Things I wish I knew before visiting Georgia

The gap between expectation and reality

I arrived in Georgia expecting a pleasant Caucasus country with some interesting churches and cheap food. What I found was one of the most overwhelming and transformative travel experiences of my adult life. The scale of the hospitality, the strangeness of the wine, the drama of the mountains, and the warmth of the people — none of it was what I expected, because I had not prepared properly.

These are the things I wish someone had told me before I landed in Tbilisi.

The roads will scare you (and they should)

Georgian driving culture is genuinely alarming for visitors from countries with functional road safety culture. Overtaking on blind mountain corners is considered routine. Indicators are used sporadically. Speed limits are suggestions. And the roads themselves vary from excellent multi-lane highway to terrifying single-track mountain tracks where two cars cannot pass.

If you rent a car, drive defensively. Assume the vehicle in front of you will brake suddenly, the vehicle behind you will tailgate, and the vehicle approaching on a mountain curve is in your lane. This is not hyperbole — it is the daily reality of Georgian road conditions.

For mountain roads specifically: go slowly, stay in your lane, do not try to match local driving speed. A 4WD vehicle is necessary for David Gareja and essential for Tusheti. Budget extra time for every journey.

The wine will confuse you at first — let it

I ordered a Georgian amber wine on my first evening and thought there was something wrong with it. The colour (deep copper-orange), the smell (dried apricot, beeswax, a slightly oxidative note), and above all the tannin (in a white wine?) were nothing like any wine I had tasted. I sent it back. This was a mistake.

By day three, after being educated by increasingly patient wine bar staff, I understood what I was drinking. By day five, conventional white wine tasted flat and simple in comparison. Georgian amber wine has an 8,000-year pedigree and requires a recalibration of your wine expectations. Give it three glasses before judging.

Read the amber wine guide before you go. It will save you from my mistake.

The supra is not dinner — it is a philosophical event

The first time I was invited to a Georgian family supra, I thought I was going to dinner. I was wrong. Three hours, twenty dishes, and a tamada giving five-minute toasts about the nature of love, the meaning of Georgia, and the death of his grandfather before I understood I was at something more like a religious ceremony than a meal.

The toasts are the point. Listen to them. If you are asked to respond (alaverdi), say something real — something about what Georgia has meant to you, or what friendship means, or what you appreciate about the people at the table. Georgians can tell when you mean it.

Never drink before the tamada proposes the first toast. This is not a rule they explain — they assume you know it. Now you do.

Georgian hospitality has no off switch

On my first visit to a family guesthouse, I politely declined a second serving of food because I was genuinely full. The host looked at me with an expression of gentle horror and continued adding food to my plate. In Georgia, “no thank you” in response to food is not accepted at face value. The correct response is to accept, eat what you can, and accept again.

This is not rudeness — it is care. A Georgian host’s anxiety is that their guest might, somehow, not have eaten enough. Eating enthusiastically and asking for specific things you enjoyed is the greatest compliment you can pay.

Marshrutkas are excellent and you should use them

The shared minibuses (marshrutkas) that connect Georgian cities and towns are cheap, efficient, and a genuine immersion in how Georgians actually travel. From Tbilisi to Kazbegi: 20 GEL. To Kutaisi: 12 GEL. To Batumi: 25 GEL. The routes connect everywhere that matters.

The catch: they leave when full, not on a schedule. For Kazbegi, this means arriving at Didube station at 09:00 and waiting until the van fills (usually 30–60 minutes). For longer routes, morning departure is safer than afternoon.

Bolt is your best friend in Tbilisi

Download the Bolt app (or Yandex Taxi) before you arrive. Tbilisi has plenty of taxis but also plenty of unlicensed drivers who will vastly overcharge tourists, especially from the airport. Bolt shows you the price before you get in and the driver’s rating. A cross-city ride costs 8–15 GEL. The airport to the city centre costs 25–40 GEL.

Never get into a car with someone who approaches you at the airport offering a taxi. Use the app.

The khinkali eating rule is mandatory

Eating khinkali with a fork — especially piercing it before you have sucked out the broth — is a genuine faux pas that will draw looks from Georgians nearby. The correct technique: pick up by the topknot, turn upside down, take a small bite from the smooth side, suck the broth, eat the rest. Do not eat the topknot (it is how the number of dumplings is counted at the end). The broth inside is the whole point.

