Georgia and Armenia Overland (Fixed Departure)

Eight nights through the Georgian Caucasus, self-driven in convoy with crew support, with an optional extension into Armenia.

Georgia is among the most rewarding places in the world to drive and among the least known for it: high passes, a wine culture eight thousand years old, and a road network that goes from motorway to 4×4 track inside an hour.

The Caucasus passes open it, with Mount Kazbegi at over five thousand metres and the Gergeti Trinity Church standing alone on a spur beneath it, which is the image the country is sold on and deserves to be. Mestia follows on 4×4 tracks into Svaneti, where the medieval Svan tower houses still stand in the villages, with the Okatse Canyon suspension bridge nearby. Uplistsikhe comes next, a cave city carved into a hillside and inhabited from the first millennium BC, then Batumi on the Black Sea, with wine tastings at historic estates along the way. The Armenia extension is coach-driven rather than self-driven and takes in Vardzia, Yerevan and the Garni temple.

The format is a self-drive convoy with crew support around the clock; the detailed inclusions were not itemised on the page and are worth confirming at booking, as are the tax arrangements. The price shown is per person. May to October is the window, since the high passes close in winter. Nine days covers Georgia properly, and the Armenian leg is a genuine addition rather than a filler. The food and the wine are as much of the trip as the roads: Georgian cooking is unlike anything on either side of it, and the hospitality is a point of national pride.