12 Best Things to Do in Georgia (Country): Map & What to Skip

The best things to do in Georgia (the country), from Tbilisi and Kazbegi to Svaneti’s stone towers: the top places to visit, with a map, travel essentials and the stops worth skipping.

In two weeks of driving around Georgia, the Caucasus country tucked between Russia and Turkey, I went from a cave town carved into a cliff above a river to a glacier at the end of a long mountain trail, with a lot of khachapuri in between.

Tbilisi is where almost every trip starts, but many of the best places to visit in Georgia are a few hours from the capital, up in the mountains or in the green, river-cut west of the country. This list covers the 12 best things to do in Georgia (the country), mapped and ordered as a route you can drive.

Some need half a day and others a few nights, and I also point out the stops I’d skip when time is short.

Let's go over the basics very quickly:

• Where Georgia is: Georgia is a small country in the Caucasus, the mountain region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It borders Russia to the north, Turkey and Armenia to the south, and Azerbaijan to the east. The Greater Caucasus mountains run along its northern border.
• Flights: Most international flights land in Tbilisi, the capital. Kutaisi, in the west, has a smaller airport used mostly by budget airlines from Europe.
• Entry rules: Citizens from the US, EU and selected other countries like the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can stay in Georgia for up to a year without a visa. Since January 1, 2026, every foreign visitor also needs health and accident insurance for the whole stay, with at least 30,000 GEL (about $11,000) of coverage. Border officers can ask to see it, so keep the policy on your phone.
• Money: The local currency is the lari, written GEL. Cards work in hotels, supermarkets and most city restaurants. Small guesthouses, markets and minibuses usually want cash, and cash machines are easy to find in every town on this list.
• Getting around: I rented a car in Tbilisi and drove most of the trip, and it’s the easiest way to reach the places below, since many of them sit far from any bus route. In cities, the ride-hailing app Bolt works well and is cheap. Between towns there are marshrutkas, shared minibuses that leave when they’re full, cheap but slow. For a few places, a day tour from Tbilisi or Kutaisi saves you the logistics.
• Phone and data: Buy a local SIM card from Magti or get an eSIM before you land. You’ll need data for Bolt and for maps, and the signal drops on some mountain trails.
• When to go: For the mountains, go between June and September, when high roads and trails are open. Tbilisi and the lowlands are more comfortable in May, June, September and October, because July and August get very hot.
• Safety: For road safety and the scams I ran into, here’s [my guide to staying safe in Georgia].
• Organized tours I took: I did a day trip to David Gareja and the Rainbow Mountains from Tbilisi and a private 3-day tour of Svaneti with Megobari Tours. I traveled independently the rest of the time
• Where I stayed:
  • In Tbilisi, Mukhrantubani Boutique Hotel ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • In Stepantsminda, Lens Design Hotel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • In Kutaisi, Newport Hotel Kutaisi ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • In Mestia, Lahili Boutique Hotel ⭐⭐⭐⭐

1. Explore Tbilisi’s Old Town and Beyond

• Where: the capital, in eastern Georgia
• Time needed: three days
• Getting there: Tbilisi International Airport is about 17 km (11 mi) from the center, 25 to 30 minutes by Bolt
• Book it: Mukhrantubani Boutique Hotel ⭐⭐⭐⭐, where I stayed, a few steps from the Clock Tower

Tbilisi is where your trip will most likely start, and I’d give it three days. The old town sits on both banks of the Mtkvari River, under the walls of Narikala Fortress, and most of it is easy to cover on foot. On my first afternoon I walked around the Clock Tower, a crooked little tower built next to a puppet theater, then crossed the Bridge of Peace, a glass and steel footbridge that lights up at night. Holy Trinity Cathedral, the huge gold-domed church on the hill across the river, was my last stop that day.

The next morning I went up to Kartlis Deda, the aluminum statue of the Mother of Georgia. She holds a sword in one hand and a bowl of wine in the other, wine for guests and the sword for enemies. From there, the Botanical Garden takes you down to Abanotubani, the old bath district. The brick domes of the sulfur baths stick out of the ground here, and a small waterfall hides in the gorge right behind them.

