Quick answer
Most passports get a year visa-free, but since 1 January 2026 you must carry health insurance of at least 30,000 GEL. Cards work in cities and cash rules everywhere else; a metro ride is 1 GEL, the van to Kazbegi 20 GEL, a good dinner for two 60 to 80 GEL. English is fine in Tbilisi and thin outside it. Take your shoes off at the door, wait for the first toast, and do not argue politics.
- Visa-free stay
- 1 year
- Insurance
- 30,000 GEL
- Currency
- GEL
- Time zone
- UTC+4
1. It is Georgia the country, not the US state
You will have to say "Georgia the country" in every conversation with someone who has not been, and the Atlanta jokes never stop. Sakartvelo, as Georgians call it, sits on the south side of the Greater Caucasus between Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has about 3.66 million people by the 2024 census, its own language and alphabet, the oldest evidence of winemaking anywhere, and nothing to do with peaches. When booking flights, search for Tbilisi, code TBS, or Kutaisi, code KUT.
2. Visa-free for a year, but insurance is mandatory
Citizens of the 90 countries on the government's visa-free list, which includes every EU state, the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel and the Gulf states, can enter and stay for one full year with no visa, no registration and no fee. That is the most generous entry rule you will meet anywhere. Holders of a valid visa or residence permit from the US, EU, UK, Gulf and a few other places get 90 days in any 180 instead; everyone else needs a visa, online at evisa.gov.ge for some passports and at an embassy for the rest. Our entry checker gives the answer for your passport, and the visa and entry guide has the list, the overstay fines and the 2026 changes.
3. It is safe, and the roads are the risk
Numbeo rates walking alone in Tbilisi by day as very high safety and at night as high, and violent crime against visitors is rare. People walk home at 03:00 through the old town and nothing happens. The dangers here are the ones you can manage: traffic, dogs, mountain weather and, in one narrow sense, politics. Georgia recorded 469 road deaths in 2025, fines went up on 1 May 2026, and pedestrian crossings are not the protection they are at home, so look both ways twice.
Two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are not accessible from Georgia-controlled territory; the UK and US governments advise against all travel to them and to the land along their boundary lines. Do not attempt it from either side. The rest of the country is open, and the safety guide goes through the crime data, the advisories and the real hazards in detail.
4. It is not as cheap as the old blogs say
Georgia used to be absurdly cheap and rural Georgia still is. Tbilisi has caught up: a decent dinner for two is now 60 to 80 GEL (about $23 to 31) before wine, a couple in a good guesthouse eating in restaurants spends 200 to 370 GEL a day, and museum tickets have risen more than once. It remains excellent value against western Europe, but not the "$20 a day" of a 2019 post. The figures below are from our budget guide, priced in September 2026, and the budget calculator builds a total for your dates.
| Style | Per day |
|---|---|
| Backpacker | 90 to 150 GEL (about $35 to 58): hostel dorm, bakeries and canteens, metro and marshrutkas, one paid entry. |
| Mid-range couple | 200 to 370 GEL for two (about $77 to 142): a good guesthouse or small hotel, restaurant meals, the odd Bolt, a day trip. |
| Comfort | 600 GEL or more (about $230 and up): design hotels, private drivers, the better tables, a rental car. |
5. The alphabet looks hard and is not
Georgian is written in its own script, mkhedruli, with 33 letters, no capitals and no relation to Latin, Cyrillic or Arabic. You do not need it for a short visit: menus in the tourist parts of Tbilisi carry English, main road signs are bilingual, and maps apps work. But ten letters take an afternoon, and after that marshrutka windscreens, bus-yard boards, shop fronts and small-town menus stop being noise.
If you want to do that properly rather than from a phrasebook table, EasyGeorgian's alphabet page goes through all 33 letters with audio, which is the level you need to read a destination sign in a bus yard without help.
6. English drops off outside Tbilisi
In Tbilisi you will be fine in hotels, cafes and restaurants, and with anyone under about 35. In Kutaisi and Batumi you will manage. In Mestia or Sighnaghi expect gestures, and in a Tusheti village you are on your own. Russian is the bridge language with older Georgians, but not everyone speaks it and some would rather you did not open with it. A Georgian hello, gamarjoba, and a thank you, madloba, change the tone of every exchange; the phrases guide has the twenty that matter, with the pronunciation that the spelling hides.
