20 best things to do in Georgia: complete bucket list 2026
Last reviewed: 2026-05-18What are the top things to do in Georgia?
Wine tasting in Kakheti, hiking to Gergeti Trinity in Kazbegi, sulfur baths in Tbilisi Old Town, the Svaneti tower villages of Mestia and Ushguli, Martvili canyon boat rides, and a Georgian supra feast with polyphonic singing top every traveler's list.
Georgia packs an improbable range of experiences into a country the size of Ireland. You can drink qvevri wine from a cellar that smells of earth and history, stand in a 14th-century tower village with the Caucasus ridge at 5,000m visible behind you, eat khinkali dumplings in a Soviet-era canteen, and paraglide above an alpine valley, all within the same week. This is the complete list of the 20 experiences every visitor should understand before they arrive — organized by theme, honest about logistics.
Wine
1. Kakheti wine region full-day immersion
Georgia invented wine — or came very close to it, with qvevri clay-vessel fermentation dating to 8,000 years ago. The Alazani Valley in Kakheti is the heartland: a broad, sun-drenched basin flanked by the Greater Caucasus to the north and the Tsiv-Gombori ridge to the south, planted almost entirely in Rkatsiteli and Saperavi vines.
A proper day in Kakheti means at least three cellar visits — one large producer for context, one small family winery for the genuine amber wines, one monastery cellar for history — plus lunch at a family guesthouse. Telavi, Sighnaghi, Tsinandali, and Alaverdi Monastery are the anchor points. Do not attempt this by public transport; the distances and timing don’t work. The standard small-group tour covers the key stops with tastings included and gets you back to Tbilisi in the evening.
GetYourGuideKakheti Wine Region — 9 Tastings from Tbilisifrom €55Check availability →2. Tbilisi wine tasting in a historical cellar
Not everyone has a full day for Kakheti, and Tbilisi itself has serious wine infrastructure. The best urban wine experience is a curated tasting in one of the Old Town’s original cellar spaces — Georgian natural wine presented with the context that makes the amber style legible rather than bewildering. Eight wines covering the Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Saperavi, and Tavkveri grapes across different fermentation methods give you a genuine education in two hours.
GetYourGuideTbilisi Wine Tasting in a Historical Cellarfrom €35Check availability →3. Kakheti full circuit — Sighnaghi, Bodbe Monastery & Telavi
For travelers who want breadth over depth in a single day, the Kakheti full circuit covers the walled hilltop town of Sighnaghi (the “city of love,” with views across the Alazani Plain), Bodbe Monastery with St. Nino’s tomb, Tsinandali wine estate, and Telavi old town. The geographic sweep gives you the wine country’s landscape logic rather than just the cellar experience.
GetYourGuideKakheti Full Circuit: Sighnaghi, Bodbe, Telavifrom €55Check availability →Mountains
4. Kazbegi and Gergeti Trinity Church
The most photographed image in Georgia: the Gergeti Trinity Church sitting at 2,170m with the snow dome of Mount Kazbegi (5,047m) rising directly behind it. Getting there requires either a 600m climb on foot from Stepantsminda village (1.5–2 hours, the better option) or a 4WD taxi that drops you within 15 minutes’ walk. The church itself is active — dress modestly and respect the services.
The full day-trip from Tbilisi along the Georgian Military Highway passes Ananuri fortress (a 17th-century lakeside castle), Gudauri ski resort viewpoint, and the Friendship Monument arch before arriving in Kazbegi. It is the single most popular excursion from Tbilisi and for good reason.
GetYourGuideKazbegi Full-Day Group Tour from Tbilisifrom €39Check availability →5. Svaneti — Mestia and Ushguli tower villages
Svaneti is where Georgia’s medieval history survived because the terrain made it inaccessible. The result is a landscape of medieval defensive towers — 200 of them still standing in the Mestia area — set against the Caucasus’s highest peaks, including Shkhara (5,201m) and the distinctive double summit of Ushba (4,710m). Ushguli, at 2,200m elevation, is the highest permanently inhabited village in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Getting to Svaneti requires flying to Mestia (45 minutes from Tbilisi) or an 8–10 hour marshrutka journey through the Enguri Gorge. Once there, a day trip to Ushguli along the unpaved valley road is the essential move. Four days minimum does the region justice; the multi-day organized tour is the most efficient entry point if time is limited.
GetYourGuide4-Day Svaneti Tour: Mestia & Ushgulifrom €480Check availability →6. Day trip to Ushguli from Mestia
If you’re already staying in Mestia, the Ushguli day trip is the must-do excursion: a 45km drive along the Enguri Valley through four medieval village clusters — Zhibiani, Chvibiani, Chazhashi, and Murkmeli — ending at the furthest and most spectacular. The towers at Chazhashi are in the finest condition; the views east toward the Shkhara glacier are the finest in Svaneti.
