Fantastic snow at this emerging ski resort in the Caucasus Mountains. The Caucasus Mountains boast the highest peaks in Europe and you can feel this in the quality of the powder at Gudauri Ski resort.
Increasing diversity and efficiency of the lifts.
Overall, Gudauri boasts great value for money, excellent skiing and powder, and increasingly attractive ski lifts.
See our video here

50cm of fresh snow, ski-in ski-out accommodation, modern lift system, cheap lift passes ………. what could possibly go wrong?

Gudauri ski resort in Georgia has a place in the world, but it is important to understand just where that place is! Many people rave about how good it is in terms of snow, dining, and price. We are not sure that they visited the same ski area as us because we found the resort experience and snow to be sub-par, and the whole destination not nearly as affordable as touted. Certainly, if the price of food, drink, transport and accommodation was as cheap as the lift passes, the problems at Gudauri could be largely understood and ignored, if not entirely forgiven. However, given the price point and lack of integration of all resort services, visitors from countries used to exploring professionally run ski resorts across the world, might be disappointed here.

Anyone living or working nearby in the Middle East (or similar single flight proximity) and a beginner/intermediate skier or snowboarder, might find that Gudauri ticks all your skiing boxes simply due to its convenience. And going there with our local partners (i.e. Vagabond Adventures) will ensure professional service & ski lessons/guiding plus expert local advice. For everyone else, Gudauri will only tick your boxes if the snow is deep, and the backcountry snowpack is stable.

So what are the positives about skiing Gudauri? On a good powder day with dry snow, little wind, and a few lifts running (modern lifts get rated highly on Powderhounds if they actually run!), Gudauri can be a lot of fun to ski. But so is everywhere, right? And that’s the problem with skiing within the resort boundary of Gudauri. There are so many days with constant inconvenience & disappointment that make it a difficult place to love, at least until it gets its act together anyway.

Outside the resort area, beyond the ski lifts, is where the real Gudauri shines. Big mountain descents are possible with relatively short skinning and then perhaps an obligatory taxi back to the ski lifts.

On-piste the resort feels busy. Terrain lacks good consistent fall line. Grooming quality varies greatly. In some places runs were groomed until they were dirt & rocks whilst there was a half metre of snow directly next to it. And what is it with the snowmobilers on the pistes?

There is very little on-piste here for advanced skiers & snowboarders, so we say that if you are an experienced snow enthusiast, come to Gudauri for backcountry adventure, Georgian food, and a bit of frivolity in the resort if it takes your fancy (or if the stars align and you get the perfect storm).

Gudauri’s modern lift system is ruined by utterly disinterested lift staff, hugely exacerbated by problematic guests whose poor behaviour is largely ignored by the staff. And the Sadzele chair doesn’t run very often anymore, which is a shame given the stellar terrain it accesses. Good for skinners though. Skinners are grinners after all.

Accommodation wise we tried all the options: self-contained apartments in ‘New Gudauri’; an Air BnB apartment in a disconnected ‘middle-ground’, but ski-in ski-out location (disconnected in that walking anywhere was not an option); a slopeside ski-in ski-out hotel in the lower ‘Old Gudauri’; and a high-end, new boutique hotel on the main road. Every one of them had issues for guests, and each had some positives. In the end we think the best option is the lower part of Gudauri. The consistent Marco Polo Hotel is one of the safest bets.

If staying in one of the many hotels along the main Military Road, the noise from trucks travelling through to the Russian border crossing can be problematic. Hopefully a new road tunnel being constructed down the valley will remove the worst of the thru traffic (particularly trucks) from the road near Gudauri and vastly improve the resort amenity.

For all the ski rental shops in New Gudauri village, it is near impossible to find anyone to wax, edge or repair a ski. It is surprising how few industry professionals there are in such a large ski area. We were lucky enough to stumble across a couple of local legends with great skills, but the majority of ski shops were barely able to do a wax.

We also observed many instances of very poor instruction from apparently under-qualified, disinterested & inexperienced locals that seemed to be pay more attention to their phones, than their clients. Anyone that needs an instructor for lessons, we recommend going with international ski instructors in the resort (i.e. Vagabond).

