Tbilisi wakes up late. The mountains do not.
Georgia is small enough that the glacier under Kazbek and a cellar in Kakheti are both day trips from the same balcony. Reviews of every tour you can book across the country, with what each one costs.
Kakheti, the Kazbegi road, Uplistsikhe, and one long walk through Tbilisi.
Four bookings that a first week in Georgia is usually built around. What each costs, and why it is worth the day.
01The wine dayDay Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine TastingsNine tastings across Kakheti, most of them poured by the family that buried the qvevri. Go on an empty stomach and eat when they tell you to.
02The mountain dayHighlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)Jinvali, Ananuri, Gudauri, then the Jvari Pass and Kazbek. Twelve hours of switchbacks and the best money you will spend here.
03The old-capital dayDay Trip to Mtskheta Gori and UplistsikheMtskheta before the coaches, Uplistsikhe carved into the cliff, Gori on the way back. Georgia in one loop out of the city.
04The first afternoonTbilisi Walking Tour Including Cable Car and Traditional BakeryNarikala by cable car, the sulphur quarter below it, and a bakery where the bread comes off the wall of the oven.
Six bases, and the day out that justifies each one.
A capital you can walk end to end, the highway over the Caucasus, the cellars east of it, the canyon country behind Kutaisi, the old royal capital, and the Black Sea when you want a flat horizon.
Three directions out of Tbilisi, and what each day costs.
Almost everything worth seeing in Georgia is a day trip from one bed in the capital. North for the mountains, east for the wine, west for the rock towns. Pick a direction.
Every good day here starts on the road north out of Tbilisi.
Jinvali turns turquoise below the fortress at Ananuri, the tarmac climbs past Gudauri to the Jvari Pass at 2,379 metres, and Stepantsminda is where you swap the minibus for a 4WD up to Gergeti Trinity. One day, one road, the whole Caucasus.
Tbilisi: the fortress first, the sulphur quarter after.
Everything in Tbilisi →
Ride the cable car up to Narikala while the light is still low, come down through the carved balconies of Betlemi, and finish in the brick domes of Abanotubani where the water comes out of the ground hot. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Old Tbilisi, on foot and slowly
Narikala, the Betlemi steps, the wooden balconies leaning over Chreli Abano, and a stop for shoti bread straight off the oven wall. The city makes sense in this order and no other.
Khinkali, khachapuri, and how to eat them
Twist the dumpling, bite the side, drink the broth, leave the knot on the plate. Someone will count the knots. The classes fold their own dough and most of them end at a laid table.
The Chronicles, and the city from above
Sixteen black columns on a ridge above the Tbilisi Sea, carved with kings on one side and the life of Christ on the other. Almost nobody is up there at six, and the whole valley turns gold.
The days out more travellers book than any other in Georgia.
Every Georgian tour we have reviewed →Nothing here is a secret, which is rather the point. These are the seats that go first, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings
Meet your English-speaking guide at Avlabari Metro Station for a 10-hour Kakheti outing. Visit a bakery, Bodbe Monastery, Sighnaghi, a family qvevri cellar, and KTW Winery. Guides such as Gigi, Nina, David, Ilia, and Luka add history, toasts, music, and local insight.
From · $29
Read our review →
2
Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)
from $29
3
Day Trip to Kazbegi and Gudauri
from $29
4
Day Trip to Mtskheta Gori and Uplistsikhe
from $29
5
Tbilisi Walking Tour Including Cable Car and Traditional Bakery
from $19
6
Day Trip to Armenia Including Homemade Lunch
from $59
7
Kakheti Wine Region: Signagi and Bodbe Tour with 10 Wine Tastings
from $13
8
Mtskheta,Jvari,Bazaar,wine tasting,Chronicles of Georgia
from $20
In Georgia the meal is the itinerary, not the interval.
A supra runs on toasts and somebody at the table is in charge of them. Book the market walk for before lunch, the class that ends as one, and the Kakheti cellar that keeps you until it gets dark.
Tbilisi is a different city once the balconies light up.
The old town is built on a hillside, so everything above you is lit and everything below you is lit, and the whole thing lands back in the Mtkvari. Evening walks are cheap here, and the wine that comes with them is cheaper.
Every evening in Tbilisi →
Behind Kutaisi the ground opens up.
