Trekking tour from Tusheti to Kazbegi: advise + looking for people to join

Hi all,

In recent years I've been in Georgia twice, after which it immediately became my favourite travel destination. This summer (July/August) I intend to return to make a trekking tour from Tusheti through Khevsureti to Kazbegi. As I'm quite an experienced hiker, I do not want to go with an organization but just arrange things myself, whereby some Georgian friends might be joining. Has any of you made this tour in recent years and do you have any advise for me? I'm particularly interested in:

*How long it takes
*The best place to start and routes to follow (I've read there are various passes..)
*Sources of information (blogs, etc.)

Your help would be very much appreciated!

Also, I'm looking for people who would like to join. Ideally we would go with a small group of internationals and Georgians... Let me know if you're interested!

Ciao,

Jeroen

Edited by: Jeronimow

In general it takes 12 nights or so with a possibility to exit in Khevsureti after about 5 or 6 nights to about half of which will have the option of guesthouses, if I'm remembering correctly.

There are definitely various path -- some will go through no villages and have the most spectacular nature, while the most common one passes through a few cities and is very commonly traveled (I saw lots of groups going on it while I was hiking around Tusheti). I opted against the more beautiful, village-free route because I'm from North America and there's no lack of pristine nature here, whereas the villages in Georgia are truly something special.

You can more or less get it figured out with the Geoland maps and with the help of the tourist information people at Tusheti. They really wanted to help when I was there, but clearly had never really done any of the hikes and just got the job because they spoke English.

Tusheti and Svaneti are 2 of the most amazing places I've ever been and I'm really sad I didn't have a chance to see Khevsureti (31 days isn't enough time to do everything in Georgia), but I found Kazbegi to be simultaneously over and underdeveloped. I went up there planning to spend a few days in the area but wound up leaving after just one night. I'm sure others will disagree.

Also, this is definitely a July or August hike. Things start getting snowy and villages abandoned pretty early in September I believe.

Hope this helps!

If you're interested, here's our blog covering most of our time in Georgia: http://thedregsgoglobal.wordpress.com/

Edited by: austin_guiri