Meditation retreats in Georgia (the country): what runs in 2026, what it costs, how to host your own

← Back to the blog

Published 27 September 2026·28 min read·Prices and facts checked: September 2026

Georgia has no permanent meditation centre. The free 10-day Vipassana courses run at Bakuriani, a Soto Zen sesshin sits on the Adjara coast, three groups sit for free every week in Tbilisi and Batumi, and every other retreat rents a venue for its dates. Here is what runs in 2026, what it costs, which region fits, and how to host your own.

Five kinds of retreat run in Georgia: free 10-day Vipassana courses at Bakuriani, a Soto Zen sesshin on the Adjara coast, a small Thai-style silent retreat in the hills, a phone-free week in the Adjara mountains, and a short list of paid international retreats sold through marketplaces and held at spa hotels. The list is short because the market is small, and most of it falls between September and early November.

Nobody in Georgia runs a permanent meditation centre. Every retreat here rents a venue for its dates, which is why the same villages keep coming up and why a group that wants a specific week usually has to organise it rather than book it.

The venues that take a whole group are a glamping camp in the Adjara mountains, two Kakheti properties, a wellness resort above Tbilisi, ski hotels out of season and a handful of coastal hotels. Ours is one of them, and it is where more than 100 people spent six nights in meditation with their teacher from 22 to 28 August 2026.

There is no Vipassana centre in the country, only one non-centre location that rents a site at Bakuriani, and a course there costs nothing. Vipassana Georgia runs on donations: no charge for the teaching, the food or the bed, teachers and assistant teachers take no payment, and the people running the course are unpaid volunteers who have sat a course themselves.

Three 10-day courses run at Bakuriani in the 2026 season: 24 September to 5 October, 7 to 18 October and 20 to 31 October. On the official schedule new men are open on both October courses, women are on a short waiting list and old students on a long one. Instructions are given in English and Russian, with the evening discourses split by language, and each course takes new and old students. New dates go out through the organisation's newsletter and its Instagram account, which sends new students straight to the application form. The office answers on +995 599 006805.

The day is long. A course begins on the evening of the first day and ends early on the last morning. The wake-up bell goes at 4:00, you sit for about ten hours, and lights go out at 21:30. Noble Silence holds from the start of the course until the morning of the last full day: no speaking, no gestures, no written notes. Phones, smartwatches and other devices are handed to the management until the course ends, men and women are completely separated for the whole ten days, and reading and writing are out. There are no washing machines on site, so pack clothes for ten days. Apply online and allow up to two weeks for an answer.

Bakuriani is a resort village at 1,700 m on the northern slope of the Trialeti range, 186 km and about 2 hours 46 minutes by road from Tbilisi. There is no direct bus from Batumi, so moving from the coast to a course means going through Tbilisi or Khashuri.

Two mix-ups follow this course around. Dhamma Patapa in Jesup and Atlanta Dhamma House are the only Georgia entries in the worldwide centre directory, and both are in the US state. The other is the address 30 km outside Tbilisi, which belonged to the first Georgian course in 2013. Every course since is at Bakuriani.

Three groups sit for free every week, and you can walk into all of them. This is the cheapest way to find out whether you want ten silent days before you commit to them.

Zazen with Zen Georgia. Tbilisi sits on Saturdays and Batumi on Thursdays, both 19:00 to 20:30. You gather in the vestibule at 19:00, the position is explained to beginners, then the doors close for two blocks of 25 to 30 minutes. Bring clothes you can sit cross-legged in and a cushion or a folded blanket. The Tbilisi dojo is at 8 Giorgi Mazniashvili Street, Batumi at 61 Bagrationi Street, and Matvey answers on +995 593 278 135 by WhatsApp or Telegram. The sangha was founded by students of Master Sando Kaisen, in the Soto lineage that reaches Europe through Taisen Deshimaru, and the Batumi sittings are led by his disciple and translator, the monk Kosen.

Open practice in Tbilisi, Wednesdays and Saturdays, 12:00 to about 13:45. Free entry, no booking, in the Bao Cha tea house building at Aghmashenebeli Avenue 46 and Tchorokhi 10. Go in from Tchorokhi Street, up the stairs in the yard: the tea shop itself only opens at 15:00. The group is reached on Telegram at praktika_Georgia and it is run by the same people as the October silent retreat.