The city also has very good museums, a lot of Soviet-era architecture and some of the best restaurants in the country. All of it is in my full guide to the best things to do in Tbilisi, with a map.

Read more about Tbilisi:

• My day-by-day 3-day Tbilisi itinerary
• My ranking of Tbilisi’s best museums
• What to see inside the Georgian National Museum
• My honest review of the Art Palace
• The 7 brutalist buildings that define Tbilisi
• 5 Best Georgian Restaurants in Tbilisi

2. Visit David Gareja and the Rainbow Mountains

• Where: semi-desert on the border with Azerbaijan, about 110 km (68 mi) southeast of Tbilisi
• Time needed: a full day
• Getting there: about two hours each way by car, on a road paved all the way to the monastery
• Book it: the David Gareja and Rainbow Mountains tour I took

The drive is half the experience. After the last villages the fields turn into open, dry steppe, and the country looks different from anywhere else on this list. David Gareja is a group of monasteries carved into the rock, founded in the 6th century by a monk named David and the followers who came with him from Mesopotamia. The part you can visit today is Lavra, the lower monastery, with cave cells and a small cave church where David is buried.

The upper monastery, Udabno, is on the ridge above. It has some of the oldest frescoes in the area, but it sits right on a stretch of border with Azerbaijan that was never fully agreed on, and it’s been closed to visitors since 2019.

A few miles away, near the village of Udabno, are the Rainbow Mountains, low hills striped red, yellow and green by layers of different minerals. My tour ended with a short walk on them. In summer there’s no shade anywhere, so bring a hat and more water than you think you need.

I wrote about the tour and the walk in my complete guide to the David Gareja and Rainbow Mountains day trip.

3. Taste Wine in Kakheti and Sighnaghi

• Where: Kakheti, the wine region in the far east of Georgia
• Time needed: a full day, or one night in Sighnaghi
• Getting there: Sighnaghi is about 110 km (68 mi) from Tbilisi, around two hours by car
• Book it: a Kakheti and Sighnaghi wine tour from Tbilisi

Georgia has been making wine for around 8,000 years, and one very old method is still in use. The grapes ferment and age in a qvevri, a large clay jar buried in the ground up to its neck. In 2013 UNESCO added the qvevri method to its list of intangible cultural heritage. White wines made this way stay on their skins for months and come out a deep amber color, so you’ll often see them sold as amber or orange wine.

The easiest base is Sighnaghi, a small hilltop town wrapped in 18th-century walls, with long views over the Alazani Valley, the flat plain where most of the vineyards are. Just outside town is Bodbe Monastery, where Saint Nino is buried, the woman who brought Christianity to Georgia in the 4th century. Day tours from Tbilisi usually combine Sighnaghi, Bodbe and one or two family wineries.

If your dates are flexible, the grape harvest, called rtveli, runs through September and October, and many wineries let visitors join in.

4. Drive the Georgian Military Highway

• Where: the road from Tbilisi north to Stepantsminda, the town at the foot of Mount Kazbek
• Time needed: a full day with stops
• Getting there: about 150 km (93 mi), 2.5 to 3 hours without stops, 3 to 4 hours with them
• Book it: rent a car, or book a day tour from Tbilisi along the Military Highway

This is the only road from Tbilisi into the high Caucasus, and the main road between Georgia and Russia, so the stops along it are half the reason to drive it yourself. I picked up a rental car in Tbilisi and made four of them.

The first one comes after about 20 minutes. Jvari Monastery is a small 6th-century stone church on a hilltop above Mtskheta, the old capital, right where two rivers meet, one clear and one muddy. I only went up to the monastery. The big cathedral of Svetitskhoveli is down in the town below, if you have more time.

About an hour from Tbilisi you reach Ananuri, a 17th-century fortress with stone walls, towers and two churches on the shore of the Zhinvali Reservoir, a lake so turquoise it looks dyed. It’s always crowded and full of souvenir stalls, but the inside of the main church, with its gilded wall of icons, is worth the stop. Entry is free, and the parking lot is tiny.

