--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Georgia (Caucasus City Guides) Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Georgia in the Caucasus: Tbilisi, Kakheti wine country, Svaneti and the Black Sea coast. When to go, what to eat, and where to start." url: https://wimup.com/country/georgia type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Georgia Wine older than most countries, a capital of sulfur baths and balconies, and mountains an hour from the city. **Georgia** over-delivers on every axis except crowds. ## Quick answer **Tbilisi** earns three nights for its sulfur baths under brick domes, a balconied old town and a fast-moving restaurant scene. East is **Kakheti** for qvevri wine, Sighnaghi and Telavi, best as an overnight. North, the Georgian Military Highway climbs to **Stepantsminda** and Gergeti Trinity under Mount Kazbek. Give the west a week: **Kutaisi** for caves, **Batumi** for the Black Sea and **Mestia** for the towers of Svaneti. **May to June** and **September to October** work everywhere. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Jun · Sep · Oct - **Ideal length:** 8–12 days - **Budget per day:** $50–90 - **Language:** Georgian - **Getting around:** Marshrutka & metro - **3** City guides - **3,929,581** People - **1** Video guide Georgia is small and slow to cross, which is the whole planning problem. Tbilisi sits in the middle of the east, an hour from the vineyards of Kakheti and three from the Georgian Military Highway where the Greater Caucasus starts. West of the capital the country changes: Imereti is green and karst, riddled with caves and canyons around Kutaisi, and beyond it the Black Sea coast at Batumi turns subtropical, growing tea and citrus. North of that, Svaneti holds medieval tower villages under the highest peaks in Europe, and the road in takes a day. Trains link Tbilisi with Batumi, Kutaisi and Zugdidi; marshrutka minibuses reach everything else and leave when they are full. ## 3 Georgia city guides 1. [Tbilisi](https://wimup.com/city/tbilisi.md): Europe · 10 picks 2. [Batumi](https://wimup.com/city/batumi.md): Europe · 10 picks 3. [Kutaisi](https://wimup.com/city/kutaisi.md): Europe · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 3,929,581 - **Area:** 69,700 km² - **Density:** 56.4 / km² - **Capital:** Tbilisi - **Major cities:** Tbilisi, Batumi - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Georgian lari (GEL) Cards work in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi. Markets, marshrutkas, mountain guesthouses and small Kakheti wineries take cash, and ATMs thin out quickly beyond the cities. - **Language:** Georgian Georgian has its own alphabet and no close relatives. Older Georgians understand Russian and younger ones English. Tbilisi menus are usually translated, others often not. - **Calling code:** +995 Local SIM cards are sold at both airports and in any operator shop in town, and coverage is good on the main roads. It thins in the high valleys of Svaneti and Tusheti. - **Power:** 220V, 50Hz, plug types C and F The same round two-pin sockets as most of continental Europe. UK and US plugs need an adapter, and US devices need to handle 220 volts. - **Emergency:** 112 One number for police, ambulance and fire, and operators handle English. Mountain rescue runs through it too. - **Visa:** Visa-free up to a year for many passports Around ninety nationalities enter visa-free for a full year per entry. Check your passport on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular portal, and read the border stamp. - **Getting around:** Marshrutka, train and hired driver Marshrutkas leave Tbilisi from Didube and Ortachala when full and reach almost everywhere. Trains run to Batumi, Kutaisi and Zugdidi. For Kakheti and the mountains, hire a driver for the day. - **Tipping:** Around ten per cent Many restaurants add a ten per cent service charge and print it on the bill. Where they do not, rounding up is normal. Taxis are not tipped. ## When to visit - **Jan** (good) - **Feb** (good) - **Mar** - **Apr** (good) - **May** (best) - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** - **Dec** (good) ## Fun fact Georgia has been making wine in clay qvevri for around 8,000 years, the longest continuous winemaking tradition on record. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Georgia is a side trip from Russia **Reality:** It is its own country, with its own language and its own alphabet, and has been for a very long time. The Caucasus range is the border, and almost nothing on this side of it reads like the other. - **Myth:** A supra is just a long dinner **Reality:** It runs to a form. A tamada leads, the toasts follow an order, and the pacing is the point. Eating fast and leaving early misses the event you were actually invited to. - **Myth:** You have to drink to keep up **Reality:** Nobody is counting. Say early and warmly that you are pacing yourself and the table will accept it. Raising the glass for the toast matters more than emptying it. - **Myth:** It is all mountains **Reality:** The high Caucasus is one band of it. Batumi and the Black Sea coast are subtropical, growing tea and citrus, and the southeast around Davit Gareja is semi-desert. - **Myth:** Khachapuri is one dish **Reality:** Every region shapes it differently. Imeruli is a round with cheese through the middle, Megruli melts more on top, and the Adjaruli boat with an egg and butter is the one that travels. - Wine is poured by the host and toasted before it is drunk. Sipping between toasts is fine, drinking through one is not. - Bread from the tone oven is torn by hand and sits on the table, not the plate. - Guests are treated as a gift. Turning down an invitation to eat takes more effort than accepting one. - Churches ask for covered shoulders, and women are usually handed a scarf at the door. - Tipping is light. Many restaurants add ten per cent service, so read the bill before adding more. - Cash still runs marshrutkas, markets and mountain guesthouses, and ATMs thin out fast outside the cities. - Georgian uses its own alphabet, and menus outside Tbilisi are often not transliterated. Photos help. ## Famous Georgian faces - **Shota Rustaveli**: Wrote The Knight in the Panther's Skin around 1200, the national epic, still quoted - **Queen Tamar**: Ruled from 1184 to 1213, the reign Georgians call the golden age - **Niko Pirosmani**: Self-taught painter of tavern signboards, now the country's defining artist - **Katie Melua**: Singer-songwriter, born in Kutaisi in 1984 and raised in Britain - **Nona Gaprindashvili**: Women's world chess champion 1962 to 1978, and the first woman Grandmaster - **Khvicha Kvaratskhelia**: Winger and captain, Serie A player of the year at Napoli before Paris Saint-Germain - **Khatia Buniatishvili**: Concert pianist, born in Batumi in 1987 - **Rezo Gabriadze**: Puppeteer and painter who built the leaning clock tower by his Tbilisi marionette theatre - **Vakhtang Gorgasali**: Fifth-century king credited with founding Tbilisi on its hot springs - **David IV the Builder**: King who broke Seljuk control in 1121 and set up the medieval Georgian state - **Joseph Stalin**: Born in Gori in 1878, Soviet ruler until 1953. His home-town museum still stands - **Ilia Chavchavadze**: Writer and reformer who led the nineteenth-century national revival - **Nikoloz Baratashvili**: Romantic poet of the 1840s, whose Merani is learned by every schoolchild - **Zurab Tsereteli**: Monumental sculptor, whose work stands in Tbilisi, Moscow and New York - **Elene Akhvlediani**: Painter of old Tbilisi streets, whose house on Kiacheli Street is now a museum - **Sergei Parajanov**: Tbilisi-born director of The Colour of Pomegranates, jailed by the Soviet state - **Tengiz Abuladze**: Director of Repentance, the 1984 film that helped open the glasnost era - **Otar Iosseliani**: Director who left for Paris and kept filming Georgia from a distance - **Nino Katamadze**: Jazz singer from Batumi, and the voice most associated with modern Georgian song - **Vakhtang Kikabidze**: Actor and singer, best known abroad for Mimino - **George Balanchine**: Founder of New York City Ballet, born in Saint Petersburg to a Georgian family - **Nino Ananiashvili**: Bolshoi and American Ballet Theatre ballerina, later head of the Tbilisi company - **Lasha Talakhadze**: Super-heavyweight lifter, three-time Olympic champion and all-time world record holder - **Maia Chiburdanidze**: Took the women's world chess title in 1978 at seventeen and held it until 1991 - **Eduard Shevardnadze**: Soviet foreign minister at the end of the Cold War, then Georgia's president until 2003 - **Salome Zourabichvili**: French-born diplomat who served as president of Georgia from 2018 to 2024 ## Must-try Georgian food - **Khinkali**: Spiced meat dumplings full of broth. Hold the knot, bite, drink, and leave