7. The food is the point
Georgian cooking is its own thing, not Mediterranean, not Middle Eastern, not Russian. Khachapuri, the cheese bread, and khinkali, the pleated dumplings, get the headlines; the depth is in walnut sauces, slow stews, plates of herbs, bread from a clay oven and pomegranate on everything, and every region has its own dishes. Three things to know: portions are large and the table is shared, so order fewer dishes than you think; vegetarians do well, and vegans need the fasting word samarkhvo, explained in the vegetarian and vegan guide; and breakfast in a guesthouse is a full meal. Start with what to eat in Georgia.
8. Wine is not a drink here
Georgia has the oldest evidence of winemaking anywhere: grape residue in Neolithic pottery from Gadachrili Gora, south of Tbilisi, dated to more than 8,000 years ago. Wine runs through celebrations, funerals, church and an ordinary Tuesday. The traditional method ferments the grapes with skins and stems in clay qvevri buried in the ground, which gives the amber wines their colour and tannin; they are an acquired taste, and the European-style bottles are also good and more familiar.
It is affordable. House wine by the glass starts at about 5 GEL, a restaurant bottle adds 25 to 60 GEL to dinner, and a tasting at a family cellar in Kakheti is often free if you buy a bottle. Kakheti, the main wine region, is an hour and a half to two hours east of Tbilisi and worth a night; the day-trip comparison costs out the tour, the driver and the van.
9. The supra will find you
A supra is the Georgian feast, led by a tamada, the toastmaster, whose toasts run in a set order: to God, to the country, to family, to the dead, to the guests. Each one is drunk, and there are many. Stay in guesthouses, go to a harvest or make one Georgian friend and you will be at one. Two rules from the supra guide: wait for the first toast before you drink, and pace yourself, because the meal is always longer than you think. Saying you do not drink is respected, though you may be gently tested on it.
10. Transport works, on its own terms
Between cities you have marshrutkas (minibuses), trains, shared taxis, fixed-price drivers and rental cars. The vans are cheap, leave when full or on a rough timetable, and the driving is assertive. The trains are comfortable and limited to a few lines. Fares below were confirmed on the linked pages in September 2026.
| Option | Cost and notes |
|---|---|
| Marshrutka | Kazbegi 20 GEL, Kutaisi 25 GEL, Batumi 25 to 35 GEL from Tbilisi. Cash to the driver. The marshrutka guide and the bus stations guide have the yards and times. |
| Train | Tbilisi to Batumi 36 GEL second class, 76 GEL first, 4 hours, two to four double-deckers a day by season. Book on tkt.ge; see the trains guide. |
| Bolt | Short central Tbilisi ride 4 to 7 GEL, across the city 8 to 15 GEL, airport to the centre 15 to 25 GEL. Georgia's Uber; see the Bolt guide. |
| Metro and bus | 1 GEL a ride with a 2 GEL Metromoney card or a contactless bank card; the metro runs from 06:00 to midnight. The metro guide has the map. |
| Fixed-price driver | GoTrip quotes a price per car before you book: Tbilisi to Kazbegi 210 GEL, which four people split at 52 GEL each for a day that stops where they want. |
| Rental car | From about $24 a day on Localrent with no deposit (read 27 September 2026); see the driving section below. |
11. Driving here is fine on the main roads
A rental car is the best way to see the countryside and it comes with conditions. Lane discipline is loose, overtaking on bends happens, cows use the road, and the mountain routes can be single-lane gravel with big drops. The main highways are good and getting better: the Rikoti expressway between east and west Georgia was finished in December 2025 and is dual carriageway and tunnels most of the way. Traffic fines went up on 1 May 2026 and the drink-driving limit is one glass, so drive sober and defensively and you will be fine.
Two things the blogs get wrong. Ushguli is now on a sealed road, 60 to 90 minutes from Mestia, and does not need a 4x4 in summer. Tusheti does, and no rental contract allows it; the shared jeeps from Kvemo Alvani cost 100 to 120 GEL a seat over the Abano Pass. The car rental guide lists the roads your contract bans, the insurance tiers and the no-deposit trick.
12. Cards in cities, cash everywhere else
Visa and Mastercard work almost everywhere in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi, Apple Pay and Google Pay included, and ATMs from TBC and Bank of Georgia, the two banks nearly everyone here uses, are on every corner. Outside the cities cash takes over: marshrutka drivers, market stalls, village guesthouses and small sites are cash only. Carry lari. Dollars and euros exchange well in Tbilisi but buy nothing directly.
13. The weather changes by region, not by month
Georgia is small on a map and has half a dozen climates. Tbilisi's mean daily high is about 32 degrees in July and August with hotter spells, and its January nights sit around freezing (1991-2020 normals). Batumi is the wettest city in the Caucasus at about 2,500 mm of rain a year and stays mild through winter. The high valleys are snowbound for months: the Tusheti road is shut from late October until June and the Juta road did not open until June in 2026. Kakheti is dry and hot. Pack layers whatever the month, and check the forecast for each region separately; the packing guide and the packing list tool do it by season and activity.