After the ski resort of Gudauri comes the Friendship Monument, a round Soviet-era balcony covered in a huge tile mosaic, hanging over a deep valley. Then the road climbs to the Jvari Pass, at 2,379 m (7,805 ft) the highest point of the drive, where orange and cream mineral terraces spill down right next to the asphalt.

Expect long lines of trucks heading to the Russian border, cows on the road, and some old, dark avalanche tunnels.

5. See Kazbegi: Gergeti Trinity Church and the Hikes Around It

• Where: Stepantsminda, a small town in the Greater Caucasus, about 150 km (93 mi) north of Tbilisi, near the Russian border
• Time needed: at least three nights
• Getting there: by car on the Military Highway, or by marshrutka from Tbilisi’s Didube station in about three hours
• Book it: Lens Design Hotel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, where I stayed, with a view of the church across the valley

Kazbegi is the name of the whole mountain area, and most people also use it for its only town, Stepantsminda. The photo everyone has seen of Georgia was taken here: Gergeti Trinity Church, a 14th-century stone church on a ridge at 2,170 m (7,119 ft), with Mount Kazbek right behind it. Kazbek is an old volcano covered in glaciers, 5,054 m (16,581 ft) high, and on a clear day it fills the whole sky behind the church. 

A paved road now leads all the way to a parking lot right below the church, so any car can make it. The real reason to stay a few nights is hiking. The trail behind the church continues up toward the Gergeti Glacier. South of town, the Truso Valley has mineral springs, abandoned villages and an old fortress. In Juta, a side valley lined with jagged peaks, a trail climbs to Chaukhi Lake. 

The town itself isn’t that pretty, with potholed streets and a lot of construction, but nobody comes here for the town. I put everything together in my complete guide to the Caucasus Mountains in Kazbegi.

Read more about Kazbegi:

• My guide to the 5 best hikes in Kazbegi
• The Gergeti Glacier hike from Trinity Church
• My guide to hiking the Truso Valley
• The Chaukhi Lake hike from Juta village
• Where to stay in Kazbegi, area by area

6. Explore Uplistsikhe Cave Town and Gori

• Where: central Georgia, on the main highway between Tbilisi and Kutaisi; Gori is about 90 km (56 mi) west of Tbilisi, and Uplistsikhe about 15 km (9 mi) east of Gori
• Time needed: half a day, or a full day with the Didgori memorial
• Getting there: easiest by car, since the highway passes right by; day tours from Tbilisi combine the two
• Book it: a day tour to Uplistsikhe and Gori from Tbilisi

Uplistsikhe is a town carved out of a sandstone plateau above the Mtkvari River, and people lived in it for around 3,000 years, from long before Christianity until the Middle Ages. You walk over smooth rock between halls, cellars and rooms cut straight into the cliff. Some of the spaces were pagan temples, and later a small brick church was built on the very top. A narrow tunnel leads from the town all the way down to the river. I spent about two hours there on the drive back from Kutaisi to Tbilisi.

Gori, the nearest town, is where Joseph Stalin was born in 1878. The Joseph Stalin Museum, opened in 1957, still tells his story much the way the Soviet Union wanted it told. Outside you’ll find the small house where he was born and his armored train carriage. I went in, and I’d see it as a museum about Soviet propaganda more than about Stalin himself, since the darkest parts of his rule are barely there.

On the way back to Tbilisi, you can take a detour north into the hills to the Didgori Battle Memorial, a hilltop covered in giant stone swords that marks Georgia’s most famous medieval victory, in 1121. I wrote a guide to visiting Didgori’s field of swords, with the roads that get you there.

