Why you should explore Georgia right now

Insights and tips from travel specialists, Wego - the largest and most popular travel marketplace in the Middle East, covering Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and more.

Tumbling down from the spiked tops of snow-mantled Svaneti, where the Greater Caucasus Mountains come dressed in spruce forests and topped with moss-growing stone towers, Georgia's backcountry rarely fails to draw a gasp.

It's a land of mist-plumed summits and glaciers, of deep valleys filled with woods, and dusty canyons that spill over into the sloshing sky-blue waters of the Black Sea. And that's without even mentioning the incredible cityscapes: Tbilisi, buzzing with nightlife; Batumi, peppered with palm trees; Telavi, the gateway to the ancient Kakheti wineries. Yep, there are plenty of reasons why you should explore Georgia right now… 

The mountains

Whether you come to don the salopettes and hit the ski slopes, or wax down the walking boots and head out on ancient caravan routes through the peaks, you can rest assured that Georgia has you covered. Much of the country is given over to mountain ranges, with the craggy tops of 5,000-meter-high summits soaring to the clouds in the Greater Caucasus in the north, and the lower ridges of the Lesser Caucasus rising in the south.

Winter sees the cable cars and pistes of resorts such as Bakuriani and Gudauri come to life, while spring heralds the beginning of the hiking season in Upper Svaneti – a mosaic of alpine valleys, fir forests, and carved rock gorges aplenty.

The people

There are plenty of reasons Georgia is famed for its hospitality. It might be the perennial smile worn on the faces of the rustic country folk, going about their business between the crumbling stone towers of Mazeri. It might be the slosh of the local wines in that are uncorked behind the cellar doors of Kakheti region, always clinked with a happy gaumarjos (cheers). It might be the excited way in which the locals of Tbilisi talk about their country; enthralled with its intricate past; excited and inspired for its future.

Because Tbilisi can't be beaten

Straddling the undulating banks of the Kura River, Tbilisi is a city that pulses with life.

The old medieval walls of Narikala Fortress tower on the ridges above the town, standing watch like something out of Game of Thrones. They survey the maze-like mix of cobbled streets and carved Orthodox churches that is Old Tbilisi – the place to go for a taste of real history.

Other districts are imbued with elegant Art Nouveau mansions, bubbling Turkic hammams, grand neo-classical palaces, and even relics of the old Russian tsars. There's oodles to see.