Free meditation training in Georgian. The Sri Chinmoy centre in Tbilisi holds a free training every few months: concentration on a candle flame or a flower, breathing exercises counted in slow cycles, and mantra repetition, open to any religion or none. The whole course is published in Georgian as well, so you can start before a place opens.

Six studios end their classes with pranayama and sitting, which is the other way to keep a practice going between retreats.

• Tbilisi Yoga Loft, 14 Shalva Radiani Street in Vake: classes in English, meditation and breathwork, and the studio behind most of the country's English-language retreat weekends. Its 200-hour teacher training is a three-week hybrid intensive taught in English, capped at nine people, 3,780 GEL or 3,480 GEL early bird including a 480 GEL non-refundable deposit.
• Tbilisi Yoga Villa, 37 Otar Oniashvili Street in Saburtalo: the garden branch of the same studio, and the quieter of the two for a drop-in.
• Yoga Cave, 72 Mikheil Tsinamdzghvrishvili Street: teaching the Yoga in Daily Life system in Georgian, English and Russian. A single class is 25 GEL and monthly passes run from 80 GEL for one class a week to 200 GEL for five.
• Lumos, 71 Sairme Street: a Georgian-language studio with meditation evenings, tai chi, qigong and dance alongside yoga and pilates.
• NinYogaStudio, 73a Vasil Barnovi Street: Ashtanga Mysore and vinyasa in one small room, and where visiting Ashtanga groups hold their morning practice.
• Mira Space, 8 Inasaridze Street in Batumi: yoga, meditation and sound healing in Russian and English, open until 22:00 and closed on Sundays.

Anything from nothing to US$3,950. The donation-based and community retreats cost nothing or a few hundred euros, a week run by a European studio is 700 to 1,550 EUR, and a week sold through an international marketplace is US$1,500 to US$2,100.

2026 prices

These are the per-person prices published for this season, whether the retreat has already run or is still open.

Read the inclusions before you compare the numbers. Two meals a day is normal in the Russian-language market, lunch is usually extra, and mats are provided almost everywhere. Prices quoted only in roubles are set for one home market and do not convert into a Georgian bank transfer, so ask for a figure in GEL or EUR before you pay a deposit.

Height and rain decide this. The coast is subtropical and wet in every month, the mountains are cool and dry in late summer, and the eastern valleys are hot until September. Pick the region first and the venue second.

Mountainous Adjara, from Batumi

Where: the Khulo valley and the villages above it, 1,200 to 1,900 m, reached from Batumi. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Season: April to the end of October. Good for: cool nights in August, no traffic, and a group that wants to switch off without being cut off. Watch out for: the last stretch to most mountain places needs a 4x4, the weather changes fast, and nothing up here is open in winter.

Glamping Tago sits above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,185 m, with a 138 m2 outdoor platform and a 38 m2 yoga dome, twelve tents for two and a nine-bed dorm. The regional tourism department puts summer at about 19 C in the highlands against 24 C in the lowlands, and calls autumn one of the best seasons here. The camp runs on Starlink at about 300 Mbps, so being out of contact up here is a decision the group makes, not something the mountain does for you.

Every meal is cooked at Yurtalicious, our fully vegetarian yurt restaurant: 24 at one long table and up to 32 with extra tables, breakfast buffet 32 GEL and dinner buffet 37 GEL. No meat and no fish come into the kitchen, which is the single question retreat organisers ask us before any other.

Two other Adjara properties take small groups. Eco House Merisi above Keda has glass bedrooms with panoramic jacuzzis at 803 m and its own restaurant, 53 km and about 1 hour 10 minutes from Batumi; it sits up a side valley, 23 km and 37 minutes off the Batumi to Khulo road, so it is a separate trip rather than a stop on the way. Chateau Milisi, also above Keda, is a four-star hotel with a pool with mountain views, a Finnish sauna and a meeting space, but recent guests report poor breakfasts, a hotel-wide water problem and daytime construction noise across the property.

