14-Day Off-Road Trip Through Georgia (the Country) in 2026: Kutaisi, Adjara, the Sea, Svaneti and Back

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Updated 29 September 2026·47 min read·Prices and facts checked: September 2026

A 14-day loop out of Kutaisi airport and back, about 1,270 km over four mountain passes, with no Tbilisi in it. Day by day: which four sections need a 4x4, which three roads your rental insurance forbids, what each entrance fee costs in 2026, where to sleep and eat, and the mid-July to mid-September window when all four passes are open at once.

I am Jonas from Belgium and I have lived in Georgia (the country in the Caucasus) for over seven years. We built Glamping Tago in mountainous Adjara, the region almost every two-week itinerary skips, and this is the route we send our own friends and family on when they land at Kutaisi with a fortnight.

It is a loop, not a star: out of Kutaisi airport, back to Kutaisi airport, about 1,270 km, no Tbilisi. Four mountain passes, a UNESCO village of stone towers, a cave city carved into a cliff, a working Soviet observatory, two days of walking under Georgia's highest mountain, and three days on the Black Sea side of the country.

Four sections of this loop need a high-clearance 4x4, and three of them are forbidden in the standard Georgian rental contract. That makes the car and its insurance the first decision of the trip rather than the last, so they come before day 1 below.

Disclaimer

No affiliate links. The only place on this route we own is Glamping Tago, on days 4 and 5. Everything else is here because it is the best thing we know in that spot, and where the best thing has a problem, the problem is written down.

Who is this trip for?

• Drivers who want the unpaved parts. An all-asphalt version of this loop exists, and it is named at every point where the two split. But the Zekari pass, the Khulo to Bakhmaro track and the climb to Khikhani are the reason we drive it this way round.
• Mid-range beds and family kitchens. We plan these trips on 40 to 60 EUR a room and 8 to 15 EUR a meal, which comes to about 60 EUR per person per day for beds and food travelling as a couple. Four of the nights are village guesthouses where dinner is cooked in the house.
• Two weeks between mid-July and mid-September. That is the only window when all four passes are open at the same time. Outside it, the swaps are in the season table further down.

The route at a glance

The distances are road distances measured on OpenStreetMap. The times are what the day actually takes with stops, which on these roads is well over what any router says.

For this version of the loop, yes: four sections need a high-clearance 4x4 and nothing else on the route does. Everything between them is asphalt that a city car handles.

The four sections, in the order you meet them:

1. The Abastumani side of the Zekari pass (day 2). The Baghdati side has been asphalt since November 2025 and the new road runs via Kakaskhidi rather than via Sairme. The descent from the pass down to Abastumani is still rough gravel and wants high clearance; asphalt there is expected in 2027.
2. Khulo up to Village Tago (day 4). Nine kilometres, of which the last stretch from the iron bridge is a zigzag of 20 to 35 minutes. A normal car does not make it. If yours is not a 4x4, park in Khulo centre and take our taxi for 75 GEL a car.
3. The Khulo to Bakhmaro track (day 6). Forty-five kilometres, unpaved end to end. The Adjara tourism department grades the crossing adventurous and advises off-road vehicles on it.
4. The track to the foot of Khikhani fortress (day 5). The official Adjara route sheet states plainly that a car on this route must be a 4x4.

What counts as a 4x4 is the question guests ask us most. A RAV4, Tucson, Forester or Crosstrek class crossover with real ground clearance is enough for all four. A low saloon is not, whatever badge is on it, and a rental described as a "jeep" is often front-wheel drive with a body kit. Ask for the model and the drivetrain in writing before you pay. RentCarsGeorgia publishes a ground-clearance table by class, and the blunt part of it is right: driving a two-wheel-drive car on a road marked for 4x4 only voids your cover even if the car physically gets up.

Two roads that used to need a 4x4 no longer do. Mestia to Ushguli was sealed in 2024 and the 44 km now take 60 to 90 minutes; operators run ordinary minibuses over it. Ushguli to Lentekhi over the Zagari pass was rebuilt and surfaced the same year, and a Svaneti resident sums the surface up as drivable in a Fiat. Rental marketing that still describes 65 km of gravel and river crossings between Mestia and Ushguli is selling the road as it was before 2024.

Three roads on this loop are banned outright in the standard contract, and no insurance is valid on them: the Goderdzi pass (the Akhaltsikhe to Batumi crossing), the Sairme to Abastumani road over the Zekari pass, and Mestia to Ushguli to Lentekhi. Localrent's Georgia terms name all three, alongside Tusheti, Shatili, Truso, Juta, Vashlovani, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The detail that decides your trip: Mestia to Ushguli to Lentekhi is permitted only on cars booked with the travel-authorization option, and only between 1 May and 30 September. Book the authorization at the same time as the car, because it cannot be added at the desk.

What standard cover leaves out is just as important. CDW is a liability cap, not full cover: the excess commonly runs 100 to 600 USD, and the waiver stops at tyres, glass, the undercarriage and anything driven on an unpaved road, per Georgia Guidebook. On this route that means the two sections you most want to drive are the two you are least covered on.

Rental cars in Georgia carry GPS trackers and the companies use them. Geo Rent Car forbids Ushguli to Lentekhi for every vehicle, allows Mestia to Ushguli only in an off-road car, and spells out the penalty: the deposit is lost and the rental ends with no refund for the days you have left. Localrent adds that the company can block a car that enters a forbidden area, and that any claim needs a police report.

