Quick answer
Skip Batumi's own beach for anything longer than a dip and go 20 minutes south to Kvariati or Sarpi, where the pebbles are clean and the water is the clearest on the coast; city bus 16 gets you there for under 1 GEL. Families and anyone who wants sand should go north to Kobuleti (3 GEL by marshrutka, about an hour) or Ureki, 50 km up the coast by road, where the sand is black, magnetic and shallow for a long way out. The sea averages 26°C in July and August and 25°C in September, when the crowds have gone; June is 23°C and October drops to 21°C.
- Coastline
- 310 km
- Sea in August
- 27°C
- Sea in Sept
- 25°C
- Bus to Sarpi
- under 1 GEL
Nobody flies to Georgia for the beach, and if you are expecting Sardinia you will be disappointed. What the coast offers is different: a green wall of hills dropping straight to the sea, water that is half as salty as the Mediterranean and clear over pebbles, tea and tangerine country ten minutes inland, and prices that make a beach day almost free. We use it the way Georgians do, as a decompression stop after the mountains or Kakheti. Everything below was checked on 11 September 2026: sea temperatures against seatemperature.info's monthly averages for Batumi, tickets against the Batumi Botanical Garden's own price list and the Adjara tourism office's Gonio page, city bus and marshrutka fares against wander-lush.org's Batumi guides updated February and March 2026, trains against our own trains guide (tkt.ge, September 2026), car hire against localrent.com and guesthouse prices against Booking.com for a mid-September night. USD figures use the National Bank of Georgia rate on 11 September 2026 (1 USD = 2.61 GEL). On 20 October 2026 we added the beach-by-beach table below, measured every road distance from Europe Square on OpenStreetMap, read GoTrip's own fares for the coast, and re-read the car and guesthouse offers; the October figures convert at 2.60 GEL to the dollar, the NBG rate that day.
Pebbles or sand: the one decision
Georgia's 310 km of coast runs from the Turkish border at Sarpi to the Enguri mouth at Anaklia, and it splits cleanly in two. South of Kobuleti, from Sarpi through Kvariati, Gonio, Batumi and Chakvi, the beaches are smooth grey pebbles: hard on bare feet, beautiful to look at, and the water is clear because there is no sand to stir up. It gets deep within a few steps, which is what swimmers want and parents of small children do not. From Ureki north through Shekvetili, Grigoleti and Anaklia the beach turns to fine dark sand, much of it magnetic, with a shallow shelf you can wade out on for a long way. Pick your half first, then the town.
| Coast | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Pebble coast (south) | Sarpi, Kvariati, Gonio, Batumi, Chakvi and Tsikhisdziri. Smooth pebbles, so bring water shoes and a mat. Deep within a few steps. Clear water, best south of Batumi. For swimmers, couples and anyone based in Batumi. Central Batumi is crowded, the villages much less so |
| Sandy coast (north) | Ureki, Shekvetili, Grigoleti and Anaklia. Fine dark sand, some of it magnetic. A shallow shelf you can wade out on for a long way. Clouds a little when waves stir the sand. For families, small children and long stays. Very busy with Georgian families in July and August |
Batumi's beaches, one by one
The honest answer to "best beach in Batumi" is that the best beaches in Batumi are not in Batumi. The city beach is the pebble strip along the 7 km Boulevard, and it is the only beach on the coast with lifeguards, showers, cafes and a bike path behind it, which is exactly why it is the most crowded and least clean water in Adjara from late June to the end of August. Every other beach in this table is a bus, van or driver away, and the water gets clearer with every kilometre from the port. Our order for a swim: Kvariati, Sarpi, the cove under the Botanical Garden at Green Cape, Gonio, Tsikhisdziri, then the Boulevard. For sand there is nothing within 25 km; Kobuleti is the nearest, Ureki the best.
