Georgia: Svaneti, Mestia and Ushguli
Svaneti Georgia Trip Report
In late March 2024, two friends and I took a two-week trip to the Svaneti region of Georgia including Mestia and Ushguli. There is a massive amount of drool-inducing ski terrain. The whole trip ended up being pretty darn cheap, $700 USD per person for everything thing but airfare for the 14-day trip.
Days 1 and 2. Tbilisi
While you can fly into Kutaisi, Georgia and be closer to the Svaneti region, Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, has a lot more to offer and was a nice way to spend a few days getting over jetlag. Bolt is the most common version of Uber there and worked pretty well for getting around places to far to walk. On the way to the airport at the end of the trip, our supposed XL Bolt ride ended up being a midsized hatchback with a roof rack. The driver was super game to strap ski bags on the roof so it all worked out.
Most of the places we stayed were homes where part of the building had been converted into guest rooms and the family lived in the other part. Each morning in Tbilisi, the matriarch of the guest house provided us with a huge breakfast spread and vodka (Chacha) shots before we headed out to walk around town. Not knowing much about Georgia customs, shots with breakfast were something we did our best to take in stride. This “custom” wasn’t shared at any of the other places so we still have no idea if this first place was playing a joke on us or thought it was something dumb American tourists would eat up.
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The historic district of Tbilisi had plenty for 2 days of sightseeing. Highlights include the sulfur bathhouses. We opted for the cheap, $3, public option.
Tons of old churches and monasteries.
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The great recession hit Georgia pretty hard so the main downtown has a bunch of big modern architecture buildings that are finished on the outside but unfinished/closed on the inside.
Stalin was Georgian and in the 1900s ran a secret underground printing press creating publications for the communist revolution in Tbilisi. Tours of the reconstructed compound, it was blown up in 1908, are led by an old member of the Georgian Communist Party. The guide only spoke 40 words of English and would do things like utter “capitalism” and spit on the ground. Once he learned we were from America gave us the extra long tour essentially to convince us to bring communism back to the U.S.. We received the full communist party line retelling of the rise of Stalin without the parts of mass murders, which ended up being one of the most memorable cultural experiences of the trip.
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Our tour guide insisted we sign the guest book and also sign away any future political ambitions in the US.
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In most of the restaurants we went to the expectation is you know what you want to order pretty quickly. A couple of times we had a waiter ask us what we wanted to order a few minutes after sitting down. When we asked for more time they actually rolled their eyes at us, walked away, and never came back. A different waiter did take our order a little later. Once we knew to figure out what we wanted quickly everyone was super nice.
Day 3 Drive from Tbilisi to Mestia
We rented a used 05’ 4x4 Nissan SUV through a company similar to Toro. It was cheap and handled the rough roads of Georgia. A couple of times we were glad to have gotten something with locking differentials for driving closer to the snowline. If you don’t rent a car the private cars called marshrutkas are pretty cost-effective ways to get around. For us having our own car gave us more flexibility to chase better snow conditions and see more of the country but wasn’t necessary. Georgia drivers are a good bit more aggressive than US drivers and things like lane lines or speed limits are more like suggestions. In most places where traffic slows at a stoplight or intersection cars will squeeze two abreast in single lanes or if another car wants to be in your lane they will just slowly edge into your lane until you let them in.
The drive from Tbilisi to Mestia took a bit over 8 hours with some stops at some old ruins and roadside food along the way. The sweet bean bread, Nazuki, only found in the town of Surami is seriously good. We passed a ton of livestock grazing the roadsides that seemed pretty car-savvy but it was still pretty unnerving to see a train of cars zooming at highway speeds within feet of a group of cows. The road up from the flat western plains of Georgia to Mestia is 2.5 hours of incredibly windy narrow paved roads up a river gorge. You do pass some cool completed and uncomplete Soviet-era hydro projects along the way. There is a domestic air service that flies into Mestia from Kutasi when the weather is good for quite cheap that sounded like a great option provided you don’t get unlucky with the weather.