There is some great food here. We found the unassuming Restaurant Vartsla in New Gudauri to be one of the best on the hill. Great, honest food & service at the perfect price point, and all day long. A group lunch at the new (ish) Restaurant Skio probably served up the best food on the mountain, but a taxi was required to get there, and the prices were at the higher end of the scale. The Snowtime Bar at the Veranda Hotel was quite convivial, serving up great drinks and very tasty Georgian classic cuisine.

Eating up on the mountain is less inspired and by Georgian cuisine standards is reasonably poor. One to absolutely avoid is the quirky looking Pirni hut near the Kobi-Gudauri 2 & 3 gondolas. It served the worst food we came across in Georgia. Don’t bother asking about their toilet either!

Bars at Gudauri look to have a whole lot of potential, but the reality was mixed. At the high end of the spectrum, Drunk Cherry bar has first class, food, cocktails, service, ambiance, and entertainment. But it is also with an Alps-like price tag, and quite frankly if I am going to pay Swiss prices at a bar, I’d rather be in Switzerland! Such is its popularity; you’ll also need to book for dinner. We tried a host of other spots. Eskimos Bar was alright, particularly if into snowboarding. The tiny Traveller Bar was good and made great Turkish coffee. At the other end of the spectrum, a craft beer bar called ‘Black Dog Brewery’ was a shocker. It had no craft beer on tap or by bottle/can and was only selling a local domestic lager beer. Never mind the lack of service, ambiance and any general notion of how a good bar functions!

Getting to Gudauri from Tbilisi is easy. A private driver is straight forward to organise using ‘GoTrip’ or one of our partners. Driver standards vary greatly. Pay a little more for one that is patient and has a vehicle fitted with snow tyres (or a the very least has some chains). So many cars are getting around Gudauri with standard road tyres, causing needless carnage on the rarely cleared village ‘roads’ and car parks.

Tbilisi’s city centre is fantastic and will be a highlight of any visit to Georgia. Don’t miss it. The old town is replete with wonderful accommodation, culture, & experiences, plus amazing wine & fantastic cuisine. Buying a Kada (sweet baked bread) from a traditional tone oven bakery is simply divine. At the other end of the scale, enjoying delicious cocktails & incredible food at restaurants like Van Goghi was incredible.

If heading to Georgia for winter, spend a few nights exploring Tbilisi, go catskiing in Bakhmaro & elsewhere in Adjara and perhaps visit remote Mestia and the Svaneti. Head to Gudauri for backcountry ski touring when the snow conditions are good in March & early April. And go in a tour group with leaders that know how to get all the logistics lined up with the least amount of fuss.

In the end, every ski resort in the world is amazing on its day, and everywhere has something good about it. However, unless you are relatively new to the snow and skiing/snowboarding, or you live in the Middle East and just want a quick, convenient (& I use the term reservedly) snow holiday, on-piste skiing & snowboarding from the lifts at Gudauri is no reason to visit. The main reason to ski & ride Gudauri is for the lift-accessed sidecountry, and backcountry freeride terrain. And always factor in the GMT - Georgian Maybe Time.

We hear a lot of great things about skiing in Georgia, but it is rarely about the ski resort experience. It is, however, polarising. Some visitors rave about Gudauri, some loathe it, and others just ponder the possibilities. We can only hope the ski resort rapidly improves its integrated services & professionalism. The wonderful part of a visit to any part of Georgia is the backcountry experience, assisted in a few places by some conveniently located accommodation & ski lifts! Go there and do that.

Now if only an Austrian was running Gudauri …...

See what we think about the full pros & cons of the ski resort on the Gudauri overview page.

See our video here

Everywhere is different, including the way humans care for and/or interact with domestic dogs. In Georgia, as in many countries, many dogs roam free. In Tbilisi these dogs appear healthy and live very publicly, sometimes in the middle of a busy roundabout, with traffic carefully avoiding them.
In Gudauri ski resort area I observed dogs that were wretchedly undernourished. One of my fellow travelers saw someone kick a dog for no apparent reason, then laugh with their cohort (my fellow traveller called it out). Whenever I think of Gudauri, I think about the dogs, and I feel sad.
Gudauri ski resort has potential with options for good skiing within the resort, modern lift infrastructure, some (limited) good accommodation and food, however it lacks holistic service provision.
Challenges include getting from one part of the resort to another (there are no pathways to walk, no shuttles, no clear indication of ski options), lack of easily accessible accurate general information, crummy customer service (with a few exceptions, it doesn't appear to exist). Oh, and if you ask for and get directed to a toilet, it might not be anything like you expected (see the photo).
There doesn't appear to be any co-ordination, experience/knowledge and application of standards in relation to the lift system, i.e. opening on time, basic communication, managing of lift lines.
The tired major thoroughfare that runs past is extremely busy with traffic, primarily trucks. It is narrow, noisy and often the only option for walking access from one area to another.
The back-country, adventure and slack country options have potential to be excellent in the right snow conditions, but if reliant on the resort for access there might be issues.
Met some amazing people, had some good slack country runs, ate some amazing food, but overall Gudauri ski resort was disappointing.
See our video here

