How to avoid the crowds in Georgia: 10 practical strategies

The paradox of Georgia’s success

For most of the post-Soviet period, the joy of travelling in Georgia was that you had the country largely to yourself. A 2015 visitor to Gergeti Trinity Church could reasonably expect to be the only foreigner on the hilltop at 7am. A 2018 wine-tour through Kakheti would see perhaps ten other tourists across three days of winery visits. Svaneti was a minor pilgrimage for trekkers who knew where to look.

That has changed. Georgia received 7.4 million international visitors in 2024, roughly 14% above the pre-pandemic peak, and the increase has concentrated heavily on the handful of established destinations. Gergeti on a July Saturday at 11am now resembles the Acropolis in shoulder season. Sighnaghi’s main square in July can be three-deep with day-trip buses.

This is not bad news. It means the Georgian tourism economy is growing, local businesses are succeeding, and the infrastructure that makes the country accessible continues to improve. But for travellers who want the Georgia that was being described in travel writing five years ago — uncrowded, personal, full of discovery — the approach has to be more deliberate.

Here are ten strategies that work.

1. Shoulder-season travel

The single most effective change a traveller can make is to shift the trip by four to six weeks out of peak season.

Peak: late June through August; late September through mid-October.

Shoulder: May (particularly the first three weeks), early June, late October, early November.

Off-season: December through March (outside the ski windows) and April (wet but beautiful).

A May trip to Georgia hits 80% of the experience that a July trip does, with roughly 40% of the tourist volume at the major sites, better weather in many regions (less heat, less haze), and more availability at the best accommodations. The Georgia in May guide covers the specific pattern.

The wine country is an exception — shifting out of the September harvest window removes one of the best reasons to visit Kakheti at all. For wine-focused trips, stay in September and use the other strategies to manage crowds.

2. Early-morning departures

The Gergeti Trinity Church walk is one of Georgia’s great experiences and the ten crowded hours a day when it is overrun are a manageable problem.

Leave Stepantsminda at 5am. Sunrise at the church between 6am and 7am (season-dependent). Return to Stepantsminda for breakfast at 9am. You will share the church with three or four other committed photographers and a nun lighting candles in the narthex. By 10am, when the day-trip buses begin arriving from Tbilisi, you are back in the village.

This principle applies widely: Jvari Monastery before 9am, Vardzia before 10am, the main Tbilisi sulphur baths before 11am, and the Sighnaghi walls at 7am all deliver experiences that are fundamentally different from the mid-afternoon version.

The implication: base yourself near the site rather than day-tripping from Tbilisi. An overnight in Stepantsminda transforms Kazbegi; an overnight in Sighnaghi transforms Kakheti.

3. Weekdays, not weekends

Georgian tourism’s domestic component has grown substantially. Weekend day trips from Tbilisi to Kakheti, Kazbegi, and Mtskheta carry significant domestic crowds (families, corporate groups, local wedding parties) in addition to international tourists.

A Tuesday morning at Tsinandali Estate is fundamentally less crowded than a Saturday morning. The Alaverdi Monastery on a Monday is a different experience from the Alaverdi Monastery on a Sunday after the liturgy.

Plan the trip to concentrate the major site visits on weekdays. Save weekends for Tbilisi (where the tourist volume is distributed) or for off-the-beaten-path destinations that attract neither domestic nor international crowds.

4. Stay overnight, do not day-trip

The highest-volume travel pattern in Georgian tourism is the day trip from Tbilisi: Kazbegi and back, Kakheti and back, Mtskheta–Gori–Uplistsikhe and back. These day trips arrive at the major sites between 11am and 3pm — exactly the crowded window.

Travellers who stay overnight in the region visit the sites in the morning or late afternoon, when the day-trippers are either not yet there or already on the bus home. The experience is measurably better.

The trade-off is travel efficiency. A 14-day Georgia trip can cover slightly less territory if multiple regions require overnights. The 14-day itinerary and the 10-day itinerary both build in two or three-night stays in the key regions.

5. The under-visited regions

Beyond Kazbegi, Kakheti, and Svaneti — the three regions that receive the bulk of international tourism — Georgia has several regions that see a small fraction of the visitor volume despite offering experiences of comparable quality.

Racha

The northern highland wine region produces Khvanchkara (a semi-sweet red from the Aleksandrouli and Mujuretuli varieties) and Tvishi (a semi-sweet white), both protected designations. Racha sees perhaps 5% of Kakheti’s wine-tour volume despite producing some of Georgia’s rarest and most culturally significant wines.

The road from Kutaisi to Ambrolauri is a six-hour drive for what becomes a quiet two-day wine visit. See the hidden gems blog for more on Racha.

Tusheti

The Tusheti region on the northeastern border is accessible only via the Abano Pass (one of Europe’s most difficult mountain roads, open approximately July to mid-October). The difficulty of access is the reason Tusheti remains uncrowded. Omalo, the main village, has perhaps 30 registered guesthouses and sees considerably fewer visitors per week than Stepantsminda sees per day.

Read more in the Tusheti blog.

