The Transcaucasian Trail now has three routes in Georgia — and 1,895 km of it is walkable

The Transcaucasian Trail describes itself as the first international long-distance hiking trail in the Caucasus, running across Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan and under construction since 2015. Of a planned 3,000 kilometres, 1,895 are hikeable now. In Georgia there are three routes: Upper Svaneti, Imereti through to Racha, and a newly added section in Samtskhe-Javakheti in the south.

Svaneti already draws the crowds, and Racha is on most serious hikers' lists. Samtskhe-Javakheti is the part of the country that tourism has largely skipped — volcanic uplands, lakes, and a road network that keeps casual visitors away. A marked long-distance route through it turns a region people drive past into one people spend nights in, which is exactly the shift that puts money into guesthouses rather than petrol stations.

The association reports more than 30,000 volunteer trail-building hours and 60 trained local trail crew leaders, working across 25 protected areas and more than 150 communities. That structure matters to anyone running walking tours here: the route is maintained by people from the valleys it passes through, which is generally what separates a trail that still exists in five years from a line drawn on a map.

The association runs its own guided supporters' treks, with Georgia dates listed for Racha and Svaneti during the summer months and a snowshoeing trip in March, which tells you plainly which windows the organisers themselves consider workable. Anything at altitude in the Georgian mountains has a short season and weather that changes faster than the forecast does, so plan around the trail's own published dates rather than around your own holiday calendar.