things to do in Cappadocia, as well as top 5 things not to do for more helpful tips.
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