There are three honest ways through this:

• Buy off-road cover. FSTA sells standard insurance at EUR 9 a day for paved-road trips and full off-road insurance at EUR 33 a day on suitable 4x4s, with no card deposit and unlimited mileage. It is the clearest priced off-road policy on the Georgian market.
• Ask a company that sells the pass as an extra. OG Car Rental bans Mestia-Koruldi, Sairme-Abastumani, Vashlovani, Tusheti, Omalo and Shatili outright, and sells the rest on selected vehicles for an off-road fee: the Akhaltsikhe to Batumi crossing over the Goderdzi pass, Truso, Juta and Ushguli to Tskhvadili Lake. The fee is waived on long rentals.
• Or rent where there is no route list. Martyna Z Gruzji sets no prohibited routes on most of its models, with full Casco included, no deposit, unlimited mileage and extra drivers free. Its smaller 4x4s have one banned road, the one to Omalo.
• Get it in writing. Some agents add a mountain surcharge or an extra insurance line for Ushguli rather than refusing, and some still have not updated their terms for the rebuilt Zagari road. Email the route you intend to drive and keep the reply.

Four things, and only one of them is about the car.

Travel health insurance, now compulsory. Since 1 January 2026 every visitor entering Georgia must hold health and accident insurance covering the whole stay, arrival and departure days included, for at least 30,000 GEL, in Georgian or English, from a Georgian or a foreign insurer, shown on paper or on a screen at the border. The rule sits in article 12 of the Law of Georgia on Tourism, the detail in government decree 602 of 26 December 2025, read line by line here, and GPI Holding sells it locally. A policy that caps below 30,000 GEL or covers fewer days than you stay is not accepted.

A physical driving licence, and an IDP. The patrol police may ask for an international driving permit and the car's passport as well as the licence, and a photograph of a licence on a phone is not accepted. A notarised translation of a licence costs about 30 to 50 GEL in Georgia, per Wander-Lush. Minimum driver age at most desks is 21.

Written route permission from the rental company. See the section above. Send the list: Zekari, Goderdzi, Khulo to Bakhmaro, Mestia to Ushguli, Ushguli to Lentekhi.

Border-zone permission for Khikhani. The track to Khikhani fortress runs along the Turkish border, and the Adjara tourism department states that permission from the State Border Protection Service is required for it, and for reaching the Shuamta lakes from the Khikhani side. The lakes have a marked bypass route that needs no permit. Their information line, +995 577 90 90 93, and info@visitajara.com help with the paperwork. Allow at least five working days, and give every name in the group: the application asks for the purpose, the dates, every participant, the group leader's contacts, the planned route and scanned passports.

The order to book it in. Six weeks out: the car, with the route list and the off-road cover in writing. Five weeks out: the Ushguli guesthouse and our tents, which are the two beds on this route that sell out. Two weeks out: the border permit for Khikhani, and the Abastumani astrotour by phone. The week before: a table at Papavero and at Kessane. Everything else on this route is walk-in, and the canyons and caves sell tickets at the gate only.

Rent at Kutaisi, not Tbilisi: a Tbilisi pickup adds a day of driving at each end of a loop that already starts and finishes at the airport. In September 2026 a compact automatic with no deposit runs about 30 USD a day, an all-wheel-drive Subaru 35 to 38 USD and a seven-seater from 38 USD, with full-coverage insurance adding 5 to 12 USD a day, per The Georgian Guide.

The four desks we would use, in the order we would ring them:

Cars4rent, Kutaisi

Where: 1 Merab Kostava Street, central Kutaisi, open 24 hours. Good for: no deposit, WhatsApp booking, and the SUVs and seven-seaters its reviewers take into the mountains. Watch out for: its terms still forbid Ushguli to Lentekhi, so ask in writing before the Zagari day.

GMG Rent, Kutaisi

Where: 138 David Agmashenebeli Avenue, open 24 hours. Good for: airport delivery and night pick-ups, which matters because most Kutaisi flights land at unsociable hours, and the Subaru Foresters and Jeeps reviewers drove into the mountains.

FSTA

Where: a Tbilisi office that delivers to Kutaisi and Kutaisi airport. Price from: Jeep Renegade and Patriot from EUR 51 to 53 a day, Hyundai Tucson 54, Subaru Crosstrek 57, Toyota RAV4 59, Subaru Forester and Jeep Compass 61, Toyota FJ Cruiser 66, Toyota 4Runner and Hilux 68, Jeep Wrangler and Lexus GX 460 83, with standard insurance at EUR 9 a day and full off-road insurance at EUR 33. Good for: the only clearly priced off-road policy on this route, plus roof tents and camping gear. Watch out for: several August 2026 reviewers were handed a different car from the one they booked, so get the model, the tyres and the off-road cover in writing before you pay.

Two smaller companies we have used

Carrentingeorgia rents 4x4s and SUVs from EUR 35 a day with a zero deposit and full Casco insurance, from offices in Kutaisi, Tbilisi and Batumi. Martyna Z Gruzji is the premium end and prices by difficulty and by length: a Subaru Crosstrek for easy off-road is EUR 69 a day for one to three days and EUR 49 from fourteen days, a Forester for medium off-road EUR 64 down to EUR 49, and a Toyota 4Runner for full off-road EUR 124 down to EUR 109. Insurance is included, there is no deposit, and mileage and extra drivers are free. For a rooftop tent, Overlando is the one we send people to.

Land, collect the car, eat, sleep. Most flights into Kutaisi arrive late, so nothing else is planned.

The airport is a single terminal 23 km and about 30 minutes west of the city, and the road-trip version of arrival is simple: every rental company here does airport pickup. Without a car, the shuttle into Kutaisi is 5 GEL every two hours and takes 40 minutes, and a Bolt is 25 to 30 GEL, per The Georgian Guide.

