Writer: Jonathan Gharbi de Maré
The skiing season in Sweden is still going on, and you can certainly ski for a while longer in northern Sweden. But I and many other Scandinavians chose instead to invest in a ski week in Georgia and combine skiing with adventure.
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ShareApollo, which you might most commonly associate with sun holidays, also organises ski trips to a range of destinations, with the Gudauri ski resort in Georgia added in January 2025. It is a brand new destination and the season for the trips started in January and now ends in March.
The journey there is with air Baltic from Stockholm via Riga and on our trip there were quite a few Scandinavians but mostly Swedes and Norwegians. Air Baltic's fleet consists of new airbus A220-300, slightly smaller planes but new and fresh. The flight route goes over Poland and then along the Turkish Black Sea coast. We land just outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Once in Tbilisi, a couple of buses were waiting to take us up to Gudauri, which is located at an altitude of about 2100 metres. EU citizens are visa-free and passport control is quick and smooth so there is nothing to think about right away.
It takes around 2.5 hours to get the 140 kilometres to Gudauri. We were met by Apollo's local destination manager on site and were able to buy swimming cards on the bus which was very convenient. I sometimes forget how nice it is to go on organised trips.
I visited Georgia in 2022 but travelled alone to write about the local beer culture. There were so many breweries that I completely missed the fact that Georgia has an 8,000-year-old wine culture that you should of course familiarise yourself with.
But Helena and Peter were here last year and drove around, see the collection of articles on Georgia if you want to know more about the country. Georgia has become increasingly popular in recent years and tourism is developing so it is interesting to experience.
Gudauri - a ski resort known to many but not in Sweden
It was not until the 1980s that the first lift was added, but it is in recent years that tourism here has exploded. From a few hotels to around 60.
The highest point you can ski down is around 3,300 metres high and there are many pistes to choose from on the way down to the start at around 2,000 metres. You'll notice that the air is a little thinner at the top but you'll soon get used to it. More about the pistes and lift system in the next article.
Gudauri is located in the Caucasus mountain range where the highest mountain is over 5 000 metres. The Caucasus is also where our ancestors met long ago and gave rise to Europeans, Arabs and Persians, hence the name 'Caucasian'.
It is also an experience in itself to meet other nationalities on the slopes that you are not used to, perhaps not in an anthropological sense, but it is completely different skiers than in Italy and Switzerland. Chinese, Indians, Israelis and the occasional visitor from Dubai, where Gudauri is one of the closest ski resorts, come here.
Skis and lift pass before heading down the slopes
One of the big advantages, of course, is that you can buy a lift pass for around SEK 1 300 - for six days. Ski boot and ski hire is around 150-200 per day depending on whether you buy at the lift or a little further away.
Food is slightly cheaper, as is drink, but in Gudauri, which is a tourist metropolis, prices are higher than in the rest of the country, not only because it is higher up - but because the resort was built entirely for tourism.
There was also a programme for all travellers with an introduction to the lift systems and all slopes. Alexander from Apollo met us in the morning and ran a full day of organised lunch and après ski which was very much appreciated. Later in the week there are also more activities planned with pistes that are a little further away and social activities.
The area is famous for off-piste skiing and if you want to explore properly, you can hire a guide for a full day to go with you and show you.
It's Eurovision time, so it's also worth mentioning that Georgia has been in the contest since 2007, but has never managed to make it very far. It will be exciting to see which artist and song will represent them this year. Maybe this year will be the year they break through, then you can plan a trip in the spirit of Eurovision for next season.
There are many reasons to travel to Georgia, such as to experience the history of the country or to research why they are not doing so well in Eurovision. Or you could come here to go skiing and just enjoy the beautiful views and good food and drink - the choice is yours.
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Jonathan Gharbi De Maré
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Winter trip to Vorarlberg in Austria - our 8 best tips
Facts about Georgia - 30 things you (might) not know
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Karolina M says:
Wow! Looks absolutely amazing! Hope Apollo starts with these organised trips from Gothenburg too!
12 March 2025 - 9:54
Jonathan says:
Yes it is nice here 🙂
Yes we will see what next season will be like but heard that those from southern Sweden and Denmark travelled from Copenhagen.
12 March 2025 - 11:45
Ditte says:
Both interesting and exciting! Looks fantastic. No longer skiing due to back injury but have skied a lot in France (favourite), Italy Switzerland, Norway and tried Bulgaria (not much skiing) Andorra and Sierra Nevada in Spain.
Looking forward to reading more. Cost for a week with hotel? Skin in -ski out? Slope variations and length of them? Number of slopes? I'm curious now both for myself and children and grandchildren
Thanks for a great report and fantastic pictures.
12 March 2025 - 10:37
Jonathan says:
Thank you Ditte, oh you have skied a whole ski I hear, I myself have not skied so much so have asked many others about how to compare. I'm just about to write the next article with details of lift systems and slopes etc, it will come soon. Those who booked the trip a few weeks before departure date got it for around 9,000 but otherwise about 14,000, for a week. There are a handful of hotels to choose from. I'll try to answer all your questions in the article to come.
12 March 2025 - 12:09
Orsakulla mum at 20, valley life, fine china & poodle life says:
Such an exciting journey to take off on. I don't fly myself because of fear, but seeing others take off into the world is exciting. Especially fun also to see other mountain environments than we have here.
12 March 2025 - 13:33
BP says:
It was completely unexpected that Apollo would organise ski trips and then choose Georgia. Fun with new perhaps less exploited areas. Yes, if Gudauri becomes popular, it is quickly exploited of course.
Like Ditte, I have France as my fav, followed by Italy, Switzerland and lastly Austria. Austria's snow has a different "density" than the other countries, so I didn't like that. I wonder what the snow is like in Georgia...
12 March 2025 - 15:52
Jonathan says:
Grateful to get input from you who have skied a lot. It's a bit difficult to say as it's the end of the season when it's warm during the day, but those who have skied a lot say that the off-piste skiing here is good as there are very large areas that usually have nice loose snow to ski in. So if you go earlier than March, it's better for those who want to ski freely. There is also another ski area but this is the largest and with the highest altitude difference, about 1300 m.
12 March 2025 - 20:25
Travel.wiki says:
This post was a perfect fit. I was watching the Freeride World Tour (freeride competition) the other day and they had an event in Georgia. There the desire to go on a ski holiday to Georgia was lit. See you mention that the next post should be about the ski system. Would appreciate some info on freeriding opportunities, and skitouring if you know anything about it. Someone in the chat on the FWT stream mentioned that the lift system itself is lacking a lot, but there is a fantastic amount of skitouring opportunities.
13 March 2025 - 19:13
Jonathan says:
What great timing :), and thanks for the questions, yes what they say here is that free driving is the best thing about the destination, it is mentioned briefly in the next article but you can see from the pictures that there are large areas to drive on. There are many from Norway travelling too. Hope I can give all the answers in the next article...
13 March 2025 - 21:29
Mikael Bläsberg says:
What an interesting and exciting article. What a view!
Definitely an interesting destination if you want to experience a different ski week than Sweden (or the Alps for that matter). Have travelled a lot in France, Austria and Sweden but can definitely imagine going here next winter.
I'm a bit curious about the snow quality and how sunny it is in March?
Thank you for a well-written travelogue with interesting facts about both the trip and the destination.
14 March 2025 - 15:30
Jonathan says:
Thanks ☺️, glad you like the article. The snow right now in March can be difficult to navigate as it is warm during the day. So further down the slopes it gets heavy. It will snow in a few days but the season for off piste is before March you could say.
15 March 2025 - 6:52