GetYourGuideDay Tour to Ushguli from Mestiafrom €55Check availability →7. Kazbegi + Truso Valley 4×4 adventure
The Truso Valley east of Stepantsminda is the quieter, stranger alternative to the Gergeti hike. Travertine terraces, orange mineral springs, a river stained rust-red with iron oxide, and abandoned villages with no inhabitants since the Soviet collectivization — it’s a completely different register to the main Kazbegi circuit. The valley can only be properly explored with a 4×4 vehicle.
GetYourGuideKazbegi + Truso Valley 4×4 Adventurefrom €95Check availability →Food
8. Georgian cooking class — khinkali and khachapuri
Khinkali (pleated soup dumplings filled with spiced meat broth) and khachapuri (cheese-filled bread, with the Adjarian boat-shaped version the most dramatic) are the two dishes every visitor leaves Georgia wanting to make at home. A hands-on cooking class in a family kitchen covers the folding technique for khinkali — 21 pleats is the traditional minimum — and the different regional variations of khachapuri. The skills transfer; you will actually be able to make them.
GetYourGuideGeorgian Cooking Class: Khinkali & Khachapurifrom €45Check availability →9. Georgian cooking masterclass at a local family home
The deeper version of the cooking experience: a full morning or afternoon at a Tbilisi family’s home, learning the technique and cultural context from someone who learned from their grandmother. The Georgian table is not just food — it’s the supra structure, the toast hierarchy, the expectation that you will eat more than you planned to. A family home setting delivers this in a way a commercial kitchen cannot.
GetYourGuideGeorgian Cooking Masterclass at a Family Homefrom €55Check availability →10. Tbilisi food and drinks tour — 11 tastings
The best single evening to understand Georgian urban food culture: a walking tour through the Old Town’s bazroba (market streets), wine bars, churchkhela stalls, chacha (grape brandy) stops, and traditional restaurants. Eleven tastings covering khinkali, lobiani, satsivi, badrijani nigvzit, churchkhela, and amber wine give a structured overview that would take three independent evenings to replicate.
GetYourGuideTbilisi Food & Drinks — 11 Tastingsfrom €65Check availability →11. Georgian dinner with wine and tamada
A supra without a tamada is just a dinner. The tamada — the toastmaster — structures the supra’s progression through increasingly weighty toasts (to Georgia, to the guests, to the departed, to the future) while ensuring nobody’s glass is empty. An organized supra evening with a professional tamada, unlimited wine, and traditional food demonstrates the Georgian relationship with hospitality in a way that no museum exhibit can.
GetYourGuideGeorgian Dinner with Wine & Tamadafrom €55Check availability →Culture
12. Tbilisi photo and cultural walking tour
Tbilisi’s Old Town is the architectural argument for why the city generates outsized enthusiasm among travelers. The collapsed-balcony vernacular houses on Abanotubani, the Metekhi cliff church above the Mtkvari River, the Persian-era Narikala fortress, the Persian baths district, the wooden-balconied Shardeni Street — it all coheres into a city that feels genuinely historic rather than restored. A guided walking tour with a photographer’s eye for framing connects the layers: Georgian, Persian, Russian imperial, Soviet, and contemporary.
GetYourGuideTbilisi Photo & Cultural Walking Tourfrom €25Check availability →13. Mtskheta, Jvari, Gori & Uplistsikhe
The western day-trip from Tbilisi that covers 1,500 years of Georgian history in eight hours. Mtskheta was the capital until the 5th century; Jvari Monastery above it dates to 545 AD and sits at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers. Gori’s Joseph Stalin Museum is a study in personality cult — strange, compulsory viewing. Uplistsikhe, the Iron Age cave city carved into the cliff 10km east of Gori, is the genuinely ancient site, inhabited from the first millennium BC into the 19th century.
GetYourGuideMtskheta, Jvari, Gori & Uplistsikhefrom €42Check availability →14. Borjomi, Rabati & Vardzia cave city
The southern day trip follows the Mtkvari River gorge to Borjomi (the spa town famous for its mineral water, with a pleasant national park for a short walk), then continues to Akhaltsikhe’s Rabati Castle complex (a reconstructed fortress-town with mosque, church, and synagogue within the same walls) and finally to Vardzia — the 12th-century cave monastery carved into a basalt cliff by Queen Tamar, with 3,000 rooms across 13 floors of carved chambers. Vardzia alone justifies the distance.