Gudauri has the potential to be an epic experience, it falls a little short on the delivery.

Had a lovely first afternoon with 10cms of fresh off piste in low visibility using the lift towers as a guide, snow kept falling and there were some seriously excited skiiers going to bed that evening as it was certifiably DUMPING light cold winter snow.

Left the accom very excited for the 10am gentlemen's hours lift opening the following morning. Unfortunately despite the late opening, chairs were not spinning until 11:45 on a bluebird day with fresh snow and little wind. Upper half of the mountain didn't open until nearly 2pm. Could've easily been mitigated by some planning by the resort, the lifties arriving to load chairs after we were standing in line. Frustrating to only have 5 skiiable hours in a day. Pistes were quite crowded, though comparable terrain in most European resorts would be groomed a lot wider to allow more space. Snow was wind affected through no fault of the resort, though begs the question how often a dump leaves the resort covered in breakable wind crust. Would be a very fun resort to ski with a big base as it would open a lot of terrain that was pretty sketchy or unskiable with the 70-ish cms on the ground.

Resort could benefit hugely from improved management of grooming and delivery of lift services. Ultimately shakes out as a bit of a second world experience at first world prices. Transfers from Tbilisi were 400 Gel, lift pass is affordable at 70 GEL though much of the resort was closed for much of the day. Be wary of the skidoos as they roam freely on the piste and we witnessed one particularly gnarly accident which could have been much worse.

The town is a little inaccessible as there aren't defined walking routes and the village is very spread out with hotels dotted around the ski area. Food for the most part was great in the village and reasonably priced. Staying in the 'New Gudauri' area near the bottom of the Gondola would be my recommendation to be able to enjoy some accessible restaurants and nightlife. Hotels and accommodation along the road can be a little isolated. Some affordable Air BnB options which we availed ourselves of and were very happy with.

Tbilisi is worth an overnight stay to enjoy the old town, food and a walk around the streets. While there are remants of the old dilapidated soviet infastructure many of this aging buildings have been renovated into trendy cafe's and bars which give the city a young and vbrant second life. Bernard's in the old town served delicious food, reasonably priced with friendy service. A walk to the Narikala fortress is worth the hike for the views of the town, while the Holy Trinity Cathedral was suitably massive if a little stark inside. National Museum of Georgia was engaging for a few hours at 30 GEL for the visit. Underground shopping is cool if you forgot to pack any jeans and want a set of baggy second hand Armanis.

Happy to have come and experienced it, logistics are a bit complex to call it a 'holiday', more of an 'experience'.
See our video here

The whole trip was an adventure and definitly worth it. Tiblisi was great (cheap accomodation, fantastic food, charming old town) to visit on the way and we found it easy to get an uber ($40) to the resort.

The lift pass ($25) was ridiculously good value - the lift system is modern and efficient. Most of the time, most places are uncrowded but you can run into bottlenecks. Navigating the runs can be a bit tricky with signage and info not that great, piste grooming not always the best either. However, there are a decent amount and variety of runs, definitly enough piste runs for a few days.

What brings great joy, when the snow gods are amenable, are all the easily accesable off piste options. When I was there it was a low tide year, I got a couple of days of snow, enough to get a taste of some side piste lines to myself - and leave me thinking what if? What if I got good snow and a guide? Should I return or just go back to Japan?

Lots of Airbnb apartments, expensive for Georgia but cheap for a ski resort, same with food. Our apartment had a little supermarket downstairs. The whole place does have a bit of a rough around the edges feel, which sometimes adds to the sense of adventure.