| Beach, km | What you get |
|---|---|
| Batumi Boulevard, 0 to 3 | Pebbles along the 7 km park strip from the port and Miracle Park south to the New Boulevard towers. Lifeguards, showers, sunbed hire, cafes on the sand. Crowded in summer. Getting there: on foot or by hire bike |
| Makhinjauri, 7 north | A small pebble beach under green hills in the old spa village, with sulphur springs whose bath complex the tourism office lists as under modernisation. Batumi Central station, where the Tbilisi trains end, is here. Getting there: Bolt, about 12 minutes; city buses stop at the station |
| Green Cape (Mtsvane Kontskhi), 10 north | A pebble cove below the Botanical Garden with the clearest water north of the city; the tourism office calls it the coast's diving spot. A restaurant, rarely a crowd. Getting there: buses 10 and 10a to the garden's lower entrance, then the path down |
| Chakvi, 14 north | Calm pebble beaches at the mouth of the Chakvistskali in tea country, with resort hotels and cafes behind them and Mtirala National Park inland. Getting there: Kobuleti vans, ask to be dropped |
| Gonio, 14 south | A wide pebble beach with a promenade, sunbed hire, restaurants and parking; the Roman fort of Gonio-Apsaros a few minutes inland (15 GEL). Getting there: bus 16 or any Sarpi van (1.50 GEL) |
| Kvariati, 16 south | The best pebble beach on the coast: clean stones, water you can see the bottom of, guesthouses on the slope, deep within a few steps. Coves under the cliffs to the south. Getting there: bus 16 or a Sarpi van; a GoTrip driver from 64 GEL per car |
| Tsikhisdziri, 20 north | A black-rock beach under the sixth-century Petra fortress, with a sea arch and a swimming platform. A morning swim on the way to Kobuleti. Getting there: Kobuleti vans, ask to be dropped |
| Sarpi, 20 south | A few hundred metres of clean pebbles against the Turkish border, water as clear as Kvariati, sunbeds for hire, and the only cliff-jumping spot in Adjara according to the tourism office. Lorry noise from the crossing. Getting there: bus 16 to the terminal; a GoTrip driver from 92 GEL per car |
| Kobuleti, 27 north | The first sand: 10 km of coarse dark sand and pebbles with a gradual entry, a pine park and a long promenade behind it. Getting there: vans 3 GEL from the Holy Spirit church car park, or the Tbilisi train |
| Shekvetili, 44 north | Dark magnetic sand backed by pine forest, the Miniature Park and the Black Sea Arena; the quieter of the two sand resorts. Getting there: Poti-bound vans from Batumi bus station |
| Ureki, 50 north | Fine black magnetic sand, shallow for 30 to 40 m out, the most child-friendly water on the coast; packed in July and August. Getting there: Poti vans, the Tbilisi train, or a GoTrip driver from 116 GEL per car |
Distances are road kilometres from Europe Square in the old town, measured on OpenStreetMap on 20 October 2026 and rounded; the Adjara tourism office's own figures (Green Cape 9 km, Gonio 12, Chakvi 15, Sarpi 20, Kobuleti 20) measure from a different point in the city and come out a little shorter on the south side. Driving times are 12 minutes to Makhinjauri, about 20 to Kvariati and Sarpi, half an hour to Kobuleti and just under an hour to Ureki without summer traffic, which can double the southern times on a July Saturday afternoon. GoTrip prices are the cheapest driver listed for the one-way route on 20 October 2026, per car, not per person; the earlier loop prices from wander-lush (Gonio, Kvariati and Sarpi as one round trip from 60 GEL) were a March 2026 reading and the site no longer lists Kobuleti as a route.
South of Batumi: Gonio, Kvariati, Sarpi
Batumi's own beach is the pebble strip along the 7 km Boulevard, laid out in 1884 and still the city's living room in the evening. It is fine for a swim between the cafes and the outdoor showers, but in July and August it is the most crowded water on the coast and not the cleanest. The city is worth your time; the beach is not, when the good ones are a bus ride away. Our Batumi guide covers the town.
