Most Georgia trips look the same, and reasonably so: Tbilisi, Kakheti, Kazbegi, maybe Svaneti and the coast. It is a good itinerary and it covers perhaps half of what makes this country unusual. The other half is in four regions that require a four wheel drive, a season window and a couple of spare days each, and that between them contain medieval tower villages nobody lives in any more, a pass with a serious reputation, and a semi desert on the Azerbaijani border that looks like a different continent.
The four
Tusheti, far north east, over a high unpaved pass, open only in summer, with tower villages and shepherd country.
Khevsureti, north of Tbilisi, with the abandoned tower settlements of Shatili and Mutso and a pass to cross.
Upper Racha, in the centre north, green, wet and almost entirely undeveloped.
Vashlovani, far east, a semi desert of badlands and canyons on the Azerbaijani border.
Also worth it: the Truso valley, Juta, the Javakheti lakes and the Adjara mountains.
All of them need more time than the map suggests.
What they have in common
A four wheel drive, either yours or a shared transfer.
A season, in most cases summer and early autumn only.
No fuel, no signal, no bank machines once you turn off the main road.
Guesthouses rather than hotels, cash only, and food that is the best part of the trip.
Two nights minimum, because the drive in is most of a day.
Walking as the actual reason to be there.
Practical preparation
Check the pass status locally, on the day, rather than from any published date.
Fuel up before you leave the last town, and carry extra where it is legal to.
Download offline maps and write the guesthouse number on paper.
Carry cash, because nothing up there takes a card.
Tell somebody your route and when you expect to be back.
Warm and waterproof layers in any month, because altitude decides the weather.
What you get for the effort
Tower villages that are among the oldest continuously built structures in the Caucasus.
Empty trails where you will see shepherds and nobody else.
Guesthouse cooking that is regionally distinct and better than most restaurants.
Landscapes that do not appear in the standard photographs of Georgia.
Silence, which is rarer than the scenery.
A reason to come back, which almost everybody who does this finds.
Where this fits in a Georgia trip
One region per trip, three nights, inside a two week itinerary rather than a one week one.
For the standard route and where a remote leg can be inserted, our seven day Georgia itinerary covers the shape.
For the most accessible of the tower regions and the one most people start with, our guide to driving to Svaneti covers the road.
And for the easier western cluster that needs no four wheel drive at all, our guide to Prometheus Cave and the canyons covers that region.
The short version
The road into the most remote of them deserves its own read before you commit to it: our guide to the Abano pass covers the season, the vehicle and why almost every hire agreement excludes it.
The most remote of them has its own plan now: our five days in Tusheti covers the Abano pass, Omalo, Dartlo and the walk up the Pirikiti valley, along with the cash, fuel and weather questions that road raises.
Pick one region rather than three and give it three nights, because each of these is a driving day in and a driving day out. Take a shared four wheel drive transfer for Tusheti rather than driving the pass yourself. Check the pass status locally on the day, never from a published date. Fuel up, carry cash, download the maps and write the guesthouse number down. Then walk for two days, eat what the family cooks, and accept that you will be planning the next one before you leave.