Where to sleep. Hotel History sits in a lane below Bagrati, a few minutes' walk from the old town, and the hosts meet late arrivals. Satnav struggles with the address, so save the pin from the card below rather than the street name, and read the cancellation policy before you book: it is strict.

Where to eat. Papavero is our dinner place in Kutaisi and has been for years: the meat platter is built for sharing and the terrace is the best seat in town. Book it, on WhatsApp if you can, and do not arrive starving, because slow service is the one thing recent diners agree on.

For lunch on the way in from the airport, Palaty is two floors and a wine bar near the White Bridge, open 10:00 to 23:45, and needs no reservation in the daytime. If you want the cheap version of Kutaisi, Bakery Sanimusho on Tamar the Queen Street is a buffet charged by weight, open 09:00 to 21:30; the food is what people come back for and the counter staff are not.

Sightseeing, if the flight lands early. Bagrati Cathedral is open 10:00 to 20:00 and free, and the terrace outside it looks over the whole city and the mountains you are about to drive into. Cross the White Bridge over the Rioni on the way to dinner.

Ninety-one kilometres and one of the emptiest mountain roads in the country. Buy your picnic at the Green Bazaar, climb to the Zekari pass at about 2,180 m, drop down the gravel side to Abastumani for the sulphur baths, and finish at the observatory after dark.

The pass road is the Kutaisi to Baghdati to Abastumani to Benara route. Kutaisi sits at 152 m and Abastumani at 1,290 m, and the 91 km take 125 minutes of pure driving, which in practice means a four to five hour day with the market, the picnic and the descent. Fill the tank in Kutaisi or Baghdati: there is no fuel on the pass and long stretches with no phone signal.

Two things about the surface. The Baghdati side is asphalt and fine for an ordinary sedan; the Abastumani side is rough gravel and wants high clearance. And this is one of the three roads the standard rental contract forbids, under its old name of Sairme to Abastumani.

Where to sleep. Abastumani is a Soviet spa town being slowly revived, 7 km end to end and flat, sitting under the observatory on Mount Kanobili. Green Hotel Abastumani has garden rooms beside the creek and is the bed to take for a night tour.

The sulphur baths. Two hot mineral pools, 07:00 to 23:00, and adults and children pay the same. Recent visitors split: the water is the draw, and the complaints are cloudy pool water and a shower with no cold tap. It is a plain municipal bathhouse, not a spa, which for us is the point.

The night astrotour. The Abastumani Astrophysical Observatory was the first alpine observatory in the USSR and still works. The night tour costs 40 GEL for international visitors and 20 GEL for Georgian citizens, 10 GEL for school students, free under seven. The catch is the minimum charge per service: 200 GEL for international visitors, 100 GEL for citizens, so a couple pays 200 GEL whatever the headcount. Hours move with the month: 21:00 to 01:00 from May to August, 20:00 to 24:00 in March, April, September and October, 19:00 to 23:00 in January, February, November and December. Groups go up to 30, there are no tours on Georgian public holidays, and booking is by phone on +995 595 01 11 86 or astrotour@abao.ge.

The observatory is 4 km above the lower town. The Soviet cable car up runs to no fixed schedule, and the walk takes about an hour.

A culture day with 153 km of easy asphalt in it. Drive 27 km down to Akhaltsikhe, out to the Vardzia cave city and back, and finish inside Rabati castle in town.

Akhaltsikhe to Vardzia is 62.3 km and a little over an hour on the S11 and then the Khertvisi road. Khertvisi Fortress is genuinely on the way, 16 km short of Vardzia and a 0.5 km detour: entry is 10 GEL a head, parking below the walls is free, and it is open daily from about 09:00 to 18:00. Older guides still call it free.

Vardzia is a monastery city cut into the cliff above the Mtkvari in the 12th century: 900 metres of cliff face, 242 caves still standing whole or in part. It opens at 10:00 every day and closes at 19:00 from 1 May to 30 September, 18:00 in spring and early autumn and 17:00 in winter. Entry is 15 GEL, the electric shuttle from the ticket office up to the caves is 2 GEL, an audio guide is 15 GEL, and a live guide 25 GEL in Georgian or 45 GEL in another language. Allow two hours, three if you want to look properly.

One section is shut. A rockfall on 27 May 2026 damaged the visitor footpath and its safety barrier near the Secret Tunnel, and the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation closed that stretch. Visitors are turned back there and walk out the way they came in instead of finishing the usual one-way loop, so ask at the ticket office how the route runs on the day.

Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe works every day from 09:00 to 20:00. The ticket is 20 GEL for a foreign adult, 15 GEL for a foreign student or pupil and 10 GEL for Georgian citizens and residents, with under-sixes free, per the castle's own price page. It covers the whole complex, the Samtskhe-Javakheti history museum inside it included. An audio guide is 15 GEL; a live guide is 20 GEL for one or two people, 40 GEL for three to ten and 100 GEL for a group of up to fifty.

Where to sleep. Hotel Julia is three rooms facing the castle with a breakfast that gets praised in every language on its page. It is small, so ring ahead.

Where to eat. Kessane, a few doors from Hotel Julia, is family-run Georgian cooking in a garden, open 09:00 to midnight: trout, aubergine with walnuts, and the owner singing. One recent guest did not enjoy the dogs moving between the tables. Down at Vardzia, Restaurant vardzia sits by the river below the caves and is the only real option there; dishes sell out when the tour groups arrive on summer afternoons, so eat early or carry the picnic.

