Are you looking for a perfect nature destination? Do you want to go hiking with beautiful nature? Do you want to save money on that kind of journey? If yes, you opened the right post for you.
And today we are going to talk about Gudauri and what it can offer you.
You can also check the video below to get a better impression of Gudauri.
Getting to Gudauri
Let me start from the beginning and it'll be how you can get to Gudauri itself.
You can arrive in Georgia by plane or by bus. Georgia has 3 international airports - Batumi, Kutaisi and Tbilisi. They are the biggest cities in Georgia. To move between those cities you can use busses or train. In my opinion, the train is more comfortable, while busses are faster and have a more flexible schedule.
To get to Gudauri, you will need to reach Tbilisi since it's the only city that has busses to our destination. In Tbilisi, you will need to arrive at the Didube bus station. There are 3 ways you can departure from the bus station:
- take a taxi - it'll cost you about 70$ for the car. Those taxis are located along the road and they will offer you their services once they see you walking with a suitcase.
- share a car with others - there are micro busses, that can take up to 7 people and one ticket will cost you 10$. Those micro busses don't have an exact schedule and you'll need to wait while all the seats will be taken. The buses depart from Nige bus station.
- minibuses - these buses have some kind of schedule and are way cheaper. For example, a bus to Gudauri costs 3.3$ while a bus to Kazbegi costs 5$. I prefer this option since it has some schedule and it's the cheapest option. The minuses are - there is not much place for luggage, most probably you will hold your bags. And the schedule can be interrupted in any way - the bus can depart early if it has all seats taken or it can depart late if there are some empty seats.
Buses to Mtskheta, Gudauri and Kazbegi departure from the same station that you can see on the map.
To get more comfort in using these minibuses I would recommend to take photos of the phone numbers of the drivers and booking your seats for each travel. Since most drivers don't know English, I would recommend taking a photo of the phone number and asking the apartment owner to call and book the seat for you.
Where to stay in Gudauri
And while I started to talk about the apartments - it's important to choose the right place. Gudauri is split into there major parts - New Gudauri, Upper and Lower Gudauri.
If you plan a long stay, I would recommend choosing New Gudauri. It has a supermarket and it's relatively close to the main hiking routes.
In Lower Gudauri you can find more shops, but in summer most of them don't work anyway.
To reach Upper Gudauri you'll need a special transfer and there is nothing working during the summer, so if you find any housing option, I would recommend skipping it for the summer trip.
A detailed review of what you can rent and prices can be found in my separate video linked below.
Tips for your trip to Gudauri
Before diving into the hiking routes and beauty of nature, I would like to give you a couple of tips.
First of all, take with you sunglasses. The sun in the mountains is pretty strong and wearing good sunglasses is highly advisable. You should take them with you because there is no place where you can buy them in Gudauri.
Also, it's a good idea to buy sunscreen, again because the sun is strong in the mountains.
Be ready that there is a different temperature and while in Tbilisi or other parts of Georgia, it is hot, in Gudauri weather can change from 5 to 17 celsius degrees. Especially it matters if you plan to stay outside at night or during a cloudy day.
It's better to have several additional days for your stay due to the possible weather changes. I would not recommend hiking during the rain or right after it.
And if it's possible, I would recommend coming here in June or at the beginning of July to enjoy the biggest amount of flowers. It's incredibly beautiful during this time of the year.
Hiking and Nature in Gudauri
Now let's continue with the most beautiful part of my tale about Gudauri - and it's nature and hiking.
In 2024 there were 2 official hiking trails from New Gudauri:
1) one to the Chrdili mountain
This mountain is located just in front of New Gudauri and this hike doesn't require much time. The peak of the mountain is located at 2504 m altitude. It is just 300 meters of the altitude gain, the route doesn't require any special equipment and can be made it two variations - go to the peak and back or make a circle along the mountain.
I would recommend going in a circle, since at the back of the mountain you will see additional scenic views and it won't add any complexity to your hike.
At the beginning of June or even in the mid-June you can find some small parts of snow at the top of Chrdili. It's still strange to me to see snow and flowers together in summer.
2) The second official route is going to Kvesheti village.
This route is more complex due to its length. According to the official estimation, it can take you up to 4 hours to go down, if you plan to go up it'll take even more time.
Basically, you can split this trail and not make it completely, but just reach Seturni Tsetskhlisjvari Complex. This part is easy and can be done in less than 3 hours to go there and return.
But the amount of possible hike routes is way way higher.
For example, I decided to modify the second official route. I took a minibus to Zemo Mleta. From that village, you can reach a huge waterfall. According to my drone, the waterfall is over 50 meters high.
From Zemo Mleta it'll take you about 1.30-2 hours to reach the waterfall. You will walk along the river and beautiful fields of flowers. I would recommend this route in the end of June because there are many mountain streams and in May or early June there can be too much water.
Along your walk to the waterfall, you will see many cows, horses and donkeys. Be careful with cows, since they may attack you. During my walk, they decided to run after me. I was lucky that there was a tree nearby, so I used it as a place to hide.
Also, on the way there you'll find a couple of old forgotten houses, that look very interesting in this landscape.