The Black Sea coast

Where: Tsikhisdziri 20 km and 26 minutes north of Batumi, Kvariati 17 km and 23 minutes south. Season: all year, busiest July and August. Good for: short transfers from Batumi airport, sea swimming, and a retreat that needs guests to fly in and out fast. Watch out for: rain in every month and August crowds.

Tsikhisdziri is a cliff-top village of hotels, and both the October Zen sesshin and the 7-day women's retreat are held there. Above Kvariati, Calypso has hosted hatha, aerial and yin yoga retreats with morning practice 08:00 to 10:00 and evening 17:00 to 18:30; count the 470 steep concrete steps down to the beach, which have no railings, into your plan.

Borjomi and Bakuriani

Where: Borjomi at 794 m, Bakuriani at 1,700 m, 186 km from Tbilisi and 147 km from Kutaisi airport. Season: all year, with deep snow from December to March. Good for: pine forest, thermal water, and the only region where a free 10-day course and a five-star spa week sit 60 km apart. Watch out for: August in Borjomi has a mean daily maximum of 29.5 C, which is hot for a sitting practice.

Kokhta Bakuriani is the ski hotel to look at out of season, because it rents event rooms for 50 and for 100 people with projector, screen, flip chart, podium, portable stage and internet at no extra charge; an AV technician, a microphone and printing are charged on top, and enquiries go to reception@kokhta.com. The Borjomi Likani spa in the Likani park hosts the paid five-day reset; recent guests describe being singled out for a minibar check at checkout, and a room that did not match its photos.

Kakheti

Where: the wine valleys east of Tbilisi, 105 to 158 km out. Season: spring and autumn; July afternoons reach 30 to 34 C. Good for: the clearest whole-venue pricing in the country and the shortest transfer from Tbilisi airport. Watch out for: summer heat, and no altitude to escape it.

Horizons at Bakurtsikhe, 105 km and 1 hour 36 minutes from Tbilisi, hires out six cottages with a yoga terrace, pool and sauna. Duende at Lagodekhi has five treehouse cottages with fire pits, cold plunge pools and hot tubs on the national park border, and 85 percent of what an activity costs there goes to the local people who lead it; the fire pit and the hot tub are add-ons, and the coffee is instant. The two sit on one road: taking in Horizons on the Tbilisi to Duende drive adds 2.9 km and 7 minutes. Lopota is the lake resort that appears on every Georgian wellness list; its programme is spa and medical treatment, with no meditation teacher.

Kazbegi and Gudauri

Where: Stepantsminda at 1,740 m, 155 km and 2 hours 37 minutes north of Tbilisi up the Georgian Military Highway. Season: June to early October; September is the steadiest month with days at 16.4 C and nights at 3.5 C. Good for: high mountains within three hours of Tbilisi airport. Watch out for: everything arrives on the one road over the Jvari pass, and Gudauri at 2,200 m holds snow from December through March.

Rooms Kazbegi is the usual base, with a spa, sauna and indoor pool. Gudauri sits on the same road, and Quadrum there has a dedicated yoga room, an indoor pool and a conference room, though at 4.1 from 366 Google reviews it sits below the bar for a recommendation.

Svaneti

Where: Lakhushdi near Mestia, 218 km and 5 hours 21 minutes from Kutaisi airport, and a ten-minute drive from Mestia itself. Season: July and August. Good for: the highest mountains in the country and a genuinely remote week. Watch out for: the drive. The organiser of the Lakhushdi week offers a Kutaisi transfer of about 4.5 hours, a Zugdidi group transfer of about 2.5 hours after the Tbilisi train, or the single daily 30-minute flight to Mestia. Allow more than the timetable says.

Near Tbilisi

Where: Kojori 19 km and 33 minutes from the city, where Bioli sits at 1,151 m; Kiketi 30 km and 39 minutes; Lake Bazaleti 51.5 km and about an hour. Season: all year. Good for: a weekend without a long drive, and a first retreat for a group that cannot take a week off. Watch out for: these are half-day trips from each other, not one loop. Bioli and Kiketi are in different valleys, and going via Bioli adds 22 minutes to the Kiketi drive.