Cross from dry Samtskhe-Javakheti into wet, green Adjara over the Goderdzi pass, drop to Khulo, and climb to the camp. It is 89.4 km and 114 minutes of routed driving, and a three to four hour day in reality, because the section above Khulo is a construction site.

The Goderdzi pass tops out at 2,025 m, 120 km from Batumi. The road over it is the Batumi to Akhaltsikhe trans-Adjara route, 160 km end to end, and its Khulo to Zarzma half is being rebuilt: 44 of the 47 km carry asphalt-concrete pavement, the last 3 km are all in landslide ground and now run into 2027, and the Roads Department is buying equipment so that traffic from the Akhaltsikhe side stops being shut out in winter. The finished road is expected to cut Batumi to Akhaltsikhe by about an hour and a half.

Beshumi, the wooden summer village just below the pass, is the last place with shops and food stalls before the descent, and it only exists in July and August. There is nothing to book there in advance.

Where to sleep. Glamping Tago, on the ridge above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,186 m. Twelve Lotus Belle tents for two plus a nine-bed dorm dome, 33 beds in total, open 1 April to the end of October. Prices move with the date, so check today's prices. Good for: being inside upper Adjara instead of driving through it, and for the walking and the jeep tracks that start at the door. Watch out for: the last 9 km from Khulo needs a 4x4, there are no private bathrooms, and we close for the winter.

If the group is bigger than 33, seven families in the village run guesthouses next to us with beds for another 64 people, three to ten minutes on foot from the camp.

Where to eat. Yurtalicious, our own yurt restaurant, fully vegetarian, 24 at the long table and up to 32 with extra tables. Breakfast buffet 09:00 to 11:00 at 32 GEL, dinner buffet 19:00 to 21:00 at 37 GEL. Day visitors can book a table or a packed picnic. If you have gone six days without meat and are missing it, a village guesthouse will lay on a supra instead.

The alternative way in, for a car that is not a 4x4. Turn off the Batumi to Akhaltsikhe road at Zamleti, 4.7 km before Khulo and about two hours from Batumi, then 15 km and 35 minutes up through Cheri, then 3.6 km and 9 minutes through Dzmagula to Tago. It is longer than going through Khulo but the road is easier, and it suits normal cars and minibuses. Skhalta Monastery sits in that valley, a 9 km detour off the Goderdzi road and a quiet half-hour stop.

Nothing is compulsory today, and this is the day the Khikhani fortress and the Shuamta lakes belong on, because neither is on the way to anywhere.

Both sit in a side valley reached from Khikhadziri, not on the pass road. From the camp it is 36.4 km and about 80 minutes of routed driving to where the Khikhani track ends, and 40.5 km to Shuamta Big Lake, and both of those are 4x4 numbers rather than router numbers. Put a via point on the Akhaltsikhe to Tago drive and the router adds 21.5 km and an hour and a half for the fortress: it is a trip of its own, not a stop.

Khikhani fortress. A medieval fortress on a crag at 2,216 m, the highest point of Visit Ajara route 35, a marked 33 km one-day loop out of Khikhadziri. The road passes the Tsiplnara pastures and follows the Chachuni river to the border crossing point, where everyone is briefly inspected; 1.5 km further the track ends and a 1.5 km forest path of medium difficulty climbs 400 to 420 m to the walls. Allow about 90 minutes of honest climbing. The official sheet is clear that a car on this route must be a 4x4, and that the climb is not advised for anyone with heart or breathing trouble.

The Shuamta lakes sit at about 2,150 m in the same upland, and they have a marked bypass route that needs no border permit. They are a picnic and a swim with the Khikhani crag behind them, with no facilities of any kind.

If you would rather not drive the track yourself, we run the fortress as a half-day jeep trip and climb from the camp, and the lakes as a jeep day; today's prices are on the tours page. We also know whether the border post is manned that week.

What the camp itself offers. Five marked walking routes start here: the village walk through Tago, the Lonely Tree, Green Hill, Otsinari lake and Skhalta monastery, the last of them four to six hours with real ascent. All five are free to walk yourself, with maps at reception; a guide is 150 GEL for a half day and 200 GEL for a full day. Beyond that: a Georgian cooking class, the Jara honey day at Mindia's hives, a painting class, canyoning in the Uchkho gorge and the wood-fired sauna with its cold plunge, all on the activities page. Morning yoga on the platform and the campfire are included with a bed; the sauna is booked and paid separately.

A bed near the fortress, if you would rather sleep at the foot of the climb: Guest House Khikhani in Akhalsheni, 7.6 km and 26 minutes below the road's end.

The wildest driving of the fortnight and a long day: 9 km down to Khulo, 45 km of unpaved track over the ridge to Bakhmaro, then 108 km down to the Black Sea. Only in dry weather, and only in daylight.

From Khulo the track climbs through the Ghorjomi gorge, which starts about 12 km from the town centre and has a five-domed wooden mosque and four waterfalls of 12.5, 14, 16 and 19 m on a signed access road. It then crosses the Chidila pass and drops into highland Guria through the summer pastures. Visit Ajara route 14 describes the road to Bakhmaro as completely unpaved and advises off-road vehicles on it; the router measures the direct track at 44.5 km and 77 minutes, and the whole mountain section is a five hour job in practice. Download it offline before you leave: the track is not reliably on Google Maps. Horses can be hired from families in the Ghorjomi gorge for 30 GEL an hour, and the valley's guesthouses charge 40 to 50 GEL a night with meals, 70 to 80 GEL at the better houses.

