National Geographic: Georgia deserves more travellers

Georgia has been named among the 10 countries that the National Geographic says deserves more tourists.

The magazine said the country was a "surprising destination” that deserved to be explored by more travellers.

The article involved a short description of the current situation in Georgia and raved about the country's vibrant sites and culture.

The years since the collapse of the Soviet Union have not been uniformly good to Georgia; the balmy, vineyard-dotted Caucasian country that once doubled as an artistic Grand Tour destination for Russia’s literary elite,” it said.

But in the aftermath of the country’s brief, devastating 2008 war with Russia, waves of foreign investment—only slightly stymied by the 2012 election of a right-leaning nationalist government—have transformed Georgia into a model of frenetic development.”

The article said Georgia’s once "bandit-infested” mountains were now awash with newly built ski slopes (and Swiss-style chalets); the crumbling art nouveau facades of its Black Sea port Batumi had been meticulously, and sometimes gaudily, restored. And with its resurgent activist arts (and nightlife) scenes, Tbilisi, its capital, had become one of Eastern Europe’s most innovative cultural capitals.

"The winding dirt roads and collapsed fin de siècle palaces of early 2000’s Tbilisi may have given way to a far more cosmopolitan and polished city, but Tbilisi’s anarchically bohemian spirit still suffuses its historic districts, where re-purposed 19th-century chandeliers hang over finger paintings in speakeasy-style apartment bars like Café Linville,” the National Geographic said.

The article outlined the places that must not be missed while visiting Georgia.

"A two-hour drive from Tbilisi, mountains give way to vineyards in the region of Kakheti, Georgia’s wine country,” it said.

Boutique hotels like the funky Chateau Mere—where else could you find 19th-century armoires, a swimming pool, an imitation Colosseum in the garden, and photos of Fellini stars on the restaurant walls?—serve as the perfect vantage points from which to hike through the area’s hilltop medieval monasteries or to drink homemade Georgian wines for as little as $2 a bottle.”

The article stressed drinking in Georgia could prove a risky proposition, particularly for men who may baffle or even offend well-meaning hosts by refusing to down every beverage offered.

Hospitality culture here can border on the aggressive (think strangers abducting you to their restaurant table and insisting that you down 10 or more shots of moonshine), so be prepared to stand firm and risk disapproval if you intend to make it back to your hotel without falling over,” the article advised travellers.

Other countries named on the same list were Armenia, Nicaragua, Nepal, Iran, Kosovo, Uzbekistan, Albania, East Timor and Tunisia.