Bioli above Kojori is the one place in Georgia selling a fixed mental-health programme: its three-day Mental Detox at US$950 covers wellness coaching, a chief doctor consultation, spectrometry and a heart-rate variability test, a psychologist session with art therapy, one practice from qigong, yoga or 5 Rhythms, breathing and forest therapy, massage, infrared sauna and halotherapy. It is a medical wellness resort rather than a silent retreat, and priced accordingly.

April to June and September to October are the retreat months, and the two halves of the country swap places in between. Summer works high up and in Svaneti; it is hard work on the coast and in Kakheti. September is the best all-round month: mild everywhere and dry in the lowlands.

Fly into Kutaisi if you are counting money and into Tbilisi or Batumi if you are counting hours. Kutaisi International is the only airport in the region with low-cost airline services and no night-flight restrictions, and it is 147 km from Borjomi, 218 km from Mestia and 141 km from our own valley.

Batumi to Village Tago is 91.7 km, climbing from sea level to 1,185 m, and the first 85 km to Khulo are asphalt. Allow about 2 hours 30 minutes: the last stretch is a 4x4 mountain road and a normal car will not make it. The Khulo cable car is closed for repair, so the jeep taxi is the only way up, and airport arrivals for a group are pooled into several waves of 4x4 transfers. Batumi city buses cost 0.70 GEL after the city council's January 2026 decision, and marshrutka 77 to Keda and all the Khulo services leave the old Batumi bus station.

Coming by minibus with a whole group, take the Skhalta valley way instead. You turn off the Batumi to Akhaltsikhe road at Zamleti, 4.7 km before Khulo, then climb through Cheri, Dzmagula and Samtsukhi: 94 km and about 2 hours from Batumi, a little longer than the Khulo road but an easier one that normal cars and minibuses handle.

You rent a small property whole, bring your own teacher and let the venue cook. That is how almost every retreat in the country is run, and it is the only way to get the dates, the group and the programme you actually want.

Glamping Tago, Village Tago (Adjara)

Where: above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,185 m. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Capacity: 12 to 33 on site in twelve Lotus Belle tents for two and a nine-bed half-dome dorm. Practice spaces: a 138 m2 outdoor platform under a sailcloth tent and a 38 m2 geodesic yoga dome with a sprung floor, mats, blocks, bolsters, projector, screen, speaker and microphone. Season: 1 April to the end of October. Good for: silence, altitude and a fully vegetarian kitchen. Watch out for: the 4x4 road up, and no massage table and no gong on site.

Whole-property buyout per night, 2026 season: April 1,962 GEL, May 2,520 GEL, June 3,584 GEL, July 4,488 GEL, August 4,488 GEL, September 3,584 GEL, October 2,316 GEL. That covers all twelve tents and the dorm with both practice spaces, the sauna, the campfire and the sound equipment. Exclusive use as an event carries a 2,000 GEL privatisation fee.

Food is 100 GEL per person per day for full board, all vegetarian, or a group menu: Georgian supra 85 GEL a head, Euro-Georgian buffet 125 GEL, a signature five-course menu 215 GEL from 30 guests. Vegan and gluten-free are arranged with notice. A sunrise yoga session with one of our teachers is included with every stay, and add-ons run from 40 GEL a head for the wood-fired sauna with cold plunges and from 300 GEL a group for a guided forest and herb walk. Bathrooms are two shared blocks with two showers and two toilets each, towels and bedding are provided, laundry is 15 GEL, and quiet hours start at 23:00.

Groups larger than 33 sleep in upgraded village guesthouses three to ten minutes walk away, where seven families keep 27 rooms and 64 beds at 150 GEL a room a night, plus room for about 60 campers. Own tents and campervans are free for a group that has booked the whole property. The largest group housed this way was over 100 people. Two groups can run at the same time and the team splits the practice spaces between them by slot, so a partial buyout still gets its own hours in the dome and on the platform. European studios book the season the same way: the Prague Yoga Collective came back for a third year in 2026 with two seven-day terms, 23 to 30 August and 9 to 16 September.

Horizons, Bakurtsikhe (Kakheti)

Where: Bakurtsikhe, 105 km and 1 hour 36 minutes from Tbilisi. Price: from 2,715 GEL a night for six cottages, VAT included, with 10 percent off for two nights. Four cottages is the minimum that makes the venue exclusive, so no outside guests walk through your practice. Included: yoga terrace, pool, sauna and breakfast, with vegetarian menus as an add-on. Good for: the clearest published whole-venue price in the country. Watch out for: summer heat in Kakheti, and no altitude to escape it.

