Three hours out of Tbilisi the road ends under Kazbek.
Which Kazbegi day trip actually stops at Ananuri. What a Kakheti wine day costs once lunch is in it. Whether the canyons out west are worth the drive. Reviews of every tour you can book in Georgia.
The mountain road, a Kakheti cellar, old Tbilisi after dark, the canyons out west.
The four bookings a first week in Georgia hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
- 01The mountain dayDay Trip to Kazbegi and GudauriAnanuri, the Jvari Pass and the church on the ridge under Kazbek, out and back between breakfast and dinner.
02The wine dayDay Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine TastingsNine tastings across Kakheti, where the wine still goes into clay buried to the neck in the cellar floor.
03The evening walkEvening Walking & Talking Tour with Wine & Boat RideOld town lanes, a boat on the Mtkvari and wine at the end, once the heat has gone out of the day.
04The day out westKutaisi Canyons and Caves from Tbilisi Full Day TourMartvili gorge by boat and Prometheus Cave lit up under the hills. A long drive, and the one people come back talking about.
Ananuri, Gudauri, Gergeti: one road, three lengths of day.
The Georgian Military Highway climbs out of Tbilisi towards the Russian border, and nearly every good mountain day in the country is a version of it. How far up each one takes you, and what it costs to board.
Tbilisi first, then whichever direction the weather is favouring.
The capital and its sulphur quarter, the peak everyone drives three hours to stand under, the wine country east of it, the canyon country west, the old royal capital half an hour up the motorway, and the Black Sea. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Tbilisi pays better on the walk down from Narikala than the cable car up.
Everything in Tbilisi →
Brick sulphur domes in Abanotubani, carved balconies leaning over the lanes above them, a bakery selling bread pulled off the wall of a clay well, and a wine bar in every second doorway. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Old town on foot, cable car included
Up to Narikala on the cable car, then down through the sulphur quarter and the balcony lanes, with a stop where the bread comes out of a clay well in the floor.
Nine tastings through the bohemian quarter
Khinkali, badrijani, churchkhela and whatever the corner bar is pouring, worked through Sololaki and Vera rather than the restaurant fronts on Rustaveli.
Khinkali and khachapuri, folded properly
Pleating a dumpling so it holds the broth takes a hundred goes and somebody patient standing next to you. The class ends as lunch.
The days out Georgia books more than any other.
Every tour we have reviewed in Georgia →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings
Spend about 10 hours touring Kakheti with an English-speaking guide such as Gigi, Nina, David, or Luka. Visit a village bakery, Bodbe Monastery, Sighnaghi, a family qvevri cellar, and KTW Winery. Nine tastings are included, while lunch and the bakery food cost extra.
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
Georgia buries its wine in the floor and pours it at a table nobody leaves early.
Eight thousand years of clay-pot wine, bread baked against the wall of a sunken oven, and a toastmaster working through the list. Book the Kakheti cellar day, the class that ends as lunch, or the tasting walk through Tbilisi.
Kakheti is two hours east and the reason people come back.
Vines to the horizon under the Caucasus wall, a walled hill town looking down on them, and cellars where the wine goes into clay amphorae sunk into the ground. Almost every day out here includes a lunch that runs long.
Every Kakheti day out →
Imereti keeps its best scenery underground and at the bottom of gorges.
Martvili in a rubber boat between green walls, the Okatse walkway bolted along a cliff, and Prometheus Cave lit up under the hills. A comfortable day out of Kutaisi, a long one out of Tbilisi.
What a day out in Georgia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best days here land under what a taxi across town costs at home.
Shared runs up the Military Highway, city walks, cellar tastings and the group day trips east to Kakheti.
A private car for the day, the long haul west to the canyons and caves, small-group wine days with lunch on the table.
Private guides, the 4x4 runs into Svaneti and Tusheti, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things Georgia has and nowhere else quite does.
Mountains and monasteries run the length of the Caucasus. Wine fermented in buried clay, a church alone on a ridge at 2,170 metres, and a monk living on top of a limestone finger do not.
The Qvevri Cellars
Georgian wine goes into a qvevri, an egg-shaped clay vessel sunk to the neck in the cellar floor, skins and stalks and all. It has been made this way for eight thousand years, which makes it the oldest unbroken wine method anywhere, and it is the method UNESCO lists, not the wine. The amber result tastes nothing like what the same grape gives in a steel tank.
- 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
Tsminda Sameba stands by itself on a spur above Stepantsminda at 2,170 metres, with the ice face of Kazbek behind it on the days the cloud lifts. Mtskheta sent its treasures up here whenever invaders came. The final track is rough enough that most trips swap into a 4x4 for the last twenty minutes.
- 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 Katskhi Pillar
A limestone column stands out of a field near Chiatura with a small church on the top, lived in by a monk who went up and down an iron ladder for twenty years. Along the road, Soviet cable cars still swing across the gorge to the manganese mines. Nothing else in the country reads quite this strange.
- 1Chiatura Tour with Katskhi Pillar & Cable Car Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 95 reviews
- 2Soviet past – Private day tour to Chiatura, Katskhi pillar and Chronicles★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 29 reviews
- 3Soviet Story – Private day trip to Chiatura, Stalin’s museum and Katskhi pillar★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 15 reviews
Four Georgian days that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same morning. These four run on snow, water levels, one long table and a calendar that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)The Jvari Pass above Gudauri shuts without warning when it snows, and the last climb to Gergeti needs a 4x4 that is booked with the seat.
- 02Kakheti Wine Region: Signagi and Bodbe Tour with 10 Wine TastingsKakheti cellars are family operations with one long table. Seats on the small-group wine days go days ahead, and faster through the September harvest.
- 03CANYONS & CAVE Tour from Kutaisi – Okatse, Martvili & PrometheusMartvili floats its boats down the gorge only while the water is low and clear. Heavy rain closes the canyon and the walkways with it.
- 04Gudauri Ski Resort Private Day Tour from Tbilisi Snow AdventureGudauri turns over completely with the season. The lifts run roughly December to April, and the weekend transfers fill first.
Georgian winter: the road north shuts, the cellars open up.
From late November the Jvari Pass can close for days at a time and the Gergeti track sits under snow. That is when Kakheti, the Tbilisi cellars and the museums do their best work, and when Gudauri finally makes sense on skis.
By place — capital, mountains, wine country, coast
By kind of day — ridge, cellar, gorge or old town
Tbilisi, Mtskheta, the Military Highway, Kakheti: the run almost everybody does first.
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