Republic of Georgia Travel Prices and Living Expenses

Through several editions of The World’s Cheapest Destinations book and two of A Better Life for Half the Price, there was one country featured that I hadn’t visited personally. Now I won’t have to say that anymore after close to two weeks of Republic of Georgia travel. I’m happy to say that prices are still great for travelers, digital nomads, and expats. 

First things first: Georgia the country wins the prize for having the most generous tourist visa in the world. If you’re from one of the 75+ countries that can visit Georgia visa-free, then you can waltz right in with your passport and not leave until a year later. No extensions needed, no visits to immigration. 

The only country that comes close to letting you stay that long is Albania, which is also a bargain, but that year-long stay option only applies to Americans there. In Georgia it will apply to most people reading this article. 

In some countries you’ll find screaming bargains in some aspects and head-scratching high prices in other areas, but this country is a bargain across the board. From lodging to food to attractions to transportation, nothing seems out of whack compared to the other categories. So you can come here and be relatively sure that the prices will be half or less what you’d spend in the USA, Canada, or UK. 

Numbeo says that when you compare costs in Tbilisi to costs in the USA’s capital, rents in Tbilisi are 77% lower, restaurant prices are 53% lower, and grocery prices are 62% lower. 

You would need around 2,989.7$ (8,311.4GEL) in Tbilisi to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 8,800.0$ in Washington, DC (assuming you rent in both cities).

Wow! You can see why it’s tempting to hop on a plane and spend a year in the mountains. And that’s not just because DC is expensive. When I ran the comparison for Canada’s biggest city, Tbilisi was 52% lower including rent and if you compare it to London, it’s 66% lower. 

That “GEL” is Georgian lari, by the way, which was running 2.75 to the dollar when I was there. You’ll see exchange booths everywhere and the spread between buy and sell is quite narrow. You can use credit cards and phone payment almost everywhere which is a good thing: one of the ATM kiosks at the airport ate my debit card. Fortunately I always have banking backups in place.

Here’s what I found in individual categories during my Republic of Georgia travel trip in various areas. 

Lodging Prices in the Republic of Georgia

The tourist prices and the living prices are both a great value on the lodging side, though if you’re hanging around for months or years you’re going to spend far less to put a roof over your head. 

I stayed at three different places in the country while I was there: a cheap but nice basic hotel in a prime area of Tbilisi, one of the city’s nicest hotels in a prime area, a Wyndham Grand I paid for with points, and a ski condo in a resort area. The first hotel was just $32 per night with plenty of space, a furnished balcony, a fridge, cranking heat, and a nice bathroom with a steaming shower. I had a hard time choosing because there were at least 40 hotels for under $40 per night in convenient areas. 

Then I joined up with my group I brought over on a tour of mine and we moved to a nice hotel next to Parliament called Shota Rustaveli Boutique. We got a group rate but it generally goes for around $100 per night through the services like Booking.com, including an awesome breakfast. They have an indoor pool, sauna, gym, and lounge. 

You can get a bed at cool Fabrika Hostel (pictured above) in the capital for $9 and like I said, there are plenty of inexpensive hotel options under $40 per night. On Airbnb or at apartments on Booking, most fall in the range of $14 to $65 per night unless they’re huge, with a lot of choices under $25 per night. 

Then if you head into the smaller cities and towns it will probably cost you even less. We had lunch at the best hotel in Kazbegi and that member of Design Hotels was going for over $200 per night. Check out the view below and you’ll see why. But most other places in town range from $22 to $100.

In Batumi where the WizzAir flights come in the prices range from $11 to $60 for the majority of the hotels and I found 29 listed for $20 or less double in June. Only 3 hotels topped $100. (You can rent a 5-bedroom villa with a pool there for $216 per night!) 

My friend Tommo who runs the Eat This! Georgia tours says monthly rents are as low as $300 for something basic but most foreigners are paying somewhere between $400 and $1,400 per month. You can find places for more than that on English-language sites catering to expats, but not many.

It’s important to remember that generations of Georgians tend to live together in the same house or apartment and it’s not so common to go out on your own as soon as you’re an adult, which is why they can get by on an average salary of less than $600. If you can pay more than $600 per month just for rent, you’ve got plenty of options to choose from.

As in most places, the best bet if you’re going to stay for months or more is to rent a short-term place first then look around after arrival through Facebook groups, word of mouth, and agencies. One oddity I found in this country: I didn’t see one single real estate office with apartment and house listings inside the window like you see almost everywhere else in the world. And I walked around a lot, in multiple neighborhoods.  

Search places to stay in Georgia

Food and Drink Prices in Georgia

It’s rather surprising that you don’t see more Georgian restaurants around the world because the cuisine is interesting and unique. Plus this is the oldest wine region in the world, so it has that going for it too. I did find a Georgian restaurant when I was in Prague with my wife last year, so I did get to try a few things before arrival. 

The two words you need to learn quickly in this language are khinkali and khatchapuri. The first are fat dumplings that are filled with a minced pork mixture, lamb, vegetables, cheese, or mushrooms. If you’re on a budget and you’re not watching your gluten or carbs, khatchapuri is going to be your best friend. This is bread with some kind of filling and can range from palm-sized to pizza-sized, priced from 50 cents to a few dollars. 

