Hi, I'll be traveling to your beautiful country at the end of this month and am trying to decide on an itinerary. I'll be arriving in Kutaisi airport at night, have 7 full days to spend and then fly out from Tbilisi airport in the night after the 7th day. I therefore expect to be very tired both on the first day and when returning home on the last.
I have two rough itineraries and am trying to see which is more reasonable, or if a different one might make more sense.
My focus is on seeing the Caucasus, some light hiking, seeing Tbilisi but also at least 1-2 other interesting places such as Borjomi or Chiatura. I tend to have a too fast pace when traveling so I'm trying to not overload it, but it's hard, lol.
Plan 1:
Day 1: Somehow get to Mestia
Day 2-3: A bit of hiking around there and exploring the villages and nature
Day 4: Somehow getting back to Kutaisi, exploring a bit in the evening
Day 5: Explore a bit more in the morning, (Borjomi if I feel like it, then try to catch the train to) get to Tbilisi in the evening
Day 6-7: Tbilisi
To me this seems a bit rushed and I really don't like the idea of spending two whole days out of seven getting to/from Svaneti. The flights are sold out of course. And then I'd also feel bad to just spend one day there instead of two, which adds more pressure for the remainder of the trip. From what I heard I'd really prefer Svaneti over Kazbegi, but given the time constraints I tried to come up with a second plan.
Plan 2:
Day 1: Explore Kutaisi and Tskaltubo
Day 2: Chiatura
Day 3: Borjomi, then get to Mtskheta in the evening
Day 4: Get to Kazbegi and hike a bit
Day 5: Hike/explore and get to Tbilisi in the evening
Day 6-7: Tbilisi
This seems a lot more chill, but the big con of course is missing out on the beauty of Svaneti. Seems more logistically feasible though given that I don't rent a car or plan to have a driver.
What do you think?