Day trips from Tbilisi

How to choose, in one number

The useful figure is not the distance. It is hours in the car against hours on the ground. A trip that spends seven hours driving for three hours at the destination is a different kind of day from one that spends two for five, and it is worth knowing the difference before you book.

Every route below is quoted with both numbers. A day charter runs eight to nine hours door to door; anything longer is priced as extra hours rather than quietly rushed.

Kakheti is deliberately absent from the list. The wine day has different rules, because nobody in the party should be driving, and it has its own page: Kakheti with a private chauffeur.

Mtskheta, the half day

About twenty minutes by the national tourism administration's figure, longer in traffic. The old capital sits at the confluence of two rivers and holds Svetitskhoveli, the cathedral that is the reason most people come.

Jvari is the other half of the visit and a separate drive: the church sits at 656 metres on a cliff above the town, and the climb is about fifteen minutes up a winding road. Allow thirty minutes on site.

Door to door from a hotel in Vake or the Old Town, this is roughly an hour of car time and two and a half hours on the ground. It is the only genuine half-day on this list, which makes it the right answer for an arrival day or a departure morning.

Kazbegi and the Military Highway

Three to three and a half hours each way without stops, north up the Georgian Military Highway past Ananuri and over the Cross Pass. Gudauri sits at roughly 2 200 metres on the way.

It is the best-known day trip and the one most often underestimated. Done as a single day it is six to seven hours of driving, which is why we recommend either an overnight or a turn at Ananuri if the party is not committed to the full run.

Season changes the trip completely. In late spring, snow can still line the Kobi–Gudauri road. In winter the climb from Pasanauri to the pass is the entire risk in the day, the barrier goes down several times most seasons, so check it before leaving Tbilisi rather than on arrival at the queue.

Borjomi

About 160 kilometres from Tbilisi: west on the S1 to Khashuri, then south on the S8 into the Kura gorge, at 800 to 850 metres. The drive is about two to two and a half hours each way: reliable, scenic in the second half, and with no mountain pass to negotiate, which makes it the easiest long day on this page. From 1 December to 1 March the S8 through the gorge is one of the stretches where winter tyres are compulsory; driving in Georgia yourself sets out the rule.

Five hours in the car for four to five hours on the ground. That ratio is the best of any full-day destination here, and it is why Borjomi suits guests who want a real day out without a mountain road.

The water divides people. Some find it medicinal and some find it sulphurous, and there is no predicting which in advance.

Kutaisi and the west

220 kilometres each way along the S1, about three and a half hours in each direction. Kutaisi sits in the Rioni valley at about 130 metres, the historical capital of Imereti, with two churches in the hills outside town older than most of European cathedral architecture.

Seven hours of driving for three or four hours on the ground. That is the honest arithmetic, and it is a long day by any measure. It suits guests who specifically want the west, and it is one of the least comfortable ratios on this page.

If the trip is going west anyway, flying out of Kutaisi rather than returning to Tbilisi removes the worst part of the day.

Vardzia

About 225 kilometres south, a twelfth-century monastery cut into a cliff in Samtskhe-Javakheti, close enough to the Turkish and Armenian frontiers that the landscape stops looking like the rest of the country.

Four hours each way on a road that changes character three times, ending in a slow narrow stretch along the Mtkvari gorge. Eight hours of driving and two to three hours on site makes an eleven-hour day, minimum. Rabati fortress at Akhaltsikhe sits directly on the route and adds about an hour at the right point to break the drive.

Spring and autumn. The site is exposed rock with very little shade, and a summer afternoon on that cliff is hard work.

Days that never leave the city

Not every day needs a highway. The old town rewards a slow afternoon on foot, the sulfur baths at Abanotubani are a genuine hour rather than a photograph, and an unstructured first day is the single most useful thing in a week-long itinerary.

For these we quote hourly rather than as a day charter, with a three-hour minimum. The car is yours by the hour, and the day is not built around getting anywhere.

Which car, and what it costs

Day trips out of the city are quoted as a full-day charter of eight to nine hours, per car rather than per guest; the Mtskheta half-day can be booked by the hour instead. The V-Class carries up to seven and is the usual answer for a family or a group. The S-Class suits two or three. Either Maybach is available where the day calls for it.

Vardzia and Kutaisi run past the standard charter window, so they are quoted with the extra hours included rather than added afterwards. Everything is confirmed in writing before the car is dispatched.