The first you order in quantity for the table to share, usually with a minimum order of five, though one guide told us that it’s not uncommon for one man to eat 10 or 20 of them at a big feast. The bread you can order at the fanciest restaurant or buy to go from a vendor in an underground passageway in the city. The types range from simple bean-stuffed ones to the adjaruli version containing an egg and lots of butter. That’s probably the dish most associated with this country’s cuisine and you can see it above. Here are some others:

Those are just the gateways to Georgian cuisine though and we had all kinds of great items at meals there, from barbecued meat to stews to salads to eggplant-and-walnut balls. They are not big on breakfast though, so this is when you’ll likely be on your own if you’ve got an apartment with a kitchen. 

The most I spent on my share of dinner was around $50 at a nice restaurant with entertainment when the group arrived. We had an insane amount of food and a few bottles of better than average wine, one of the labels from last decade. Restaurant meals were more commonly around $15 with beer or wine, with simple places being under $10. 

We drank a fair bit of beer after skiing and 500ml bottles at a bar ranged from $2.50 to just under $5, the latter being craft beers on a ski mountain. There are a few craft beer taprooms and brewpubs in the capital and then it’s fairly easy to find a black beer, IPA, or APA commercially throughout the country. 

Wine is a big draw in Georgia and when the locals aren’t making their own, the prices stay at their level of $2 to $5 for something basic from a big winery, up to $15 for most others. If you spend more than $20 it’s going to be something special. Very little of it is barrel-aged and some 70% of the output comes from two grapes, but the variety is still staggering. 

Republic of Georgia Travel and Tours

Georgia is not a huge country, so it’s fairly easy to get from one end to the other in a day if you would need to. There are regular buses from the Black Sea resort city of Batumi to the capital and from the secondary airport (and fourth-largest city) Kutaisi. Our trip from the capital up to Gudauri ski resort was under two hours. 

I would avoid renting a car here if possible as the roads aren’t always great and the drivers have a terrible reputation. You can hire a driver, get a taxi even for long distances, or book a tour excursion for not all that much money ($1 = 2.75 GEL): 

You can walk much of the center of Tbilisi but I rode the metro a few times for the grand sum of 1 GEL (40 cents) per ride. They don’t have Uber but they have a very similar service called Bolt and that was reasonable too: airport trips are under $15. Around the city will be a few bucks. 

I took the funicular and two city gondola rides, places where the ride is part of the attraction. Those were a few dollars each, so not a big splurge. 

Long-distance buses won’t break the bank. The 6-hour bus from the coastal city of Batumi to Tblisi is $10 to $15. The airport shuttle from Kutaisi to the capital is $16 and a train between the two cities is $10 to $16. There’s an overnight train down to Yerevan, Armenia if you want to bunk down, but a bus ride is faster and cheaper: 5 hours for around $13.

Attractions and Admissions in the Country of Georgia

I went more for experiences and exploration on this group trip I arranged than I probably would have on a vacation with my wife along. I didn’t hit any museums or galleries, for instance, though we did stop off at this cool place in the countryside and paid the artist a suggested donation of $1.81 each. 

This wasn’t because of price: the well-regarded Georgia National Museum will only set you back about 11 bucks for admission and the Tbilisi Wine Museum is around $5,50—including a tasting at the end!

The anchor of our trip was a few days on the ski slopes and skiing in Georgia is one of the world’s greatest bargains. Our rental equipment was almost as much as the lift tickets because an all-day pass for the slopes is only $27 for a single-day walk-up ticket. We paid $72 for a 3-day pass, as in less than it costs for even one day to ski in the USA. (I think a season pass at Gudauri is less than a single day on the slopes at Vail or Beaver Creek.)

The Republic of Georgia is dotted with historic monasteries, some of them in picturesque locations where the monks have a terrific view. You’re welcome to drop some money in the collection box, but otherwise they are free to visit when you’re touring the country or if you want to go inside one in the capital. 

The museum I’d love to visit if I go back is the Tbilisi Auto Museum, filled with a private collection of vintage cars made in the Soviet Union. Admission is 10 GEL ($3.60).

These are just the basics on costs, but it gives you a general idea of what to budget if you’re traveling to the country of Georgia. I’d say it’s in line with the Balkan countries of Europe, a bit cheaper than Hungary overall. A couple could have a grand time on $100 to $200 per day on vacation but it would be possible to do it on the cheap for far less as a backpacker. 

A single nomad or expat could easily live in Georgia for under $1,500 and a couple could coast along for under $2,000 without being frugal. Those figures are, after all, higher than the majority of Georgians are earning. Add $500 or more a month to either of those figures and you’ll be elite by local standards. 

After all, a haircut will only cost you a few bucks (10 GEL = $3.65): 

I’m just scratching the surface here after a short visit on this article about Republic of Georgia travel prices. For more details on the country and what to do and eat, see what I found to be the most comprehensive resource on travel there: Wanderlush. Tommo and Meg that run the food and wine tours I mentioned earlier also have a blog that covers their adopted home some: Food Fun Travel. 

This is a complicated country with a complicated history. If you really want to try to wrap your head around it for a longer stay, it’s worth investing the equivalent of a bottle of good wine for the most current guidebook on the region.