Overall a great trip - combine a holiday to a fascinating new country, with what could be the best value skiing in the world - and you're onto a winner.
See our video here

OK, early 2020 has been a terrible snow season. Keep that in mind and I am going to make this a long review, because there are few reviews to assust riders thinking of a trip to Georgia and I was one of them.
Gudauri probably only has a 50cm base and it has been nearly 2 weeks since the last snow fell. You can't expect too much and there have been brown and stony areas on all pistes at end of day despite good grooming and snow making. However, overal the riding has been good to very good and that's why I'm giving the snow 3 stars when many serious riders may give 1.
You can ski off piste on pretty good snow. Only a very small percentage of riders go off piste other than those hiking and skiing the freeride areas, so off-piste is uncrowded despite this being a holiday period.
The snow quality in the freeride zones is still excellent - light and dry, although today and tomorrow it's warm like springtime, so that may change in places. Avi risk remains a concern and lots of very tasty terrain has either slid or has little snow cover. New slides happened today. In my opinion, the reward for risk rules backcountry riding out at the moment. That includes the local heli service for me. Hitting covered rock and falling on rock isn't worth it. My skis already dislike me from frequent rocks hits in areas of more compressed snow.
The terrain is very good, with massive in-bounds areas of intermediate to lower advanced of-piste, mostly 400-600m vertical runs. There's limited steep groomers. With a deeper snow pack the sidecountry would be off the hook. It's all alpine, no trees. The weather has been stunning and views are amazing.
The lifts are very good, mostly detachable and covered chairs and modern gondis. There's a slow chair up to Sadzele peak (the highest point), but it's too bare up there to bother. In a normal season that lift accesses huge areas of steep terrain within 15 minutes skate/walk and right off the top too.
There have been lift lines up to 20 minutes (first gondola out of New Gudauri), but mostly less than 3 minutes. Some mountain cafes have been running out of food items at lunchtime and one had no beer left! The grocery store has the longest line-up at the checkout!
Lift and equipment hire is inexpensive. A single, adult day ticket is 50 laris or $US18. There are plenty of restaurants offering a variety of food, but mainly Georgian staples. Service, price and quality do not rate versus the rest of this amazing country, but compared to the rest of the world, it's great value for money. The Drunk Cherry has been a winner. Be prepared to book ahead and pay a deposit upfront. The mountain is dotted with outdoor cafes and drink venues where taking in the sun is very popular. The coffee sucks here.
Toilets are definitely better than in other Georgian ski resorts, but nothing special and quite limited, with long lines this week. Don't wait to the last minute!
This is not a day trip resort. It's a lovely 2 hour drive from Tbilisi, but Georgian drivers can provide a white knuckle experience. Our booked driver stopped a few times so we could take in the sights. These are a proud people and rightly so.the country has amazing history. The minivans that leave Tbilisi bus station on a when-filled schedule may not offer that option. We have a studio apartment with small cooktop, small fridge, cooking utensils and en-suite in New Gudauri 100m from the gondi base. It's about $US50 per night. It's small but great value. Don't expect the best sound proofing and the ski storage area is sardine can busy at times, but again it's great value for money.
The walk to the lift is on a narrow and icy road. All the roads in the village are like this and busy. It can be a frightening walk, but compared to the inside of many buildings in Georgian snow resorts, it's actually pretty safe. The floors often make black ice feel secure.
There's tandom paragliding here. Very popular at $US120.
Sorry my image files are all too big which is a pitty because the Caucusus are staggering and it's been picture postcard weather.
So I hope all that helps. Gudauri is certainly worth visiting before the rest of the world swamps Georgia, which seems to be happening. Oh, language has not been the big issue we expected. Georgian is very difficult and most people seem happy if you use the basic hello, goodbye, thanks, sorry, how much etc.
See our video here

Koszmarny osrodek narciarski, otwarty pare godzin dziennie.
Brak zasad bezpieczeństwa - skutery śnieżne ścigające sie po stoku , brak naśnieżania (ni euruchomione armatki) pomimo braku śniegu i minusowej temperatury.
( translated from Polish) 
A nightmarish ski resort, only open several hours a day. No safety rules - snowmobiles racing on the slopes, no snowmaking (and snow cannons) despite the lack of snow & minus temperature.
(Editor's note - appears the off-piste was excellent though with a score of 5!)
See our video here

Great place to be!
See our video here