Georgia

The first thing that hit me when I stepped off the train in Tbilisi wasn’t the heat, though it was July and brutal. It was the smell — sulfur from the thermal baths drifting up from Abanotubani, mixing with frying khinkali and something floral I never quite identified. I stood on the bridge over the Mtkvari river at dusk and thought: this place is absolutely unhinged in the best possible way. Baroque balconies sagging with wisteria, a Soviet-era cable car groaning overhead, a mosque and an Armenian church and a synagogue within a ten-minute walk of each other. Tbilisi doesn’t perform cosmopolitanism — it just is, without trying.

What surprised me most was how seriously Georgians take pleasure. Not hedonism for its own sake, but something older and more deliberate. The supra — a traditional feast with a tamada, a toastmaster who guides you through toasts for the living, the dead, the homeland, peace, love — is not a tourist show. I was invited to a neighbor’s birthday in a village outside Mtskheta and sat at a table for four hours. The wine came from a clay qvevri buried in the backyard. The chacha arrived without warning. Nobody rushed. In Mexico, where I’ve been living, there’s a similar reverence for the table, and I recognized it immediately.

Outside the capital, the country breaks open. Kazbegi is what people imagine when they picture the Caucasus — the Gergeti Trinity Church floating above the clouds at 2,170 meters, the military highway slicing through valleys so green they look artificial. I went in late May when snow was still on the peaks but the wildflowers were already rioting on the lower slopes. The marshrutka from Tbilisi costs almost nothing and takes about three hours. Worth every pothole.

When to go: May and June are the sweet spot — the mountains are accessible, the summer crowds haven’t arrived, and the wine regions around Kakheti are lush. September is excellent for harvest season in the vineyards. Avoid August in Tbilisi itself; it’s hot, humid, and the city empties out as locals flee to the coast or the mountains.

What most guides get wrong: Almost every travel piece positions Georgia as an “undiscovered gem” or frames it as a detour off the beaten path. It isn’t. Tbilisi has a functioning hipster bar scene, excellent specialty coffee, and boutique hotels with sky-high prices in the old town. What Georgia genuinely offers — and what most guides miss — is depth of culture that rewards slowness. The wine, the polyphonic singing, the architecture, the Georgian script (one of only fourteen original alphabets in the world): none of it makes sense at a glance. You need to sit down. The country will meet you there.