Ask at reception the evening before. We know whether the track is open and can ring ahead.

Bakhmaro is Georgia's highest climatic resort at about 1,950 m, wooden houses with bright facades on both sides of a valley, ringed by mountains of 2,300 to 2,700 m. Its season runs about six weeks, from late June to early September; the access road normally opens in May, public transport runs about mid-June to the end of September, and the road is shut to ordinary cars for much of November to April. The high point of the season is the folk horse race on the feast of the Transfiguration, 19 August, run in the early afternoon. Bakhmaro has family hotels, grocery shops, bakeries, food stalls and a first-aid post, and rooms are gone on the race weekend. Google lists it as a locality rather than a business, so there is nothing to ring: beds here are booked by asking in the village or through the Ghorjomi and Guria guesthouses at 40 to 80 GEL a person with meals.

The paved way round, if the track is wet or shut. Drive down the valley from Khulo to Batumi on the main road, about two hours from the camp, follow the coast north through Ozurgeti to Chokhatauri, and climb the 52 km of the S81 to Bakhmaro, which takes an hour on the new surface and 1.5 to 2 hours in practice. Georgia's tourism board puts Bakhmaro at three hours from Batumi and 2 hours 40 from Kutaisi by that road. The Roads Department rebuilt an 18 km section of that road with new asphalt concrete, culverts, gabion walls and barriers for 19.2 million GEL, per iBusiness, which is why the way round is now the easy way in. You lose the crossing and gain a lunch in Batumi.

Where to sleep. The coast, 108 km down the S81 through Chokhatauri and out past Lanchkhuti, about two hours. Ureki has 1.5 km of black magnetite sand and a shallow, warm sea, and the national tourism board puts its season from June to mid-September. Magnetic Resort Ureki has a heated pool, a garden and cottages about 150 m from the sand, with staff working in Georgian, Russian and English.

Where to eat. In Ureki, lata terrace is the local favourite for khachapuri, open 10:00 to midnight, and its recent reviews warn off the shashlik and call it the priciest meal of the trip. Six kilometres north at Shekvetili, where the pine forest meets the beach, Restaurant Riviera has a garden with a playground and fast service, open 09:00 to 23:00.

The longest day of the trip: 265 km and about eight hours from the coast to Upper Svaneti, on asphalt the whole way. Leave early, eat in Mestia, arrive in Ushguli with daylight to spare.

The three legs. North to Zugdidi along the coast and the S1. Then Zugdidi to Mestia is 144.9 km on the S7 and takes 3.5 to 4 hours, not the 92 km some guides print, which is the straight-line distance and is why their drive times look impossible. Then Mestia to Ushguli, 44.3 km, 60 to 90 minutes, sealed since 2024.

Fill the tank in Zugdidi. After Jvari the road is a 130 km serpentine along the Enguri, and beyond Mestia the villages, Ushguli included, take cash only. Mestia has Wissol and Gulf stations and cash machines; Ushguli has no petrol station.

Break it in Mestia if the day feels long. Gistola Hotel on Boris Kakhiani Street is the bed we would take. The one indoor stop worth the time is the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, icons and manuscripts, open 10:00 to 18:00 and closed on Mondays.

Ushguli is four hamlets, Murkmeli, Chazhashi, Chvibiani and Zhibiani, at about 2,130 m under Shkhara, Georgia's highest mountain at 5,203 m, and it is the highest permanently inhabited settlement in Europe. Chazhashi is the UNESCO-listed core and holds the densest group of Svan towers, a five-minute walk from the guesthouses.

Walk up to Lamaria church above Zhibiani before dinner for the view of Shkhara. The nave is often shut, and visitors who want a clear mountain go up by 08:00.

Where to sleep. Family guesthouses in the upper hamlets, with dinner and breakfast. Rooms for two ran 50 to 95 GEL a night for an October 2026 weekend, per The Georgian Guide. Guesthouse Mshvidoba is the one we would book, at about 80 GEL for two: one shared bathroom for the house, simple rooms and the occasional insect, against home cooking guests write paragraphs about and a host they remember by name. Book ahead in July and August.

Where to eat. Dinner at your guesthouse is the best meal of the day here, and worth booking with the room: kubdari, tashmijabi and a great deal of Svan salt. Out of the house, Cafe Svaneti on the main road does home cooking on the fire, 09:00 to 21:00, and Cafe Shumeri does kubdari and soup at village prices, 08:00 to 23:30. Both are cash only, like everything in the village, and neither takes bookings.

No driving for two days. The walks start at the houses, need no guide in settled weather, and the figures below are Caucasus Trekking's own.

Day 8, the Shkhara glacier. Sixteen kilometres there and back up the Enguri on a jeep road, about five hours, mostly flat, suitable for anyone who can walk that far. It ends at the foot of the glacier under the Shkhara wall, and there is a snack bar on the way. A jeep up the valley shortens it for 60 to 100 GEL return. Rockfall at the glacier's foot is a real risk, so do not walk in under the ice.

Day 9, pick by legs. Tamar's castle is 4 km and 1.5 to 2 hours, steep switchbacks from Murkmeli up to a lonely ruined tower, the easiest of the set. The Chubedishi viewpoint is 7.4 km and three to four hours, a hard climb to three cairns with the best view of the Khalde wall and the village. The Gorvashi direction is 6.8 km and about four hours. For a longer day, the Zagari pass itself is 16.8 km on and beside the new road, and the Khalde ridge is 14.6 km and six to seven hours over the Lagem pass at 3,000 m.

The small museum in Chvibiani is 10 GEL, cash.