Gonio, 14 km south of the old town by road, is a wider pebble beach with restaurants, sunbed hire and parking, and the Roman fortress of Gonio-Apsaros just inland: built in the first century AD, held by the Byzantines and then the Ottomans, and now an open-air museum with a symbolic tomb of the Apostle Matthias. Entry is 15 GEL (about $6) for foreign visitors, 10 GEL for Georgian citizens and 2 GEL for children aged 6 to 16, open daily until 18:00, audio guide 15 GEL. A morning at the fort and an afternoon in the water is the easy day trip from the city.
Kvariati, the next village along, is the best pebble beach on the coast and where Batumi people go to swim: a curve of clean stones under steep green hills, water you can see the bottom of, a strip of guesthouses and a few restaurants on the shore, and water that gets deep within a few steps. It is not secluded, but it is quiet compared with the city, and it is the one beach we would pick for a whole day. Walk south along the rocks from the main beach and you find pebble coves under the cliffs with nobody in them; wear water shoes.
Sarpi, 20 km from the old town by road, is where Georgia ends: a few hundred metres of clean pebbles under a cliff, with the wave-shaped border terminal at one end and the fence running down into the sea. The water is as clear as Kvariati's, the beach is smaller, the village is Laz and has a small museum about the community, and you get lorry noise from the crossing. Turkey is a 15-minute walk away if your passport allows it; our border guide explains the crossing.
Green Cape, Chakvi and Tsikhisdziri
Mtsvane Kontskhi, the Green Cape, is 10 km north of the old town by road (9 km by the garden's own reckoning) and is really about the Batumi Botanical Garden: 108.7 hectares of subtropical collections on a headland above the sea, founded in 1912, open 09:00 to 19:00, 25 GEL (about $10) for foreign visitors and 10 GEL for Georgian citizens and residents. Walk the trails and viewpoints for two or three hours, then follow the path down to the small pebble beach under the cliffs, where there is a restaurant and rarely a crowd; the tourism office calls the water here the clearest north of the city and the coast's diving spot. On the way, 7 km from the old town, Makhinjauri is the old spa village with Batumi Central station in it: a small pebble beach under the hills, sulphur springs whose bath complex is being modernised, and the place to swim if you have an hour before a train. Buses 10 and 10a run along Gogebashvili Street from the city to the garden's lower entrance for the standard fare.
Chakvi, a small resort at the mouth of the Chakvistskali in tea country 14 km north, and Tsikhisdziri, 20 km north and 8 km short of Kobuleti, are the last pebble beaches. Tsikhisdziri has the ruins of the sixth-century fortress of Petra on the headland, a black-rock beach with a sea arch and a swimming platform below it, and a couple of resort hotels. It is a local favourite for a morning swim and a good stop on the way to Kobuleti.
Kobuleti: the family resort
Kobuleti, 27 km north of the old town by road, is where the pebbles give way to coarse dark sand and the coast changes character. It was the Soviet Union's sanatorium town and still feels like it in the best way: a long grey beach with a gradual entry, a tree-lined promenade with cafes and Adjarian restaurants behind it, Georgian families grilling mtsvadi until midnight in August, and a few abandoned Brutalist hotels on the waterfront that photographers come for. It is not glamorous and it runs out of things to do after two days, but for a cheap, unpretentious few days on sand it is hard to beat. The Kobuleti Nature Reserve behind the town, a peat bog with a boardwalk and a lookout tower, is part of the UNESCO-listed Colchic rainforests and wetlands if you want a half day off the beach.
Marshrutkas to Kobuleti leave Batumi throughout the day from the car park beside the Church of the Holy Spirit, 3 GEL (about $1.15) and about an hour; ask the driver to drop you at Tsikhisdziri on the way if you want the fortress first. The fast trains from Tbilisi also stop at Kobuleti, 36 GEL in second class, before turning down the coast to Batumi.