Martvili is a limestone slot you float through on an inflatable boat, Okatse is a walkway pinned to a cliff face, and Prometheus is a lit cave you walk for well over a kilometre before a boat brings you out. All three fit in one day from Kutaisi, and most operators sell them as exactly that.
- 1CANYONS & CAVE Tour from Kutaisi – Okatse, Martvili & Prometheusfrom $35
- 2Chiatura Tour with Katskhi Pillar & Cable Car Experiencefrom $35
- 3Martvili Canyon & Prometheus Cave, Georgian Lunchfrom $20
What a day out in Georgia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Georgia is one of the few countries left where a full day with a driver, a guide and lunch lands under the price of dinner at home.
Group minibuses to Kazbegi and Kakheti, old-town walks, cave and canyon entries, the airport run.
Private cars for the day, small-winery visits with a cooked lunch, the two-canyon-and-a-cave loop.
Multi-day runs into Svaneti, chartered 4WDs above Stepantsminda, and the long private wine days.
Three things that happen in Georgia and almost nowhere else.
Mountains and monasteries are common currency across the Caucasus. Wine fermented underground in clay, a church at 2,170 metres with a glacier behind it, and a canyon you enter lying down in a boat are not.
Qvevri, buried
Georgian wine ferments in a qvevri, an egg-shaped clay vessel buried to its neck in the floor of a cellar called a marani, skins and stalks and all. The method is old enough to be the oldest anywhere and is still how families make what they drink themselves. It comes out amber, tannic and nothing like the white you were expecting.
- 1Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,774 reviews
- 2Kakheti Wine Region: Signagi and Bodbe Tour with 10 Wine Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,019 reviews
- 3Mtskheta,Jvari,Bazaar,wine tasting,Chronicles of Georgia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 730 reviews
Gergeti Trinity
The church stands alone on a spur above Stepantsminda with Kazbek, a dormant volcano under permanent ice, filling the sky behind it. It was built in the fourteenth century as the place the national treasures were carried to when invasion came. You go up the last stretch by 4WD, or you walk it in about three hours.
- 1Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,682 reviews
- 2Day Trip to Kazbegi and Gudauri★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,009 reviews
- 3Day Trip to Gudauri and Kazbegi Including 4WD★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 673 reviews
The Martvili boat
The Abasha has cut a narrow green slot into the limestone behind Kutaisi, and the only way through the best of it is lying back in a small inflatable while somebody paddles you under the waterfalls. It takes fifteen minutes and it is the photograph everyone comes home with.
- 1CANYONS & CAVE Tour from Kutaisi – Okatse, Martvili & Prometheus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 307 reviews
- 2Martvili Canyon & Prometheus Cave, Georgian Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 80 reviews
- 3Private Canyon &Cave Tour from Batumi(Martvili,Okatse,Prometheus)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 52 reviews
Four Georgian bookings that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a jug of wine. These four cannot: a mountain pass, a ski season, a harvest and an international border each keep their own timetable.
- 01Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)The road crosses the Jvari Pass at 2,379 metres. Heavy snow closes it with no notice and the day is cancelled rather than rerouted, so hold a spare date.
- 02Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)Lift-served skiing here runs roughly December to April and nothing else in the country replaces it. Outside those months Gudauri is a mountain village with a view.
- 03Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine TastingsRtveli, the grape harvest, takes over the region through September and October. The family cellars are the best they ever are and also the most spoken for.
- 04Day Trip to Armenia Including Homemade LunchIt is a full day across an international border, so your passport travels with you and the queue at the crossing sets the pace of everything after it.
Georgia in the cold, when the road north is closed.
Between November and March the mountain days come and go with the weather, and the answer is the one Georgians reach for anyway: go indoors and eat. Cellars are warm all winter, the dumpling classes run whatever the road is doing, and the covered market smells of churchkhela and dried fruit.
By place — capital, mountains, wine country, coast
By kind of day — mountain, cellar, cave or table
Tbilisi, Mtskheta, Kazbegi, Kakheti, Kutaisi: the loop almost everybody drives first.
The newest Georgian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Into The Wild – Day Tour from Kutaisi to Racha Region
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Authentic Georgian Dining Experience at Local Family
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Private Canyon&Cave Tour from Kutaisi(Martvili-Okatse-Prometheus)
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Full-Day Private Wilderness Tour in Vashlovani National Park
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3-Day Private Mestia and Ushguli Tour from Kutaisi
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