Kokhta Bakuriani

Where: Kokhta Dziri at Bakuriani, 1,700 m. Included: event rooms for 50 and for 100 people with projector, screen, flip chart, podium, portable stage and wired and wireless internet at no extra charge; an AV technician, microphone and printing are charged on top. Enquiries go to reception@kokhta.com. Good for: a weekend retreat out of ski season with a buffet and alpine rooms. Watch out for: it is a ski resort hotel rather than a retreat venue, and nothing about the meeting rooms is built for sitting on the floor.

Kiketi Farm, near Tbilisi

Where: Kiketi, 29.6 km and 39 minutes from Tbilisi. Spaces: greenhouses for 30 to 100 and 50 to 150 guests, a meadow for 150 to 200 standing and a waterfall space, plus a spa over the Asureti valley with Nordic walking, pilates and sound healing. Good for: a large one-day programme close to the capital. Watch out for: guests through September 2026 report extensive noisy construction across the property, with heavy machinery and trucks, so ask what is being built before you book a silent day.

Laguna Beach Club, Lake Bazaleti

Where: Lake Bazaleti, 51.5 km and about an hour from Tbilisi. Price: an all-inclusive package at 140 GEL per person with a double or triple room and three meals a day, 160 GEL with pool and sauna, and a 55 m2 conference room at 700 GEL. It takes groups from eight people and names yoga retreats among the events it hosts. Good for: the cheapest full-board venue near Tbilisi for a training-style retreat. Watch out for: it is a lakeside club built for conferences, so book the whole thing if you want quiet.

Duende, Lagodekhi

Where: the Lagodekhi national park border, 157 km and 2 hours 25 minutes from Tbilisi. Capacity: five treehouse cottages, which caps a group below twenty. Included: river swimming, cold plunge pools and activities led by local people. Good for: a small, high-end group. Watch out for: the fire pit and the hot tub are charged on top and the coffee is instant.

What to book, in what order

1. Pick the region and the month first, from the season table above. June to September dates at a small venue go 6 to 12 months ahead.
2. Hold the dates. With us a 30 percent non-refundable prepayment of the total confirms a booking, and dates hold one week without payment.
3. Book the venue before the teacher's flights, not after. There are a handful of whole-property venues in the country and they take one group at a time.
4. Have the venue register a foreign teacher in the state labour-migration system before the retreat starts, as below.
5. Send the programme 30 days ahead so the kitchen and the practice spaces can be built around it.
6. Fix the headcount in writing at 14 days and the room or tent list at 7 days. Before that, tents come off the bill freely over 60 days out, up to two from 60 to 30 days and one more from 30 to 14 days.
7. Sort transfers last, once you know arrival times, and pool airport arrivals into waves rather than booking one car per guest.

Does a foreign teacher need a work permit?

No permit, but somebody has to register them. Georgia's 2026 labour migration reform now requires a right to work for most paid activity here, and exempts short-term professional activity: a defined, temporary engagement of no more than four months in a calendar year, carried out inside a lawful stay, which the year of visa-free entry covers. Leading one retreat fits that definition in the Law on Labour Migration, so there is no work or residence permit to apply for.

The exemption is not automatic. Before the retreat begins, the Georgian venue or organiser has to register the teacher in the state's electronic labour-migration system and submit their details, role and dates. Registration is free. If it is missing, or the agency has not confirmed it, the week does not count as short-term professional activity and both the teacher and the venue can be held liable. A teacher who runs retreats here season after season, or takes on regular local classes, needs the full right to work from the State Employment Promotion Agency instead, and usually a registered Georgian company.

Running a day of silence

Agree four things with the venue before you arrive, because they are what every silent group we host asks about. When the silence starts, to the hour, on arrival day. Whether staff may still speak to guests to explain where things are, or hand over notes instead. How other guests are kept out of the practice space, which with a whole-property buyout is simply nobody else being on site. And what the floor kit is: with us, mats, blocks and bolsters are in the dome, and groups sitting on the ground for two-hour blocks bring or ask for extra cushions and blankets.