7. Spend Some Time in Kutaisi and the Places Around It

• Where: western Georgia, about 220 km (137 mi) west of Tbilisi by road
• Time needed: two days
• Getting there: by car on the main highway from Tbilisi, by train, or by plane, since Kutaisi has its own international airport
• Book it: Newport Hotel Kutaisi ⭐⭐⭐⭐, where I stayed

Kutaisi is Georgia’s third-largest city, and plenty of travelers only see it from the airport. I think it's very underrated. The center is small and there's plenty to see. Bagrati Cathedral sits on a hill above the river. It was finished in 1003, ruined over the centuries, and rebuilt so heavily in the 2010s that UNESCO took it off its World Heritage list, and you can see where the old stone ends and the new begins. Down by the river, the Botanical Garden is shady and quiet, with a tiny chapel built inside the trunk of an old tree.

Tskaltubo, 20 minutes away, was an ex Soviet spa town, and its grand sanatoriums now sit half-abandoned in the woods. The Katskhi Pillar nearby is a 40 m (131 ft) limestone column with a small church on top, where monks lived for centuries. The canyon tours in the next entry also start from here. So you can see how Kutaisi works well as a base for seeing many of the best places to visit in Georgia.  

I cover the center and all of the day trips in my list of the 10 best things to do in Kutaisi, with a map and a two-day plan.

Read more about Kutaisi:

• Are Tskaltubo’s sanatoriums worth a visit?
• My Katskhi Pillar guide, with the real story of the monks
• The best areas and hotels in Kutaisi

8. Walk Through the Canyons Near Kutaisi: Okatse and Martvili

• Where: north and northwest of Kutaisi; Okatse is about 43 km (27 mi) from the city, and Martvili about 50 km (31 mi)
• Time needed: one full day for both, plus the Kinchkha waterfall
• Getting there: by car, about an hour to each one, or with a day tour from Kutaisi; the two canyons are about 40 minutes apart
• Book it: a tour from Kutaisi to Okatse, Martvili and the waterfall

These two canyons are usually sold together, but they’re quite different. I did both on the same day, and Okatse Canyon was my favorite. Its walkway is bolted onto the side of a deep, forested canyon and hangs right over the drop, so it’s not a great idea if you’re scared of heights. The full loop took me about 50 minutes, and the way back climbs steeply through the woods. About 20 minutes further by car is the Kinchkha waterfall, a tall cascade at the head of a green valley.

Martvili Canyon is shorter, with turquoise water between moss-covered rock walls. You can walk the path or, when the water level allows, take a boat ride through the narrowest part, the bit you can’t see from the path. On my day the boats weren’t running, and there’s usually no way to check in advance. Martvili is also the only place in Georgia where I met scammers. 

If you’re seeing more than one site, buy the combined ticket at the first one. I wrote everything about the visits, tickets and routes in:

• my day trip guide to Okatse Canyon
• my guide to Martvili Canyon and its scams.

9. Hike Among the Stone Towers of Svaneti: Mestia and Ushguli

• Where: Upper Svaneti, high in the Greater Caucasus in the far northwest of Georgia
• Time needed: at least three days
• Getting there: about 255 km (158 mi) from Kutaisi, around five hours by car; Mestia to Ushguli is another 45 km (28 mi), 1.5 to 2 hours on a mountain road
• Book it: the 3-day private Svaneti tour I took with Megobari Tours, and Lahili Boutique Hotel in Mestia, where I stayed

This was my absolute favourite thing to do in Georgia. Svaneti is a high mountain region where almost every village is crowded with stone towers. Families built them between the 9th and 12th centuries to defend themselves from invaders and from each other, and hundreds still stand. The whole of Upper Svaneti is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since 1996. Mestia, at 1,400 m (4,593 ft), is the main town and the easiest base, with the most hotels and restaurants. I did Svaneti on a private three-day tour from Kutaisi, with a guide who also drove, and we slept in Mestia.

Ushguli is a cluster of four villages at the very end of the road, between 2,060 and 2,200 m (6,760 and 7,220 ft), among the highest permanently inhabited places in Europe. Behind it rises Shkhara, Georgia’s highest mountain at 5,193 m (17,037 ft). I climbed up inside one of the towers there, on wooden ladders with a few rungs missing, then hiked toward the Shkhara Glacier.

