Race Across the World’s Best-Kept Secret

Every series of Race Across the World has one destination that catches viewers off guard. The place nobody was quite expecting, that ends up generating the most “where actually is that?” conversations the following morning.

In Series 6, that destination is Georgia.

Not the American state. The country, wedged between Russia, Türkiye, Armenia and Azerbaijan, sitting at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, with a capital city that looks like nowhere else on Earth. The teams arrived into Tbilisi after an exhausting leg from south-eastern Türkiye, some via the Black Sea coast, others crossing the border from the east. All of them, judging by the footage, were visibly taken aback by what they found.

Here’s the thing about Georgia: it’s been quietly becoming one of the most talked-about travel destinations in Europe for the past several years. If you haven’t been yet, now is a very good time to start paying attention.

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is one of those cities that’s genuinely hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been, because it doesn’t map neatly onto any obvious reference point.

The old town, Abanotubani, is built around natural sulphurous hot springs that have been used for bathing for over 1,500 years – the city’s name is thought to derive from the old Georgian word for warm. The domed bathhouses that cover the springs are still in operation today, and a soak in a private sulphur bath is one of the more unusual and genuinely relaxing things you can do in any European city.

Above the old town, the Narikala fortress looks out over the Mtkvari river and the city below. It dates back to the 4th century and, while much of it is ruined, the views from the walls are excellent. The cable car up to the Narikala is part of the experience, it passes directly over the old town’s rooftops and domes in a way that feels slightly improbable.

The architecture of the old town is what most visitors remember longest. Wooden balconies, often elaborately carved, jut out over narrow cobbled streets. The buildings lean into each other. Nothing is straight. It’s the opposite of a planned city, and it’s all the better for it.

Walk ten minutes north and you hit the Rustaveli Avenue area, where the city shifts into a grand 19th-century European register – wide boulevards, opera house, parliament building. Then further north still into the newer districts, where a serious restaurant and bar scene has developed over the last decade. Georgian natural wine has become something of an obsession among food people globally over the past few years, and the city has dozens of wine bars where you can work through the qvevri-fermented amber wines that started the whole conversation.

And the food. Georgian cuisine is remarkable and still under the radar compared to how good it actually is. Khachapuri, bread stuffed or topped with cheese, in regional variations, is addictive. Khinkali, the soup dumplings that you eat by hand and are specifically not meant to be done elegantly, are even better. A sit-down meal in Tbilisi is almost comically good value by Western European standards.

Beyond Tbilisi

Georgia is a small country (roughly the size of Ireland) but it packs in a serious amount of variety.

The wine region of Kakheti, about two hours east of Tbilisi, is where Georgian wine was born. The Alazani Valley, with the Caucasus mountains visible on the northern horizon, produces the majority of the country’s wine and has a growing number of family-run wineries that take visitors. The town of Sighnaghi, perched on a hilltop with medieval walls and views across the valley, is postcard-perfect and makes a good overnight stop.

North of Tbilisi, the military highway runs up through the Greater Caucasus towards Russia. The road passes the Ananuri fortress, built across two hilltops above a reservoir that’s an unlikely shade of deep blue-green, before climbing to the resort town of Gudauri, popular in winter for skiing. Further up, the town of Kazbegi sits beneath the iconic Gergeti Trinity Church – a medieval Georgian Orthodox church perched on a 2,170-metre hilltop with Mount Kazbek behind it. It’s one of the most photographed places in the Caucasus and absolutely worth the effort to reach.

To the west, the ancient cave city of Uplistsikhe, a rock-cut settlement occupied from the early Iron Age through to the medieval period, sits about an hour and a half from Tbilisi and is a genuinely fascinating half-day out. The western region of Adjara, around the Black Sea city of Batumi, offers a coastline that’s popular with Georgian and Turkish tourists but still relatively undiscovered by British visitors.

A Destination on the Rise

The Race Across the World teams passed through Georgia quickly, arriving from the Turkish border and heading onward almost immediately towards Kazakhstan. Most viewers, watching them leave, probably wished they’d had more time.

That feeling is exactly right.

Georgia has seen a significant increase in tourism interest over the past few years, and rightly so. It’s well-connected from the UK via direct and one-stop flights to Tbilisi, the visa situation is straightforward for British passport holders (no visa required for stays up to a year, which is one of the more generous arrangements going), and the cost of travelling there remains low by European standards.

It’s also, frankly, the kind of destination that still has an element of discovery about it – where you’re likely to come back with stories rather than the same photos everyone else has already posted. That’s increasingly rare, and increasingly valuable.

Planning a Georgia Holiday

A long weekend in Tbilisi works well if time is short. Flights from the UK typically route via Istanbul or Riga and take around five to six hours in total. A week gives you time to add Kakheti and one of the mountain areas. Two weeks and you can genuinely cover the country properly.

Georgia combines naturally with Türkiye as a twin-centre trip, the two countries share a border and the contrasts between them make for a particularly interesting journey. Given the Race Across the World route this series, it’s a combination that’s already on a lot of people’s minds.

If Georgia has caught your attention, the team at Spear Travels can help you work out the best way to go, whether that’s a city break in Tbilisi, a wine and culture tour through Kakheti, or a wider Caucasus itinerary that takes in more of the region.