Ureki and Shekvetili: the magnetic sand
Ureki is the oddest beach in Georgia. This small Guria town 50 km north of Batumi by road has fine black sand with a high magnetite content, so a magnet held over it comes up furry with grains, and since Soviet times Georgians have come here for the sand's supposed effect on joints, hearts and nerves. The evidence is thin; the tradition is not. Families bury their children to the neck in the warm sand for 15 or 20 minutes in the morning, and the resort has run on that for seventy years. Health claims aside, it has the most child-friendly water on the coast: a shelf so shallow you can wade out 30 or 40 metres and still stand, and soft sand underfoot.
The downsides are real. Ureki has guesthouses and cafes and not much else, cafe prices run high in summer, and in July and August it is packed with Georgian and Russian families. September is the month to come. Shekvetili, just south of Ureki, has the same sand backed by pine forest and fewer people, plus the Miniature Park of scale-model Georgian landmarks, the Black Sea Arena concert venue and a dendrological park; it is the nicer of the two beaches, with the Paragraph resort hotel if you want comfort. Poti-bound vans from Batumi bus station drop you at Shekvetili; Ureki is another 20 minutes up the road by van or taxi. From Tbilisi, the Batumi trains stop at Ureki after 3 hours 23 minutes for the same 36 GEL fare as Batumi.
The quiet end: Grigoleti and Anaklia
Grigoleti, between Ureki and Poti, is the same dark sand with almost nothing behind it but pine forest and a few seasonal cafes: calm, shallow and as close to a wild beach as this coast gets. Bring water and food. Skip the stretch around Poti itself, Georgia's main commercial port, and swim north or south of it instead; the Kolkheti wetlands behind the town are the reason to stop, not the sea.
Anaklia, at the mouth of the Enguri and the last beach before the line with Abkhazia, is a wide sandy beach with a modern promenade, a footbridge and a half-built resort skyline from a development that stalled a decade ago. It is changing again: construction of Georgia's deep-sea port started here in 2026, with dredging vessels working offshore through the summer and the first phase targeted for 2029, so expect works next to the promenade for years. The beach itself is still broad and mostly empty. Abkhazia beyond it is not accessible from Georgian-controlled territory; do not attempt it.
The water: temperature, salt, jellyfish
The Black Sea's surface water is about 17 practical salinity units against 38 for the Mediterranean, so it tastes and feels less salty, floats you less and is gentler on the eyes. Currents are mild at the main beaches and there is no surf to speak of; storms bring a day or two of waves and then it settles. Harmless moon jellyfish drift in during warm spells in late summer; locals swim through them. There are no lifeguards outside central Batumi, the pebble beaches drop off fast, and the combination of chacha and the sea is what causes most of the coast's summer accidents.
| Month | Average sea temperature at Batumi |
|---|---|
| May | 16.7°C, too cold for most people |
| June | 22.7°C, swimmable from mid-month |
| July | 25.7°C |
| August | 26.8°C, the warmest month |
| September | 25.1°C, the local "velvet season" |
| October | 21.1°C, fine in a warm year, over by the end of the month |
Monthly averages from seatemperature.info, read on 11 September 2026, when the water at Batumi was 25.4°C. Air temperatures follow the same curve, and the coast gets more rain than inland Georgia, mostly as short thunderstorms that clear within the hour.
When to go
Late June and the first three weeks of September are the answer. June has warm-enough water, empty weekday beaches and lower room rates. July and August are peak: the warmest sea, the whole of the South Caucasus on the same pebbles at weekends, and hotel prices at their highest. Go to Kvariati, Grigoleti or Shekvetili rather than Batumi or Ureki if you must come then, and avoid Saturdays. September is what Georgians call the velvet season: the sea is still 25°C, the crowds leave after the first week, the light turns gold, and it lines up with the grape harvest in Kakheti for the best two-week trip the country offers. October is a gamble that pays off in warm years and rains out in others.