Hiking is the main thing to do here, and most trails start close to Mestia. The Chalaadi Glacier is the easiest, the Shdugra Waterfall trail faces the twin peaks of Mount Ushba, and the Koruldi Lakes sit high above Mestia, reachable on foot or by 4x4. Experienced hikers can also walk all the way from Mestia to Ushguli in about four days. I compared all of them in my guide to the 5 best hikes in Svaneti.

Read more about Svaneti:

• What to see in Ushguli village
• Every way to get to Mestia, from Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi
• Where to stay in Mestia, area by area
• My review of the 3-day Megobari tour

10. Spend a Day or Two on the Coast in Batumi

• Where: on the Black Sea, in the far southwest of Georgia, close to the Turkish border
• Time needed: two to three days, if you go
• Getting there: about 150 km (93 mi) from Kutaisi by car, or about 5.5 hours from Tbilisi by train; Batumi also has its own airport
• Book it: hotels in Batumi

Batumi is Georgia’s second-largest city and its main seaside resort. The city runs along a long boulevard by the water, lined with palm trees, cafés and some very unusual modern towers. One of them, the Alphabet Tower, is wrapped in the letters of the Georgian alphabet. Along the promenade there’s also Ali and Nino, a pair of tall steel figures that slowly move toward each other and pass through one another every evening. Behind all that is a small old town, and a few miles north is the Batumi Botanical Garden, which spreads over the hills above the sea.

The beach is made of pebbles, and in July and August the coast road gets jammed with traffic. September is usually calmer, and the water is still warm. Batumi is also the home of Adjarian khachapuri, the boat-shaped cheese bread with an egg and a block of butter melting in the middle.

11. Visit Borjomi and the Vardzia Cave Monastery

• Where: south-central Georgia, in the Lesser Caucasus; Borjomi is about 160 km (99 mi) west of Tbilisi, and Vardzia about 110 km (68 mi) south of Borjomi
• Time needed: two days, with a night in Borjomi or Akhaltsikhe
• Getting there: by car is easiest; day tours from Tbilisi cover both, but make for a very long day
• Book it: a day tour to Borjomi and Vardzia from Tbilisi

These two didn’t fit into my two weeks itinerary, but they come up in almost every Georgia trip I’ve read about, and they’re easy to combine.

Borjomi is a spa town in a forested valley, famous across the former Soviet Union for its salty, fizzy mineral water. The Russian royal family turned it into a summer retreat in the 19th century. In the central park you can fill a bottle straight from the spring, and further up the valley there are warm sulfur pools to swim in. The town is also the gateway to Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, one of the largest protected areas in the country, with marked hiking trails.

Vardzia, two hours further south, is a cave monastery carved into a cliff above the Mtkvari River in the 12th century, under Queen Tamar. It once had hundreds of rooms over many levels, with churches, wine cellars and water channels, and an earthquake in 1283 tore off the outer wall and left the rooms open to the valley, the way you see them today. 

12. Eat Your Way Through Georgian Food

• Where: everywhere, from Tbilisi’s restaurants to family guesthouses in the mountains
• Time needed: every meal of the trip
• Getting there: every town on this list has at least one good Georgian restaurant

Food was one of the best parts of the trip, and it’s a big reason people come back to Georgia. The dish you’ll see first is khachapuri, bread filled with melted cheese. Every region has its own version, from the round, flat Imeruli to the boat-shaped one from Batumi I mentioned above.

Then there’s khinkali, big twisted dumplings filled with spiced meat and broth. You hold them by the knot on top, bite a small hole, drink the broth, and leave the knot on the plate. 

Walnuts show up in a lot of dishes. Pkhali are small balls of chopped spinach, beets or other vegetables mixed with walnut paste and herbs. Badrijani are thin slices of fried eggplant rolled around the same paste, with pomegranate seeds on top. 

Wine comes with almost everything, and many restaurants serve their own house wine by the carafe. I’m putting together a guide soon to the best foods to try in Georgia, with all the dishes worth ordering and where I ate them.

Read more about where I ate:

• The Georgian restaurants I’d go back to in Tbilisi
• Where we ate in Stepantsminda, in Kazbegi

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