Do not go back the way you came. Leave Ushguli east over the Zagari pass at 2,620 m into Lower Svaneti: 73 km and about two hours down to Lentekhi on a road that was rebuilt and surfaced in 2024, with the best high-mountain scenery of the fortnight and almost no traffic. A normal car manages it, and the only broken surface is 100 to 200 m patches where landslides have been cleared.

There is a large pull-in on the right at the high point. Stop there: the descent into Koruldashi is why this direction is the better way round, and arriving in Ushguli from the Mestia side is why you came that way.

The thing that will confuse you. Ask any router for Ushguli to Lentekhi and it will send you 298 km and nearly eight hours back through Mestia, Jvari and Tsageri, because the pass road is not routable as a through road. Google Maps shows no driving route at all; Yandex does. Plan this leg from the road sign and the odometer, not from the app.

The season is the real constraint. The road runs roughly from the start of June to the start of October. It opened in the last week of May in 2025 and fully in early June in 2026, and in 2024 snow was already lying on the pass in mid-October. The settled window is the second week of July to the third week of September, per Vestnik Kavkaza. It is not cleared in winter, and most Ushguli guesthouses close with it.

Stops on the way down: the old bridge over the Zeskho at Beniveri, the village of Sasashi, the abandoned Muashi spa, and Lentekhi for kubdari. Mobile signal drops out on long stretches.

Where to sleep. Lentekhi to Tvishi is 54.9 km and an hour down the Tskhenistskali and Rioni valleys. Tvishi is a village on a steep bank above the Rioni and the home of Tvishi, the semi-sweet white made only from Tsolikouri and protected as an appellation, and it is genuinely on this road: putting it in as a via point adds 0.2 km. It sits at 42.5116, 42.7938 if you want the pin.

What Tvishi does not have is a bed or a cellar we can send you to. The two wine cellars in the village have almost no reviews between them, so the honest answer is to sleep either in Lentekhi at Leksura, large clean rooms with breakfast and dinner in the house and hosts who speak German, or 21.6 km further down in Tsageri at Meshve, the best-reviewed bed on this road and a 3 km detour off the Tvishi run. Neither has a booking page, so ring ahead. Tsageri also has a museum and the ruins of Muris-Tsikhe.

The karst day, and the one day of the fortnight that needs planning around opening hours rather than weather. About 140 km, all asphalt.

Tvishi to the Okatse Canyon visitor centre at Zeda Gordi is 65 km and about 90 minutes. Entry to the walkway is 30 GEL for foreign visitors, 16 GEL for Georgian citizens and residents and 5.50 GEL for ages 6 to 18, per the Agency of Protected Areas. It is open 10:00 to 18:00 every day, the active season runs April to October, and the trail closes in rain or snow. You cannot drive to the start of the walkway: from the visitor centre it is a signed 55-minute uphill walk through the forest, or a paid shuttle jeep, and the round trip on foot takes two to three hours including the 780 m hanging trail. Children under six are not allowed on it at all.

Kinchkha waterfall is a separate detour, not a stop on the way: 6.7 km uphill from the visitor centre, and putting it between Okatse and Prometheus adds 13.5 km and 23 minutes. Buy the combined Okatse plus Kinchkha ticket at 40 GEL for foreign visitors, 22 GEL for residents, which is cheaper than two singles.

Prometheus Cave at Kumistavi is 24.8 km and half an hour from Okatse. The visitor route is 1.8 km through six halls, 40 m below sea level, guided in timed sessions and taking about an hour, and it ends with a 15-minute boat trip on the underground Kumi when the water level allows. Entry is 40 GEL for foreign visitors and 16 GEL for Georgian citizens and residents, ages 6 to 18 pay 5.50 GEL and under-sixes are free; the boat is a separate 30 GEL for foreigners and 14 GEL for residents, and it is sold only on top of an entrance ticket bought first. A guide is in the ticket price. Open 10:00 to 18:00 in spring and summer, 10:00 to 17:00 in autumn and winter, every day.

Where to sleep. Kutaisi again, and Hotel History if they have a room. You know the way to Papavero.

Two days at a slower pace in the city we like best in Georgia, with the last of the sights arranged so that no day is a long drive.

Day 12, close to town. Motsameta Monastery, free, on a cliff above the Tskaltsitela gorge, open 09:30 to 17:30. Then Gelati, 9 km and about 13 minutes from the centre, where the main Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin stands under a single temporary roof put up by the German company Quadrex so that the walls and frescoes can dry out. Wall-painting conservation continues in phases and the mosaic's preventive conservation phase finished in May 2026. Google Maps still marks the monastery temporarily closed, so ring +995 598 67 80 76 before you drive out, and treat Motsameta and Bagrati as the pair you can count on.

Sataplia, 10.5 km from town, is dinosaur footprints, a small cave and a glass platform over the Colchic forest, 30 GEL for foreign visitors and 15 GEL for citizens and residents with a guided tour included, open 10:00 to 18:00 in summer. The viewing platform closes in rain and snow.

For wine, Nikoladzeebi's Wine Cellar is 13.9 km and 15 minutes east of Kutaisi towards Terjola, in the village of Nakhshirgele, not on any of the driving legs, which is exactly why it belongs on a city day. Ramaz Nikoladze was one of the first in Imereti to go back to qvevri and no chemistry, and the Tsitska, Tsolikouri and Aladasturi are tasted in the family cellar. It is open every day 10:00 to 22:00 and the family speaks Georgian, Russian and English. Ring ahead: the house makes very little wine and the table is small.

