I SKIPPED WORK AND WENT TO GEORGIA!

Welcome back to my blog, readers! yeah as you read the title.. I skipped work and went to Georgia for a short vacation!

A lot of my friends said that Georgia is a beautiful country and has beautiful natures. Luckily, I can use my annual leave for 2022 starting in January. So, in December I decided to book my flight went to Georgia on 1st January 2022.

It is a privilege for Qatar resident to visit Georgia without visa. I travelled to Georgia on winter season. The winter season in Georgia starting from November to April. I can say, it was spontaneous decision. I started planning the budget 3 (three) weeks before my flight.

I used Pegasus from Qatar to Georgia and transit in Turkey for few hours. The two ways flight ticket cost me around 1,659.84 QAR (455.30 USD). It took 4 hours 5 mins from Qatar to Turkey and 2 hours 15 mins from Turkey to Georgia. Yeah..😂 I spent around 9-11 hours including transit to get to Georgia. Actually, if you take a direct flight it will only take about 3 hours. There is a direct flight from Qatar to Georgia with Qatar Airway but yeah you have to pay extra 500 QAR. For me 500 QAR is a big amount and I could spend that money to have a nice meals in fancy restaurant in Georgia 😜 and I can eat a good meal in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport.

What I prepared before traveling to Georgia as Qatar Residence?

Qatar ID (might suggest to travel like 3 months before your ID expire)
Travel Insurance
Hotel Booking
Return flight ticket

Indeed the Immigration officer was very strict and asked my travel insurance (maybe due to covid-19 situation). Some people were asked how much money they bring to Georgia.

Alright, let us talk about the fun part. Here in Georgia most of Hotel/Hostel/Airbnb are quite cheap. I stayed in four different places. The reason was I had to adjust on Airbnb availability and the hotel price was increased due to New Year/Christmas (pick season). Fyi, the majority people in Georgia are Orthodox so they celebrate Christmas on 7th January. I still can find Christmas decoration on the street. It was really nice and beautiful.

Here some pictures I took from few places I visited. Holy trinity cathedral of Tbilisi. That is one of the beautiful Church I ever visited. The Bridge of peace. Visited Castle in Akhaltsikhe.

Here is some of art street around Fabrika hostel.

Have visited one restaurant in Tbilisi and we tried Georgian wine. It cost us about 5 lari 🙂

The most fun thing about solo travelling is you can try to push yourself to make friends and meet another traveler. I used platform Couchsurfing while traveling to Georgia. Met with many travelers and we exchanged stories about traveling. I met travelers from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan Russia and Serbia.