Samegrelo

The Martvili and Okatse canyons in the Samegrelo region have become genuinely popular as day trips from Kutaisi, but the region itself — its villages, its cuisine, its small wineries — remains under-explored. A two-day stay in Zugdidi, with excursions to the surrounding villages, is an almost entirely tourist-free part of western Georgia.

Lagodekhi

In Georgia’s eastern corner, the Lagodekhi Nature Reserve offers serious multi-day hiking through pristine Caucasus forest and alpine meadow. The Black Rock Lake trek (two days, one night in a mountain hut) is one of the finest hikes in Georgia and sees fewer than a hundred hikers per week in peak season.

6. The second-tier sites

Each of the major Georgian destinations has a primary site that absorbs most of the visitor traffic and a secondary site nearby that offers a broadly equivalent experience at a fraction of the visitor volume.

• Kazbegi: Gergeti Trinity Church is the primary site. The Sno Valley and Truso Valley hikes offer comparable mountain landscapes with near-total solitude.
• Kakheti: Sighnaghi is the primary destination. Telavi, 45 minutes north, offers better-quality wine and restaurant options with considerably fewer tourists.
• Svaneti: Mestia is the primary base. The Mazeri and Latali villages offer more authentic Svan experiences with a fraction of the tourist infrastructure.
• Mtskheta: Svetitskhoveli Cathedral is the primary site. Shiomgvime Monastery, 20 minutes away, is nearly empty on weekdays.
• Imereti: Prometheus Cave is the primary attraction. Sataplia Cave is smaller but offers a broadly similar experience with tenth the queue.

7. Under-the-radar wineries

Kakheti now has more than a hundred wineries offering tourist programmes. The large estates (Schuchmann, Chateau Mukhrani, Chateau Mere, Khareba) deliver polished, professional visits at the cost of feeling specifically industrial.

The small family wineries offer the opposite: a cellar visit with the winemaker, tasting at the family table, the grandmother’s cooking at lunch. The names to seek out include Pheasant’s Tears (Sighnaghi), Iago Bitarishvili (Mtskheta region), Orgo (Kakheti), Nika Partskhaladze, and many others. See the best wineries guide for a current list.

Booking ahead directly (email or phone) rather than through a general tour operator dramatically improves both the access to the smaller wineries and the quality of the individual visit.

8. The new hiking options

Georgia’s official hiking trail network expanded substantially during the 2020s through the Transcaucasian Trail project and several regional initiatives. A number of new waymarked routes now offer multi-day hiking experiences in regions that have essentially no tourist infrastructure.

The Transcaucasian Trail’s Georgian section through Racha and the Greater Caucasus sees very low traffic. The trails through the Borjomi–Kharagauli National Park include several overnight options with infrastructure limited to basic mountain huts. The Lagodekhi trails extend further than the popular Black Rock Lake route into genuinely remote country.

The best hikes guide covers the established and new routes. For serious hikers, a 2025 trip to Georgia with focus on the less-travelled trails offers genuine wilderness that was unavailable in the established destinations.

Book a multi-day Georgia hiking tour with GetYourGuide

9. The winter option

Most international visitors come to Georgia between May and October. The winter months (November through March, excluding the ski windows and the Christmas–New Year period) see roughly 40% of peak-season international volume.

Winter Georgia is a different country. Kakheti is quiet; the wineries are mid-winter and the visits are more focused on the cellar and the table than the vineyards. Tbilisi is decorated, lively, and uncrowded. The mountain regions around Kazbegi are snowy and dramatic.

The downsides: certain high-altitude destinations (Svaneti’s Ushguli road, Tusheti, the highest Military Highway passes occasionally) are closed or restricted; the hiking programme is limited; sunshine is less reliable.

The upside: the rest of Georgia is essentially yours. The Georgia in December guide, Georgia in January guide, and Georgia in February guide cover the seasonal specifics.

10. Build a longer trip

The single most-ignored strategy for avoiding crowds is to spend more time. A 7-day Georgia trip can barely cover the primary sites. A 14-day trip can cover primaries and secondaries. A 21-day trip can cover the whole country including the less-visited regions, with time for genuine exploration and unplanned discovery.

The 21-day itinerary is built around the principle that Georgia is big enough to reward serious attention. Most travellers on a 21-day trip spend roughly half their time in destinations they did not know existed before the trip started. The ratio of tourist-heavy to tourist-light experience on a long trip is reversed from what it is on a week-long trip.

For travellers who have visited Georgia before, a second or third trip structured specifically around the less-visited regions (Racha, Tusheti, Samegrelo, Lagodekhi, the Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti backcountry) offers an entirely different experience from the first visit.

The deeper point

The idea of “avoiding the crowds” can tip over into the pretension that tourism spoils everything. Tourism has not spoiled Georgia. Georgia’s tourism industry is supporting the restoration of its heritage, the development of its wine industry, and the livelihoods of thousands of families in regions that a decade ago had no economic future.

The strategies above are not about avoiding tourism. They are about seeing more of the country than the version of it that has been optimised for a particular visitor experience. The more you see, the more you understand what makes Georgia specifically Georgian — and that understanding is enhanced rather than degraded by meeting the people who still live their lives in the places most tourists do not reach.