GetYourGuideBorjomi, Rabati & Vardzia Cave Cityfrom €55Check availability →15. Chiatura cable cars and Katskhi Pillar
Chiatura is Soviet industrial heritage at its most cinematic: a manganese-mining town clinging to a gorge, connected by Stalin-era cable cars that still operate as public transport. The cable car stations retain their original 1950s fitting and fixtures. Katskhi Pillar, 45km away, is a natural limestone monolith 40m tall with a medieval monastery on its summit — monks lived there in complete isolation until the Ottoman conquest. Together they form one of Georgia’s most unusual cultural days.
GetYourGuideChiatura Cable Cars & Katskhi Pillarfrom €60Check availability →16. Georgian traditional folklore show
Polyphonic singing is on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Georgian folk dance — particularly the Kartuli (a duet of formal gravity between man and woman) and the Khorumi (a warriors’ dance from Adjara) — is among the most technically demanding folk dance traditions in the world. An evening performance combining both, in a venue that doesn’t feel like a tourist trap, is harder to find than you’d expect. This show runs in a Tbilisi venue with a consistent record.
GetYourGuideGeorgian Traditional Folklore Showfrom €42Check availability →Adventure
17. Paragliding above the Caucasus
Gudauri plateau, at 2,200m on the Georgian Military Highway, offers one of the best paragliding sites in the Caucasus — a wide, south-facing bowl that generates reliable thermal lift and allows tandem flights long enough to cross the full width of the valley. The mountain backdrop includes the Greater Caucasus ridge, with Russia visible on clear days. The experience runs year-round but summer conditions are most reliable; winter flights over the snow-covered piste are also operated.
GetYourGuideGudauri Paragliding Experiencefrom €110Check availability →18. Tusheti 3-day jeep expedition
Tusheti is the most remote inhabited region in the Caucasus accessible from Tbilisi. The Abano Pass road — unpaved, at 2,926m, with 70+ hairpin bends and sheer drops — is the only land access from Georgia proper and is passable only from June to September. The villages of Omalo, Dartlo, and Shenako retain a way of life — defensive towers, felt cloaks, sheep-herding transhumance — that has no equivalent elsewhere in Georgia. Three days is the minimum to justify the approach.
GetYourGuideTusheti 3-Day Jeep Tour from Tbilisifrom €340Check availability →19. Horse riding in Kazbegi and Sno Valley
The Sno Valley south of Stepantsminda sees a fraction of the foot traffic of the main Gergeti route, and exploring it on horseback — through Khevsurian fortified villages and meadows with the Chaukhi massif visible ahead — is genuinely different from any walking or driving experience. The rides are structured for all levels, from first-timers to those who want a longer trekking day.
GetYourGuideHorse Riding in Kazbegi / Sno Valleyfrom €85Check availability →Wellness
20. Sulfur baths in Tbilisi’s Abanotubani
The sulfur bath district of Abanotubani has been functioning since at least the 5th century — the Persian city name “Tpilisi” (warm place) derives from these hot springs. The domed bathhouses push water at 37–42°C rich in hydrogen sulfide; the water is genuinely therapeutic rather than simply warm, and the post-bath sensation is markedly different from any standard spa. Book a private cabin rather than the communal pool; most baths offer kese (exfoliation) massage as an add-on.
For a wellness day that extends beyond Tbilisi to the Tskaltubo spa town — a Soviet sanatorium complex built around radon-mineral springs, now partly active and partly atmospheric ruin — the organized transfer is worth considering.
GetYourGuidePrivate Sulfur Bath Experience with Pickupfrom €60Check availability →Planning your Georgia trip around these experiences
Minimum viable trip (5 days from Tbilisi): Tbilisi Old Town + wine tasting (#12, #2), Kazbegi day trip (#4), Kakheti day trip (#1), supra evening (#11). This covers the five canonical categories without rushing.
The two-week circuit: Add Svaneti (#5, #6), the southern circuit via Vardzia (#14), Chiatura (#15), and either Tusheti (#18) or the Borjomi park for active days. Fly Tbilisi–Mestia (Air Georgia, ~45 minutes) to avoid the Svaneti road time eating your schedule.
Best season: May–June and September–October for mountain access, moderate crowds, and the best light. July–August is hotter and busier but everything is open. Tbilisi, Kakheti, and the cultural sites work year-round.
Booking: GetYourGuide tours for day trips and experiences can be booked up to 24 hours in advance in low season; popular tours like the Kazbegi circuit fill up 3–5 days ahead in July–August. Private tours have more flexibility but cost 3–4× the group rate.
Related guides
- Best hikes in Georgia — trail-by-trail rankings for mountain routes
- Best day trips from Tbilisi — logistics and comparisons for all major excursions
- Best Georgian wines — varieties, regions, and producers
- Georgian Military Highway — the Tbilisi–Kazbegi route in detail
Best day trips on GetYourGuide
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