What a beach day costs
Coast prices, checked September 2026
| Item | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Batumi city bus, any route | about 1 GEL | Card only; 70 tetri with a Batumi card |
| Minibus to Gonio or Sarpi | 1.50 GEL | Any Sarpi-bound van |
| Marshrutka to Kobuleti | 3 GEL | From the Holy Spirit church car park, 1 h |
| Gonio-Apsaros fortress | 15 GEL | Foreigners; citizens 10, ages 6 to 16 2 GEL |
| Batumi Botanical Garden | 25 GEL | Foreigners; residents 10 GEL; 09:00 to 19:00 |
| Argo cable car, return | 30 GEL | Children 10 GEL; 11:00 to 20:30 |
| Bike hire on the Boulevard | 5 to 8 GEL an hour | Vendors along the park |
| Train from Tbilisi to Batumi | 36 GEL | Second class, 4 h, two to four a day by season; first 76 |
Prices checked September 2026. Ranges reflect season and operator.
Sunbeds and umbrellas are a few lari at the developed beaches and free where nobody is renting them; agree the price before you sit down in Batumi. Lunch at a beach cafe is 15 to 25 GEL a head in the villages and more on Batumi's Boulevard, where walking one block inland halves the bill and improves the food. Imported sunscreen in Batumi pharmacies is expensive; bring it.
Getting around the coast
One main road and one railway line connect the whole coast, and Batumi is the hub. From Tbilisi, take the train: two to four double-deckers a day by season, 4 hours 1 minute to Batumi for 36 GEL (about $14) in second class or 76 in first, stopping at Ureki and Kobuleti on the way; the Tbilisi to Batumi road trip is the alternative if you have a car. Within Adjara, city buses (card only) cover Gonio, Kvariati, Sarpi and the Botanical Garden, marshrutkas cover Kobuleti and Poti, and a GoTrip driver with a fixed price takes a car of up to three from the city to Kvariati for 64 GEL (about $25), Sarpi 92 ($36) and Ureki 116 ($45) one way, the cheapest Prius and Camry drivers listed on 20 October 2026; the site had no Kobuleti route that day. Book the return as a second leg, or ask the driver to wait, which is a separate price.
A rental car is the only way to see both halves of the coast in a day, and the coast road is good the whole way. Localrent, which we have used for years in Georgia, lists cars for pickup in Batumi with the deposit terms shown before you book; see our car rental guide for how it works.
Where to stay
Batumi if you want restaurants, bars and the Boulevard, and the beaches as day trips; the old town and the streets behind the Boulevard are the best base, and the city has everything from hostels to the Radisson (our where to stay in Batumi page prices each area). Kvariati if the swimming is the point: family guesthouses and small hotels on the slope above the beach, a handful of restaurants on the shore, and nothing to do in the evening but eat and look at the sea. Kobuleti for families on a budget, with guesthouses a few streets back from the sand for less than a Batumi dinner. Shekvetili or Ureki for the sand and the children, booked early for July and August because the same Georgian families return every summer. Early is earlier than you think: on 20 October 2026 Booking.com already showed 82 percent of its Kvariati listings unavailable for Saturday 17 July 2027, nine months out, with ten places left from 100 GEL; Kobuleti still had 158 open from 40 GEL. For apartments in Batumi, Airbnb has the widest choice; the guesthouses along the coast are on Booking.com.
Practical points
- Water shoes. The pebbles are smooth and still hurt after the third trip in and out. A cheap pair changes the day.
- Cash outside Batumi. The city takes cards everywhere; guesthouses in Kvariati, Ureki and Grigoleti often prefer lari. Use a TBC or Bank of Georgia ATM in Batumi before you head out.
- Buses take no cash. Batumi's municipal transport is card only: a contactless bank card works, a Batumi card is cheaper.
- Eat Adjarian. Adjarian khachapuri is the boat-shaped one, borano is cheese in butter, sinori is dough ribbons in curd, and the fish is local. The good places are a block behind the Boulevard, not on it.
- Watch the children on pebbles. No lifeguards, a fast drop-off, and cold spots when the wind turns. The sandy beaches are the safer choice for small ones.
- Rain passes. A morning thunderstorm on the coast is usually over in an hour; do not cancel the beach for it.
Frequently asked questions
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