14. SIM cards and data are cheap
Buy a Magti SIM (10 GEL, passport needed) at a Magti shop and add data in the app: 5 GB for 12 GEL, unlimited for 10 GEL a week or 35 GEL a month, with the best mountain coverage of the three networks. Silknet and Cellfie are the alternatives. 4G in cities is fast; in the mountains download offline maps first. The SIM card guide has the current packages and where to buy at the airport.
15. Tap water, with a caveat about pipes
Tbilisi's water comes from the mountains rather than a lowland river, the utility, Georgian Water and Power, publishes its own quality reports, and most residents drink from the tap. The variable is the building: in older blocks the pipes are old, and after works on the street the water can run brown for a day, in which case buy bottles until it clears. In small towns and villages ask your host. The springs you pass on mountain trails are what shepherds and hikers drink, and they are cold enough to hurt.
16. Tbilisi is not Georgia
Plenty of visitors spend the whole trip in the capital and think they have seen the country. Tbilisi is a good city: old balconies, sulphur baths, a serious bar and restaurant scene, and the first-time guide covers it. The rest is churches on cliff edges, tower villages, cheese made in a back yard and mountains that look unreal. Kazbegi is three hours north, Kakheti an hour and a half east, Svaneti a day's travel west; our 7-day itinerary fits the first two into a week with two nights in Tbilisi at each end.
17. The stray dogs are friendly
Georgia has a large population of free-roaming dogs and they are the first thing many visitors notice: asleep on pavements, adopted by cafe terraces, walking with hikers for hours. In Tbilisi most wear a plastic ear tag with a number, which means the dog has been neutered, vaccinated against rabies and returned to its street under the city's catch-neuter-vaccinate-release programme, and a government ordinance of 25 February 2026 extended the same approach to the regions. Tagged city dogs are, as a rule, docile and well fed. Give an untagged village dog space, especially near sheep, where the big shepherd dogs are working animals; the safety guide covers bites and rabies.
18. Churches are central, and there is a dress code
King Mirian III adopted Christianity as the state religion in 337, and 82 percent of the population was Orthodox at the last census. Churches and monasteries are everywhere, from city squares to ridge tops, and they are working buildings, not museums. Women cover their heads and shoulders inside, men wear long trousers, and the busy churches lend scarves and wrap skirts at the door. No flash, no photos where a sign says so, no wandering about during a service. The church etiquette guide has the rules church by church.
19. The protest headlines are not the trip
Georgia has had regular political demonstrations since late 2024. The UK Foreign Office's July 2026 update describes them as focused on the Parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi, with the potential to spread, particularly on Saturday evenings and on anniversaries of political events, and notes that some have led to confrontation between police and protesters. Its advice, which is ours too: check local news, avoid large gatherings, follow police instructions and do not take part. Outside the few hundred metres around Parliament the city runs as normal, and restaurants, museums, tours and transport are unaffected. Keep your own views on Georgian politics to yourself in a bar; people here hold strong ones and you are a guest.
20. Come in the shoulder months
May, June, September and October give warm weather, open roads, green or golden landscapes and fewer people. July and August are hot in Tbilisi and peak season in the mountains and on the coast. Winter is cold and quiet, good for Tbilisi's cafes and baths and for skiing at Gudauri and Bakuriani, but the high valleys are closed. The best-time guide does it month by month, and the autumn, winter and spring pages go deeper on each season.
21. Customs that catch first-timers
- Shoes off at the door. Always, in a home. Slippers appear.
- Bring something. Wine or sweets to a house; flowers in odd numbers. Never offer money for a home-cooked meal.
- Greet the oldest person first, and wait for the tamada's first toast before you drink.
- Hospitality is relentless. Your host will feed you past the point of comfort and then bring another course. Pace yourself from the first plate; refusing outright can offend, slowing down does not.
- Time is flexible. Dinner at eight means sitting down at nine, and the van leaves when it leaves.
- Never whistle indoors, and ask before smoking in a home or garden.
- Men are physically affectionate with each other, arm in arm, cheek kisses, and it means nothing romantic. The country is conservative in other ways: public affection between same-sex couples draws attention outside Tbilisi's more liberal circles.
- Plugs are the European Type C at 220 volts, so most European travellers need nothing and everyone else needs one adapter.
The etiquette guide has the long version, with the toasting order and what to do when a stranger invites you home, which will happen.
Frequently asked questions
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