Georgia: Mestia to Ushguli Hike Guide 🇬🇪
There’s a wealth of information on the hike itself online and I mainly relied on the article below for all the technicalities. It includes a daily breakdown, a route to import to your maps.me app (which we followed religiously) and distance/time details.
Day 1 - Mestia to Zhabeshi
Day 1 Photo Highlight 📸
It only took 2 hours of hiking to get stunning views of the path we were about to follow for the next 3 days.
Night 1
📍Zhabeshi
🏠 Guest House Victor
💸 57 GEL
🍽️ 50 GEL (dinner + breakfast)
📝 I adored my stay at Guest House Victor. The family was so sweet and the food was incredibly filling and delicious. They accommodated my friends’ vegan request and we had our own table for dinner and breakfast.
Total: 78.50 GEL each with food
Day 2 - Zhabeshi to Adishi
2 Photo Highlight 📸
There were so many gorgeous wildflowers blooming around us as we made our way through meadows and abandoned towns.
Night 2
📍Adishi
🏠 Stone House Marexi
💸 45.62 GEL
🍽️ 55 GEL (dinner + breakfast)
📝 It’s handy to know that all of the accomodation in Adishi is quite basic and the power usually only turns on in town around 5pm. Make sure you fully charge your portable chargers the night before ⚡️ The bathroom at our guesthouse was a bit sketchy with no hot water, but the hearty dinner and breakfast more than made up for it
Total: 77 GEL each with food
Day 3 - Adishi to Ifrali
Day 3 Photo Highlight 📸
The cover photo for this guide is my absolute favourite shot of the whole hike, and this one comes a close second. This is the glorious Adishi glacier which we reached after 4 hours of hiking, and one treacherous river crossing, on day 3.
Night 3
📍Ifrali
🏠 Betegi Guest House
💸 70 GEL
🍽️ 80 (dinner + brekkie) + 10 (lunch)
📝 The prices in this town were quite high across the board, not just in our guesthouse, and there was less food than other nights but it was still filling.
Total: 125 GEL each with food
Day 4 - Ifrali to Ushguli
Day 4 Photo Highlight 📸
You can't even begin to imagine the relief on our faces once we reached the official Ushguli sign. This photo of my friends and I is tied to so many incredible memories from a hike I'll never forget 🫶
Night 4
📍Ushguli
🏠 Mate Private Rooms
💸 64 GEL
📝 Ushguli is actually composed of 3 small towns within a 5 minute walk of each other. Our guesthouse was in the middle town and had incredible views of the other towns. The owner Tea is lovely and welcomed us with open arms; definitely stay there if you can. You’ll notice that we didn’t have dinner here as we decided to treat ourselves to a big restaurant meal with our favourite Georgian dishes and plenty of delicious wine 🍷
Total: 32 GEL each
Total Costs + Notes
In total, we spent roughly 312GEL ($115 USD) each for 4 nights’ accomodation, all our breakfasts, 3 dinners and 1 packed lunch #bargain
I’d hiiiiighly recommend bringing your own collapsible silicone containers (any ones off Amazon like these will do) to pack leftover dinner for lunch the next day. That’s how we were able to save a bit more money and make sure that no food went to waste!
I hope this post inspires you to do this incredible hike in Georgia! Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of hiking for 4 days, because I promise they fly by and you can complete the route at your own pace.
I’m more than happy to answer any questions you have, just send me a message on my IG @ka.tea.ah 💌
The home for unique & authentic travel
