Svaneti 4-Day Mountain Tour

Svaneti is Georgia at its most legendary — a region so remote in the High Caucasus that it kept its own language, its defensive stone towers, and a fierce independence through centuries when empires washed over everyone else. Over four days you trade the lowlands for a world of glacier-fed rivers, tower-villages and 5,000-metre peaks, based in the mountain town of Mestia and the UNESCO-listed hamlet of Ushguli.

This is an active but achievable trip. You'll hike to the tongue of the Chalaadi Glacier through birch forest, climb toward the Koruldi Lakes for a panorama of the twin-horned Ushba, and drive the rough, spectacular road to Ushguli beneath Shkhara, Georgia's highest summit. Nights are spent in warm family guesthouses where the host pours the wine and the kitchen serves kubdari and khachapuri you'll still be thinking about weeks later. You come for the mountains; you leave talking about the people.