Day 13, the two longer trips. Martvili Canyon is 50.4 km and about an hour west: a 2.4 km gorge up to 70 m deep, with a 700 m stone-paved circular route past two bridges and three viewing platforms, and a 300 m boat ride of 15 to 20 minutes that ends at a 12 m waterfall. Entry is 40 GEL for foreign visitors and 16 GEL for citizens and residents; the boat is 20 GEL and a passenger must be taller than a metre. It opens at 10:00 every day and closes at 18:00 in spring and winter, 19:00 in autumn and midnight in summer. The boat does not run in rain or high water.

Tskaltubo is about 15 km and 20 minutes from Kutaisi: radon-carbonate springs at 33 to 35 C and a ring of abandoned Soviet sanatoriums around a 70-hectare park, with a walking loop past four or five of them taking 90 minutes to two hours. Sanatorium Tbilisi is being rebuilt as a hotel. Sanatorium Medea, the one every photographer wants, was fenced off and closed to visitors in August 2026 after a tourist fell inside and was hurt, and there is no reopening date, so photograph that one from the outside.

In the city. The Green Bazaar again for presents, the old town around the White Bridge, the Colchis fountain on the main square, and a last dinner at Papavero. Fleur on Tamar the Queen Street is the all-day option, 09:00 to 23:00, with a big garden terrace, fast service and Georgian, Russian and English spoken, and it is one of the few places in Kutaisi open early enough for a proper breakfast.

Kutaisi airport is 23 km and about 30 minutes from the city. Every rental desk on this list does airport drop-off. Allow extra time: queues at check-in and security are the standing complaint about this airport, which rates 4.0 from more than 5,700 reviews.

About 2,300 to 3,400 GEL a person on the ground for two people sharing a car, plus the car itself and your travel insurance. Entrance fees are the part that has moved most this year.

2026 prices

Add it up per person for two sharing: about 700 GEL of entrance fees and the local jeep for the pair, about 500 GEL of fuel, 13 nights of beds, 14 days of food and a SIM. That lands between 2,300 and 3,400 GEL a person depending on how much of it is guesthouses and how much is hotels.

For comparison, L'Heure du Voyage puts a standard 14-day Georgia trip at about 1,400 km and EUR 1,500 to 2,600 per person, and The Georgian Guide prices the long legs of its own Tbilisi loop at about 285 GEL a person by public transport or from 1,712 GEL per car with a hired driver. Both of those routes are asphalt, and neither goes near Adjara.

Mid-July to mid-September, if you want the whole thing. That is the overlap of four separate seasons, and no other window opens all four passes at once.

Two more dates decide the shape of the trip. Glamping Tago is open from 1 April to the end of October, so days 4 and 5 need that window. And the sea is worth the drive from June to mid-September, warmest in August.

What to swap outside the window:

• No Bakhmaro track (before late June or after September). Take the paved way round through Chokhatauri, or skip the crossing and drive Khulo to Batumi to the coast.
• No Zagari pass (before July or after mid-October). Come back out of Svaneti the way you went in, through Mestia, Jvari and Zugdidi, and give the extra day to Martvili and the Okatse day.
• No Zekari pass (before mid-June). Drive Kutaisi to Khashuri and down to Akhaltsikhe on the S8, then start the loop at Vardzia.
• December to March. This is not the trip. Goderdzi becomes a ski resort with 8.4 km of runs between 1,724 and 2,366 m, an adult day pass from 30 GEL and lifts from late December to the end of March. Winter tyres are compulsory on the listed mountain sections from 1 December to 1 March, and in bad weather the patrol police can require snow chains on the driven wheels as well.

Most of it works, three days do not, and the two days that fail are the two that make the trip. The fares below come from the Kutaisi city transport schedule except the Adjara and airport legs, which are ours. Almost every minibus leaves from the central bus station at Chavchavadze Avenue 67, next to the railway station, which rates only 3.9 from 348 reviews and has four separate stands in one yard. The two exceptions are the Gelati minibus, which leaves from behind the Meskhishvili Theatre, and one of the Tskaltubo routes, which leaves from the Red Bridge.

The three legs that do not work:

1. The Zagari pass. No public transport runs Ushguli to Lentekhi. Every marshrutka goes round through Zugdidi, so you change in Mestia, and vans out of Mestia all leave in the morning. Budget Georgia runs the only shared transport over the pass, a day trip from Kutaisi at 190 GEL a person from July to mid-October.
2. The Khulo to Bakhmaro track. No scheduled service crosses it. The seasonal vans to Bakhmaro come up the Guria side from Chokhatauri and Ozurgeti, roughly mid-June to the end of September. Take and Hike runs an afternoon minibus trip from Batumi, about three hours each way, with a 7 km walk and 300 to 350 m of ascent, back around midnight, at 160 GEL a person, or 144 GEL if you have travelled with them before.
3. Khikhani and the Shuamta lakes. No bus, and a border permit on top. Take a jeep from the camp, or from Khikhadziri.

Without a car, the honest version of this trip is: Kutaisi, Abastumani and Vardzia by minibus; Adjara by marshrutka to Khulo and our 4x4 taxi; the coast by minibus; Svaneti in and out through Zugdidi; and the canyons as day trips from Kutaisi. That is eleven good days and no Zagari pass.