The variety and amount of flowers are astonishing. This route is worth it even just because of the flowers.
Once you start to see the waterfall, you may want to go to it as close as possible, but there is no way to stand underneath it. The river blocks last 20 meters and you won't see it. So, instead, I would recommend going up the hill, located in front of it.
So, once you see this house, you don't need to cross the river, but you need to go up the hill.
There are several places on the hill, where you can see the waterfall pretty close.
Once you return back to Zemo Mleta or Kvemo Mleta, you have three options:
on your way back call and book a seat in the mini bus. In this way, you will be able to return back to Gudauri by bus. I would not recommend to simply wait for the bus, because most probably it will be full and it won't stop.
go back by the road - this is a bad option, because there is no space for pedestrians, so it will be very uncomfortable.
do what I did - go to Kvesheti village and from there you can go by the official route back to Gudauri.
From Kvemo Mleta to Kvesheti you will walk for about an hour along the road, I would not expect anything interesting here. But there are a couple of places where you can take water in your bottle and I would recommend to have some water, because after Kvesheti you won't be able to find water.
After Kvesheti you will go for about an hour or so by the dirt road and it's pretty dusty. But the main issue of this part of the road is trucks. The amount of dust in the air is crazy. Because of this I wouldn't recommend this part of the route to anyone and do not plan to repeat my walk here again.
But, to compensate for the dust, you can find one more waterfall nearby.
While here you can walk to the waterfall, I would not recommend coming close, since rocks can fall on you. Be careful!
Just 10 minutes before the second waterfall you can find a left turn. And this is the turn that we need to go back home.
It's the hardest part of the hike since you will need to gain about 600 meters straight. It took me about 1.5 hours to finish this part.
Here you can find old buildings and interestingly looking hills, but it's a pretty intense load for your legs.
Once you reach the altitude of 2000 meters, you'll quickly reach Seturni Tsetskhlisjvari Complex and afterwards, the rest of the hike will be easy.
Overall this route took me about 11 hours and 30 minutes if take into account the part of riding on the bus, so do not forget to take with you enough water.
Hike to Sadzele from Gudauri
The peak of Sadzele is located at 3258 meters. So, the overall altitude gain from New Gudauri is a bit over 1 km.
In July there should be working ski lifts, so you can even get a ride. I tried to hike to the peak in June and I don't think that you will be able to reach the peak in June because of the amount of snow at this altitude. I was able to reach only 2900 meters.
There is a dirt road that leads to Sadzele, so you can even find a car that will drive you there.
On the way to Sadzele, you can find cows, goats, sheep, horses and donkeys. Be careful when you see sheep because nearby can be herding dogs. So, it's better to keep some distance from them.
Also, at about 2800 meters you can find a small lake with a very beautiful colour of the water. Definitely worth your visit.
In June you can take photos in snowdrifts and enjoy the winter view. Maybe in July, it'll be possible to reach the peak.
Hike to Panorama Gudauri
Panorama Gudauri is a pretty popular stop and there are many tourists at any time of the year.
I would estimate this hike as easy but long, it'll take about 9-10 km one way with about 100-200 meter elevation gain one way.
You can walk along the car road as I did on my way there, but it was a mistake. There is no place for pedestrians and especially bad situation when you need to go in the tunnel.
So, on my way backwards I've found a drift road that leads to New Gudauri and you will enjoy the road more. So, use the drift road if you decide to visit Panorama.
Along the way, you'll find several nice mountain streams. They are surrounded by flowers and it looks especially nice with snowy mountains in the background.
Also, you can find a car in one of the large puddles.
Once you start coming closer to the Panorama, you may see paragliders. There are several spots around Gudauri, where you can order such entertainment. Not sure how it feels, but even from the side it looks pretty scary.
At the monument itself, you can find small lots with items for tourists and different entertainment like horse riding or renting a quad bike. And, of course do not forget to take a look the the monument and views around it.
Hike to the cross
One more option, that I would call the shortest and easiest - the hike to the cross. This cross is visible from New Gudauri and you can reach there in about 30-40 minutes. It's a pretty popular spot to watch the sunset.
The cross is also the closest part of both hikes - the hike to Chrildi and Kvesheti.
While this route is shorter and less amazing than previously mentioned routes, I would like to show you what it looks like when someone is walking there during the sunset or what it looks like when there is a rainbow.
Nature in Gudauri
I would like to mention the incredible nature, that you'll meet in Gudauri.
For example, during my stay there was hail. It was very interesting to see this pretty big hail and how clouds were literally everywhere, so the driver couldn't even see the road in front of him.
Since you live at a high altitude the clouds often can envelop everything around. And often those clouds are thick. You can even feel how wet they are and sometimes even feel their smell. Especially beautifully it looks from a drone.
Of course, I must mention flowers and bugs, there are lots of opportunities for macro photography. I could show you a huge amount of photos and videos that I made for each separate kind of flower or bug that I met during my hikes.
Also, there is a good variety of birds. Especially interesting are huge eagles or something like that. Sometimes they even fly low enough so you could take a closer look at them.
Summary
That's it for this post, so if you are still reading it - do not forget to check other posts too.