Tbilisi takes three days. The rest of Georgia is the drive out.
Which Kazbegi day trip stops at the Friendship Monument and which just photographs it from the road. What a Kakheti cellar day costs once lunch is in. Whether the canyons west of Kutaisi beat the cave city at Uplistsikhe. Reviews of every tour you can book in Georgia.
Kazbegi, Kakheti, Mtskheta, and one night in the old town.
The four days a first Georgian trip gets built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The road northHighlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)Jinvali reservoir, the fortress at Ananuri, the mosaic balcony above the gorge and Gergeti under Kazbek, in one run. Still the cheapest big day in the country.
02The wine dayDay Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine TastingsNine pours across Kakheti, all of it out of clay buried in the cellar floor. Lunch runs long and somebody else drives home.
03The old capitalDay Trip to Mtskheta Gori and UplistsikheMtskheta where the two rivers meet, Stalin’s home town, and a city cut into the cliff at Uplistsikhe. All inside an hour of Tbilisi.
04The first eveningEvening Walking & Talking Tour with Wine & Boat RideOld town on foot after dark, a glass on the way round and the river by boat. The cheapest way to work out where you actually are.
The Georgian Military Highway is the best day out in the country.
Two hours above Tbilisi the road runs past a reservoir the colour of antifreeze, a fortress standing in it, and a Soviet mosaic balcony cantilevered over the gorge, then drops into Stepantsminda with Kazbek filling the windscreen. Four ways to spend that day, and what each one costs.
Tbilisi first, then whichever road out you have the days for.
A capital stacked in layers over a sulphur valley, a highway that climbs to the Russian border, wine country in the east, canyon country in the west and a Black Sea town at the end of the line. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Kakheti ferments in clay, under the floor, and has done for eight thousand years.
A qvevri is a clay vessel the size of a person, buried to its neck in the cellar floor where the temperature never moves. Whole grapes go in, skins and all, and months later the white wine comes out amber with grip on it. The cellars east of Tbilisi will pour eight or ten before anyone mentions lunch.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Georgia.
Every Georgian tour review →What fills first on a Tbilisi morning, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings
Spend about 10 hours touring Kakheti from Tbilisi, with a bakery visit in Badiauri, Bodbe Monastery, Sighnaghi, lunch, and tastings at a family cellar and KTW Winery. Guides such as Gigi, Luka, Nina, David, and Ilia are praised for mixing Georgian history, wine knowledge, humor, music, and local toasts.
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
Georgian day trips cost less than the flight you took to get here.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it costs. This is the part that catches people out: the flagship run up the Military Highway prices like a pizza at home.
Group minibuses north, old-town walks, the Kakheti wine runs and very nearly every half day out of Tbilisi.
Private drivers, the 4WD climbs to Gergeti and David Gareja, the Armenia border run, the long Kakheti lunches.
Whole-car private days, multi-day trips into Svaneti, and the cellar visits that are really a lunch with wine attached.
Three things that happen in Georgia and nowhere else.
Mountains and monasteries are everywhere in this corner of the world. A mining town strung together by Stalin-era cable cars, wine fermented in buried clay, and a hillside striped like a cut cake are not.
The Chiatura Cable Cars
Chiatura mines manganese from a gorge too steep to drive around, so from the 1950s it moved its shifts by cable car instead. Dozens of lines were strung across the valley and the old riveted cabins ran for decades on almost no maintenance, which is how they earned the local name of flying coffins. Newer cars work the main routes now. A few miles away Katskhi Pillar stands on its own limestone stack with a monastery on the top and a ladder that visitors do not climb.
- 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
Qvevri Winemaking
Georgian wine ferments in a qvevri, an egg-shaped clay vessel buried to its neck in the cellar floor where the ground holds the temperature steady. Whole grapes go in and stay on their skins for months, which is what turns white grapes amber and gives the wine its grip and its tannin. UNESCO listed the method in 2013; the archaeology in the Kvemo Kartli valleys puts the practice at around eight thousand years, the oldest unbroken winemaking anywhere on earth.
- 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
The Rainbow Mountains
South-east of Tbilisi the green runs out and the ground starts folding into bands of red, ochre and grey, sediment laid down flat and then tipped on its side. David Gareja sits at the edge of it, a monastery cut straight into the cliff on a border that Georgia and Azerbaijan have never fully agreed on. The tracks out are rough enough that most of the day happens in a 4WD.
- 1Day Trip to Rainbow Mountains and David Gareja★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 408 reviews
- 2David Gareji and Real Rainbow Mountains Off-Road adventure + hike★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 129 reviews
- 3Kakheti Gems: Rainbow Mountains, Gareji & Signagi Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 87 reviews
Snow closes the road over Gudauri, and July flattens Tbilisi.
Winter takes Kazbegi off the table for days at a stretch: the pass closes without notice and the minibuses simply do not run. Midsummer does the opposite, because the city sits in a bowl and holds the heat well past midnight. Both have the same answer. Go underground, or go to a table.
Four Georgian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast on the day. These four run on border queues, one departure a day, and weather that consults nobody.
- 01Highlights of Caucasus Mountains-Jinvali,Ananuri,Gudauri,Kazbegi(Group tour)The Cross Pass sits at 2,379 metres and closes outright in heavy snow; the track up to Gergeti needs a 4WD once it ices. Winter dates get cancelled, not moved.
- 02Day Trip to Armenia Including Homemade LunchA land border on a fixed itinerary. Names go on a list for the crossing, so the seats close well before the morning itself.
- 03Day tour to Vardzia, Borjomi in GeorgiaFour hours down and four hours back, on one departure a day. Miss it and the next one is tomorrow.
- 04Small-Group Khinkali and Khachapuri Cooking Class in TbilisiThe kitchens are small and the shopping is done the same morning. Two days ahead is the realistic window.
By place — the capital and the roads out of it
By kind of day — mountain, cellar, cave or city
Tbilisi, Mtskheta, Kazbegi, Kakheti: the loop almost everybody drives first.
The newest Georgian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Tbilisi Walking Tour Including Cable Car and Wine Tasting
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Full Day Tbilisi City Tour with Wine Tasting & Cable Car Ride
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Soviet Story – Private day trip to Chiatura, Stalin’s museum and Katskhi pillar
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Join a Local for a Market Tour, Cooking Class and Meal in her Tbilisi Home
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Private five days tour to Svaneti-Mestia, Ushguli, Becho,Chalaadi
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Tbilisi to Batumi, or vice versa – Private Transfer
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Full Day Private Tour in Vardzia, Rabati and Borjomi with Guide
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Private 4 days Food & Wine and Sightseeing tour to Kakheti, Kazbegi, Mtskheta.
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Jvari – Samtavro, the cradle of Georgian Christianity. (group tours)
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