Discover Samtskhe–Javakheti, One of the Most Beautiful Regions of Georgia
Published: Nov 4, 2022 Reading time: 1 minute
Samtskhe-Javakheti is one of the least explored regions of Georgia; therefore, it has great potential to boost tourism in Georgia. To explore this picturesque region, we visited Akhalkalaki together with Georgian guides and tour operators.
Within the framework of our project "Transcaucasian Trail – Promoting Cross-Border Tourism", local tour operators and guides had the opportunity to visit the Khozapin Lake, which constitutes part of the Transcaucasian Trail. Tour operators met with the local small and medium entrepreneurs who offer various services to tourists, including hotel, catering, honey extraction, fishing, wine and vodka production, bicycle/Quadro cycle, and 4X4 offroad tours.
In the framework of the project, in July-September, the organisation "Transcaucasian Trail Georgia" conducted fieldwork in the target regions where they surveyed more than 300 km of trails and marked new trails on the Open Street Map.
The goal of our visit to Akhalkalaki was to share information about the newly discovered trails with Georgian tour operators and familiarise them with the services available across these trails, and generally to help them to unlock the vast tourism potential of the region.
The „Transcaucasian Trail – Promoting Cross-Border Tourism“ supported by 𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃’𝐬 Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth Project – 𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 aims to establish a new network of rural and adventure tourism actors across Georgia and Armenia and develop new hiking trails to connect them to the growing Transcaucasian Trail initiative.