If you want a practice led by someone local, Sangeeta Space in Batumi builds gong ceremonies and meditation concerts around a venue, and Zen Travel in Tbilisi assembles yoga and meditation programmes in Svaneti, Kazbegi and other regions to order.

• Two Georgias. georgiameditation.org publishes Vipassana, Zen and Tibetan group listings under the heading Georgia and every group on it is in Atlanta. The Kadampa centre named for Georgia is in Atlanta too, and so are both Vipassana centres the worldwide directory holds under the name.
• Booking Gomarduli. The old retreat centre in the Adjara hills is permanently closed on both of its Google entries. It is still the first Adjara retreat centre most AI answers name.
• Trusting a marketplace on Georgia. BookRetreats fills its Georgia pages with retreats in Armenia, Turkey, Cyprus and Switzerland, and only two of the retreats it sells for Georgia are physically in the country: the Borjomi reset and the Tsikhisdziri women's week.
• Expecting a monastery to run a retreat. Georgian monasteries are working Orthodox communities. Some take pilgrims overnight by arrangement, but none of them runs a silent retreat with a teacher and a programme.
• Reading a spa hotel as a retreat. Tskaltubo, Sairme, Lopota and Rooms Kazbegi appear on every Georgian wellness list. They sell thermal water, healing mud and massage, with no teacher, no silence and no programme.
• Assuming a waitlist is an opening. Baghi in the Adjara highlands takes waitlist sign-ups only, with no bookable dates.
• Treating a mountain stay as a retreat. A tent with a view is a holiday. A retreat needs a practice space nobody walks through, a kitchen that serves at your hours, and a group that has agreed to the same rules.
• Planning side valleys as stops on the way. In Adjara and around Tbilisi the second venue is almost always in a different valley. Eco House Merisi adds 37 minutes to the Khulo drive, Chateau Milisi 26 minutes, and Bioli 22 minutes to the Kiketi drive. Each is a separate trip.
• Leaving the phone question open. Only the Vipassana courses take your devices off you: they are handed to the management for the whole course. The Metta.Land retreat and our Digital Detox week switch the group off at the opening circle, ours into a locked box. Everywhere else, switching off is your own decision and nobody will make it for you.

Glamping Tago for this

Glamping Tago for a meditation retreat

We are on the hill above Village Tago in Khulo municipality, mountainous Adjara, at about 1,185 m, 2.5 to 3 hours from Batumi. We have hosted retreats here since 2018, and for your dates the whole property is yours: nobody else walks past a practice, and the silence you agree on is the only rule on site.

You practise on a 138 m2 outdoor platform under a sailcloth tent or in the 38 m2 geodesic yoga dome, which has a sprung floor, mats, blocks, bolsters, a projector, a screen and a microphone, and which is also the wet-weather plan for anything outdoors. The kitchen at Yurtalicious is fully vegetarian, full board is 100 GEL per person per day, and vegan and gluten-free menus are built around the group. Sunrise yoga with one of our teachers is included with every stay.

Groups over 33 people sleep in village guesthouses three to ten minutes walk away: the biggest group we have housed that way was more than 100 people on a six-night meditation retreat. If you would rather join something than organise it, our Digital Detox & Mental Health Week runs 26 October to 1 November 2026 with phones handed in at the start.

The practical limits are worth knowing before you plan: the last stretch of road needs a 4x4, the camp is open 1 April to the end of October, there is no massage table and no gong, and mountain nights are cold even in August.

Guests

12 to 33 on site, over 100 with the village guesthouses

Beds on site

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

Practice spaces

138 m2 outdoor platform and a 38 m2 yoga dome with mats, blocks and bolsters

Whole-property buyout

1,962 GEL a night in April to 4,488 GEL in July and August, 2026 season

Food

Fully vegetarian, full board 100 GEL per person per day

Season

1 April to the end of October

Getting here

2.5 to 3 hours from Batumi: 85 km of asphalt to Khulo, then 30 to 35 minutes by 4x4 at 75 GEL a car, or 265 GEL straight from Batumi

Internet

Starlink across the camp, about 300 Mbps

Plan your retreatContact us