• Booking the car before reading the contract. This is the expensive mistake. Three of this route's roads are banned as standard, the cars carry trackers, and the penalty at Geo Rent Car is the deposit plus the remaining days of the rental. The permission and the car are two purchases.
• Believing a "jeep" is a 4x4. Plenty of rental jeeps are front-wheel drive. Ask for the model and the drivetrain in writing.
• Trusting the router on mountain roads. Georgian drivers plan Google's time times 1.5 to 2 off the motorway, and a Kutaisi rental firm tells its customers to add 10 to 30% in poor weather. On the Zagari road the router does not merely mis-time the leg, it refuses it and sends you 298 km the wrong way.
• Reading a straight line as a road. Zugdidi to Mestia is 144.9 km, not the 92 km that still circulates. That single error is why so many itineraries put the coast and Ushguli on the same afternoon.
• Thinking Mestia to Ushguli still needs a 4x4. It was sealed in 2024. Ordinary minibuses do it in 60 to 90 minutes.
• Planning around a Monday closure in Imereti. Prometheus, Okatse, Martvili and Sataplia are open every day. The prices went up on 1 April 2026 instead.
• Buying tickets in the Martvili car park. Men there sell "tours" and boat tickets at several times the gate price, and food priced differently after you have eaten it. The gate price is 40 GEL plus 20 GEL for the boat, and the only place to buy either is the ticket office inside.
• Putting Khikhani on the drive over the Goderdzi pass. It is a side valley: 21 km and an hour and a half of detour, a border permit and a 4x4 track. Give it its own day from the camp.
• Skipping the travel insurance. It has been compulsory at the border since 1 January 2026, and 30,000 GEL is the floor.
• Anchoring Adjara to Tbilisi. Mountainous Adjara is reached from Batumi and Kutaisi, on the far western side of the country. Nothing in this fortnight goes near Tbilisi, which is the point of flying into Kutaisi.

• Best months: mid-July to mid-September for the whole loop. June and early October work with the swaps above.
• Maps: Google Maps for asphalt, Maps.me or Organic Maps for the tracks, meaning the Goderdzi to Khikhani roads and the Bakhmaro crossing. Download the regions offline before you leave Kutaisi. Do not trust any router on the Zagari pass.
• Cash: Ushguli, the Svan villages, the Bakhmaro and Ghorjomi guesthouses, the baths and the markets are cash. Hotels, the canyons and the caves take cards. ATMs in Kutaisi, Akhaltsikhe, Khulo, Zugdidi, Mestia and Tsageri, and none between them.
• Fuel: fill up in Kutaisi, Baghdati, Akhaltsikhe, Khulo, Zugdidi, Mestia and Tsageri. There is none on the Zekari pass, none above Khulo, none in Ushguli and none on the Zagari road.
• Signal: buy a tourist SIM in a Magti, Silknet or Cellfie shop in Kutaisi rather than at the airport, where it costs more. Signal drops out on the Zekari and Zagari roads, on the Bakhmaro track and above Khulo whichever network you use, so send anyone waiting for you a message before you start a pass.
• Pack: layers and a rain jacket for every single day, because Adjara and Guria are the wettest part of the country and nights above 1,800 m are cold even in August. Boots with grip for Khikhani, Chubedishi and the Vardzia stairs. A towel for the Shuamta lakes and the sea.
• If it rains: the Okatse walkway, the Sataplia platform and the Martvili boat all shut, and the Bakhmaro track becomes a bad idea. The wet-weather day is Prometheus Cave, Rabati, the Svaneti museum in Mestia and the Nikoladzeebi cellar, all of them indoors.
• Parking: free at every site on this route, including Vardzia, Khertvisi, Rabati, the canyons and the caves. In Kutaisi park in the street with the blue-line zone app or in your hotel's yard. In Khulo park in the centre if you are not in a 4x4.
• Driving: never drive a mountain track after dark, and never start the Bakhmaro crossing wet. The 4x4 is for four sections only; the rest is asphalt.
• Questions: message us on WhatsApp or hello@glampingtago.ge. We drive these roads every season and will tell you what is open this week. See you in Tago.

Glamping Tago for this

Glamping Tago as your base in mountainous Adjara

Days 4 and 5 of this loop are ours. We are on the ridge above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,186 m, on the Batumi side of the Goderdzi pass, in the part of Adjara that the standard two-week itinerary drives past on the way to Batumi.

The practical reason to sleep here rather than in Khulo or Batumi is that the two best things in upper Adjara, Khikhani fortress at 2,216 m and the Shuamta lakes, are both in a side valley with a border checkpoint and a 4x4 track. We drive them as a half-day and a full-day jeep trip from the camp, and we know whether the post is manned that week. Today's prices are on the tours page.

You sleep in a Lotus Belle tent or the nine-bed dorm dome, eat at Yurtalicious, our vegetarian yurt restaurant, and start any of five marked walks at the door. Morning yoga and the campfire come with the bed; the wood-fired sauna and its cold plunge are booked separately on the activities page. Nights are cold up here even in August, so bring layers, and the last 9 km from Khulo needs a 4x4 or our taxi.

Where

Village Tago, Khulo municipality, upper Adjara, about 1,186 m

Beds on site

12 Lotus Belle tents for two plus a nine-bed dorm dome, 33 beds

Season

1 April to the end of October

Prices

They change with the date: see today's prices on glampingtago.ge/glamping

Drive from Batumi

85 km and about 2 hours to Khulo, then 20 to 35 minutes of 4x4 zigzag

Transfers

4x4 taxi from Khulo 75 GEL a car for up to 4; private 4x4 from Batumi 265 GEL, Kutaisi 465 GEL, Akhaltsikhe 360 GEL

Food

Yurtalicious, fully vegetarian: breakfast buffet 32 GEL, dinner buffet 37 GEL

Walking

Five marked routes from the camp, free self-guided; a guide 150 GEL half day, 200 GEL full day

Check dates and ratesContact us