Travel Resources
- How to Entertain Kids on a 13-Hour Flight
- What to Take When Adopting
- How to Avoid Sticking Out Like an (American) Sore Thumb in Airports
- What to Bring Home
- Bringing Along Baby Food? Not Too Much, Rules Say; NY Times article (if full article not available click here for PDF)
- Human Rights.GE
- Portal for human rights issues in Georgia
- Yahoo! Travel Guide
- Travel information
- The Embassy of Georgia to U.S., Canada, and Mexico
- NATO, EU, business relations, downloadable fonts
- U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi
- Essential travel information
- Adventures Great and Small
- Georgian travel Lonely Planet
- Travel information
- Traveling to and from the nation of Georgia gets easier and easier. Flights are available from Moscow, Istanbul, and many European cities. If you look at only one online travel resource, make it the U.S. Department of State website. It has invaluable information on adoption travel and on Georgian travel in general. Then visit Georgia.gov.
- When you arrive check in with your nation’s embassy if you'll be in the country more than a week. You may also want to visit the Georgian Tourism Department:
- State Department of Tourism and Resorts
- 80, Chavchavadze Ave., 380062, Tbilisi Georgia
- Phone: +995/32/ 294052
- Currency is the Lari; 100 tetri = 1 lari. Electrical outlets require 220 volts. The National Bank of Georgia has currency exchange rates.
- Concerned about motion sickness on your long flights? The dizziness, nausea, and vomiting occur when the brain gets conflicting data on the body’s movement. For example, an airline passenger’s eyes tell her brain that her body is sitting still inside the plane; but her inner ear feels that she, and the entire plane, are moving. The best bet for treating motion sickness is to prevent it. RealAge has an assessment with suggested remedies.
Five-star Marriott hotel in heart of T'bilisi, below 
What to Take When Adopting
Every trip to another country requires careful planning. Imagine the planning necessary when you’re going to meet your child for the first time! All adopting families who have traveled abroad have agonized over what to take. At a point in our lives when we felt (at best) scattered, we could at least control what we packed. Your agency will give you good advice. The Bair family shares its list of what to take for adoption travel.
EMK Press has excellent online guides; click here and scroll down for Kara Post's "Practical Guide to Toddler Travel," which includes a section on packing for an adoption trip.
Elizabeth Leuenberger has put together excellent advice on what to wear, entitled How to Avoid Sticking Out Like an (American) Sore Thumb in Airports.
GCOF member Lori Johnson offers the following thoughts:
Pack for easy layers, including socks. Use plastic bags to place clothes in. You can remove the air by sitting on the bags, and get more clothes in the suitcase. Carry a backpack as your purse, and include one set of clothing for you and your husband. Have your husband carry the same. If you should be separated from your luggage at any time, at least you will have two outfits. In the backpacks pack deodorant, toothpaste and any other personal-care items you can get through security.
Take a picture of all your luggage and what is in each piece. Keep copies of these photos in your backpacks, and give the originals (along with your flight schedules) to someone back home. Tag your luggage with a "to address" (Georgia) and "from address" (USA). Make sure the phone number on the luggage is someone who will be accessible while you travel abroad. I used my parents’ address and phone number.
What to Bring Home
These suggested items were originally planned for an adopted child’s Heritage Box. For anyone traveling to Georgia, however, this list is an excellent goal for souvenirs. Many of these can be purchased in Tbilisi at the weekly art market or the “underground” market (it’s under a bridge).
Keeping in Touch
The most reliable way to correspond to or from Georgia is via e-mail. The capital Tbilisi has several Internet cafes where you can send and receive e-mail while traveling. The wire-based phone system in Georgia is unreliable, having been in place since the Soviet years. Most Georgians use cell phones exclusively.
Many international calling plans and calling cards don't offer low rates for calls to Georgia; check yours before being surprised by rates as high as several dollars per minute!
Currently, Georgian mail is notoriously unreliable. Mailing packages and documents through UPS is possible, but expensive. Most people doing business in Georgia use personal courier services.
Highlights of Your Trip
GCOF member Brenda Smith shares her favorite spots in Georgia:
Tbilisi Restaurants
- The Old House; sit outside at tables overlooking the river
- The World of Wine, 2 Revaz Lagidze, near the Opera House off Rustaveli Avenue; incredible sturgeon in walnut sauce, delicious eggplant and walnut paste dish, great place to buy Georgian wine
- Nikala Pierosmani; the best shashlik (shishkebob) ever, amazing roasted mushrooms, astonishing bar-b-qued sturgeon with pomegranate sauce, fantastic khinkhali --the best meal we had in Tbilisi
- Mill Housem on the road to Dididighomi; bar-b-qued sturgeon, shredded chicken salad, traditional Georgian music played live
Arts
- Janashia Museum of Georgia
- Georgian State Art Museum
- Georgian TexStyle, on a pedestrian street called Shardeni near Sioni and the bakery; gorgeous handmade felt scarves, hats and clothes
- Besarion Darjania, a little hole-in-the wall store a few doors up from the felt store (cell: 893-31-92-66); Darjania is a renowned cameo artist.
- Saturday and Sunday downtown market
Culture
- Mtskheta cathedral
- Ivari monastery
- Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue
- Piping hot bread from the underground bakery across from Sioni church in old Tbilisi
- Food bazaar, where vendors tempt you with nibbles of their goods, and you can buy spices to take home
- Crooked streets of old Tbilisi, looking at the architecture and stopping in churches and the synagogue
- Ethnographic Museum, also called the Museum of Georgian Folk Architecture
- Abanotubani, the baths district and the most ancient part of Tbilisi
Below: Jvari is the oldest continuously-used Christian Church in the world |
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Selling cut daffodils and pumpkin seeds, below |