Georgia is enormous for a “small” country

Georgia looks small on a map and is not. Kazbegi is 3 hours from Tbilisi by car. Batumi is 5 hours. Svaneti is 5 hours. Tusheti adds a 4-hour extreme mountain road on top. If you plan to see multiple regions in a week, you will spend significant time in transit.

My advice: pick fewer places and go deeper. One week in Tbilisi and Kakheti, done properly, is more satisfying than a rushed 7-day circuit of the entire country.

Spring and autumn are the best seasons (by far)

I went in August. It was hot, crowded with domestic tourists, and many of the mountain restaurants had been simplified to handle summer volume. When I returned in October during the Kakheti harvest, the country was transformed — the vineyards were red and gold, the wine was fresh from the vessels, the roads were clear, and every host had extra energy.

Spring (April–May) and autumn (September–October) are when Georgia is at its best. Summer is fine for mountains and beach. Winter is beautiful for Tbilisi and skiing.

Tbilisi is worth at least four days on its own

First-time visitors often underestimate Tbilisi and overestimate how much they will see outside it in a week. The city rewards deep exploration: the sulfur baths, the natural wine scene, the Old Town’s layers of architecture, the Vera neighbourhood’s cafe culture, the markets, the nightlife. Four days minimum. Six days is not too much.

The currency will confuse you for two days

The Georgian Lari (GEL) is currently approximately 3.6–3.8 per euro (check the current rate). Prices that look extremely cheap in GEL are still cheap in euros: a khachapuri for 3 GEL is under €1. A restaurant meal for 30 GEL is around €8. A private bath room for 60 GEL is €16.

The confusion comes when comparing with local transportation — the Metro for 1 GEL, a marshrutka ride for 12 GEL — against accommodation, which feels expensive by Georgian standards but is still reasonable internationally. Budget approximately 2,500–4,000 GEL per person per week for a comfortable trip with accommodation, food, wine, and activities. See our budget tips guide for a full cost breakdown.

You cannot visit everything in one trip

I tried to visit Tbilisi, Kakheti, Kazbegi, Svaneti, Kutaisi, and Batumi in ten days on my first trip. The result was that I felt the country in outline but not in depth. The long hours on mountain roads, the rushed lunches, the hotel arrivals at midnight — these are not the Georgia I remembered.

On subsequent trips, I stayed in fewer places for longer. Four nights in Tbilisi instead of two. Three nights in Sighnaghi instead of one. The country became comprehensible.

The mountain regions in particular need time to reveal themselves. Kazbegi deserves at least two nights (for hiking above the valley and watching the light change on Kazbegi mountain). Svaneti deserves four nights minimum (for the Mestia-Ushguli trek or the surrounding hike circuit). Rushing either is a specific kind of travel regret.

See our 7-day Georgia itinerary for a structured approach that builds in appropriate time for each region.

The churches are not just architecture

I approached Georgian churches with the detached appreciation of a non-religious person interested in architecture. By day four, I understood that I was missing something.

Georgian Orthodox Christianity is not a historical institution in Georgia — it is an active, living presence in daily life. The churches are in use: morning services, candle-lit evening prayers, congregations of elderly women crossing themselves before icons that are several centuries old. The icons themselves — the gold-background portraits of saints, some of them medieval originals — are objects of active veneration, not museum pieces.

Sitting quietly in Anchiskhati Church in Tbilisi during evening prayer, in a building whose original structure is 6th century and whose current usage is unchanged from that era, is a specific experience that architecture tourism does not prepare you for. Let the churches be more than architecture.

You will want to come back

Almost everyone who visits Georgia once comes back. The country has a quality that is very hard to describe and very easy to feel: it manages to be ancient and vital simultaneously, to carry thousands of years of history without being weighed down by it, and to treat strangers with a warmth that most people have not experienced in their own countries.

The wine will follow you home. You will find yourself searching for Georgian wine in specialist shops, explaining qvevri to friends who didn’t ask, booking flights for the following autumn.

You are reading this because you are thinking about going. Go. And read the safety guide for Georgia before you do — it will put your mind at rest about the practical questions and let you focus on the good part.