the knot. - **Khachapuri (Imeruli)**: The everyday round, with salty cheese through the middle. The shape the others vary. - **Mtsvadi**: Pork grilled over vine cuttings and served under raw onion. The wood is the seasoning. - **Badrijani nigvzit**: Fried aubergine rolled around walnut and garlic paste, finished with pomegranate seeds. - **Pkhali**: Greens, beetroot or beans bound with ground walnut and spice, served cold in mounds. - **Lobio**: Kidney beans stewed with coriander in a clay pot, with cornbread alongside. - **Kharcho**: Beef soup thickened with walnut and rice, soured with plum. For a cold Kakheti day. - **Chakapuli**: Lamb simmered with tarragon, sour plums and white wine. The spring dish to order. - **Adjaruli khachapuri**: The Batumi boat of bread and cheese, with egg yolk and butter stirred in at the table. - **Shoti**: Sword-shaped bread baked on the wall of a clay tone oven. Buy it warm. - **Sulguni**: Elastic brined cheese from Samegrelo, eaten fresh, smoked or melted into everything. - **Guda**: Sheep cheese matured in a skin bag in the mountains. Sharp, salty, and not subtle. - **Elarji**: Cornmeal beaten with sulguni until it pulls into threads. Megrelian and filling. - **Gebjalia**: Cheese rolled around cheese and mint, served in warm milk. A western starter. - **Megruli khachapuri**: The Imeruli round with a second layer of cheese melted over the top. - **Ajika**: Red chilli, garlic and herbs pounded into a paste. The heat of Megrelian cooking. - **Kubdari**: Svan bread filled with hand-chopped spiced meat. The thing to order in Mestia. - **Chvishtari**: Cornbread with cheese worked through it, fried until the crust turns. Svaneti again. - **Svanuri marili**: Svan salt with garlic, coriander, blue fenugreek and marigold. Worth carrying home. - **Churchkhela**: Walnuts on a string dipped in thickened grape must until set. The harvest, made portable. - **Pelamushi**: Grape must cooked down with flour into a firm pudding. Churchkhela without the nuts. - **Tklapi**: Sour fruit leather, usually plum, dried in sheets and used in cooking. - **Qvevri wine**: Fermented on the skins in a buried clay jar. White grapes come out amber. - **Chacha**: Grape spirit distilled from winemaking leftovers. Poured at the end of a supra, strong. - **Tarkhuna**: Bright green tarragon lemonade, sweeter than it looks. Found nowhere else. - **Borjomi**: Salty mineral water from the Borjomi gorge springs. Most people acquire the taste. ## By theme - [Hidden gems](https://wimup.com/hidden-gems.md) ## Films - [48 Hours in Tbilisi, Georgia](https://wimup.com/watch/tbilisi.md), 1:35:16 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Georgia? Eight to ten covers Tbilisi, Kakheti and one trip into the mountains, which is the shape most first visits take. Add three or four more for the west, meaning Kutaisi, Batumi and Svaneti, because the driving is slow. Under five days means Tbilisi and one day trip, and that still works. ### When is the best time to visit Georgia? May, June, September and October. Spring brings wildflowers to the high passes and autumn brings the wine harvest, and both sit either side of the July heat on the plains and the crowds on the Black Sea coast. Winter belongs to the ski resorts, but the roads into Svaneti and Kazbegi can close. ### Do you need a visa for Georgia? Passport holders from around ninety countries do not, and the visa-free stay runs to a full year per entry, one of the longest anywhere. The list changes, so check your own passport on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular portal before booking. ### What makes Georgian wine different? The vessel. Grapes ferment skin-on in a qvevri, a clay jar buried to its neck, and the method is old enough that UNESCO listed it in 2013. White grapes treated that way come out amber, tannic and closer to a red in structure than to anything labelled white. ### How do you get from Tbilisi to the mountains? Stepantsminda is roughly three hours north on the Georgian Military Highway, by marshrutka from Didube or by hired driver. Mestia in Svaneti is a long day by road, or a small-plane hop when the seasonal service is running. Both depend on the weather, so check the pass before committing. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://georgia.travel/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://geoconsul.gov.ge/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.