The Ultimate Guide to Kazbegi

Kazbegi (Stepantsminda) is home to the picture postcard Gergeti Trinity Church and some of the best hiking trails in Georgia. Explore glaciers, waterfalls and even summit Mount Kazbegi – if you’re up for the challenge. This guide will show you how to do it all.

Hiking guide for Kazbegi
The views in Kazbegi are spectacular, you’re going to love it!

The number one reason people visit Kazbegi is to check out the Gergeti Holy Trinity Church, perched high up on a mountain overlooking Stepantsminda. People make the trip from Tbilisi just for it and then leave the next day. But they’re missing out! There’s so much to see in Kazbegi and a bunch of hidden gems too. Whatever you want to do there – pack your hiking boots and read on for all the info you’ll need.

What you’ll find in this guide

Top 5 Things To Do in Kazbegi

 

Guide to Kazbegi
Don’t forget to pack enough water, food and warm clothes for these hikes

The Gergeti Holy Trinity Church

Gergeti Trinity Church Kazbegi Georgia
It’s easy to see why so many people visit the Gergeti church

Let’s face it, the Holy Trinity Church is one of the best photo ops in Georgia, hence the masses of tourists ploughing in to snap a pic. And to be fair, it is a pretty epic shot and one of the most famous landmarks in Georgia.

Gergetti Trinity Church
The best view for the church is along this dusty trail leading towards the church

A bit of background on it first though; it sits at 2170m, was built in the 14th century and used to safely store artificats in times of conflict. The church is in use but was being repaired at the time I visited so didn’t get to check it out inside. Keep in mind that men and women should wear long trousers and cover up if they want to step inside the church.

Hiking in Kazbegi
Luckily there’s a ‘parth’ back to the village… and a toilet

There’s a free water fountain next to the church and usually a little van with a sweet lady serving cheap hot dogs and cans of Coke. There are also working toilets at the top and a church gift shop. If you’ve walked up and don’t fancy the hike back then, so long as you’re not too late in the day, you can pay the taxi drivers up there about £2 to take you back down.

How to get to the Gergeti Holy Trinity Church

Taxi

You have two options – walk or taxi. If you take the taxi you’re in for a bumpy ride in a jacked-up Daihatsu minivan. It’s very bumpy but they should get you there in about 20 minutes and it’ll cost around 40GEL for four people. The taxi driver will wait for you while you explore the church and take you back after. If they’re taking you back they will add 10GEL for waiting and the return fare. Getting one of these minivans is easy peasy; they line the main square waiting for customers.

Wild Kazbegi dog
There are friendly locals on hand to help show you the way

Walk

If you’re going to walk then there three routes up. Having walked all three, the one I’d recommend is the far-left route which takes you past the ‘Tower’. As you approach the foot of the mountain you’ll see a road to the far right (for the taxis), a path up the middle – heading straight for the top and another path which veers very far to the left, almost as if it’s going in the wrong direction – that’s your path.

Hiking in Kazbegi Georgia
You can spot the Tower in the distance, this is the view from the top of the trail

It’s so, so much easier than the middle path, which is a torturously steep hike.

Route to Kazbegi
You can take a break from the middle path by criss-crossing along the ‘road’

The left route is gentle, easy, picturesque and will take you about 45 minutes to get to the top. Just in case you’re still not sure how to get to this path, check out the map below and save the way-point on Maps.Me or Google Maps. As you approach the little village and the foot of the mountain you’ll see a little café called Gergeti Summer Café, that’s the entrance to the path you want.

Gergeti Kazbegi guide map
This is a MAPS.ME screenshot, take the south (left) route from the Summer Cafe around the back of the church. It looks longer but is much quicker!

Make sure you head up as early as you can in the morning, by mid-day loads of little minivans will be parked up outside the church, ruining your hard earned shot!

Gergeti Trinty Church Kazbegi guide
You’ll end up on this side of the church, just walk up to the main pathway

The Hike to Zakagori Fortress and the abandoned villages

This is a really easy hike, it’s long – but the terrain is easy peasy. Just make your way to the ‘Mountain Freaks’ HQ, which is located at the entrance to town. They have a daily minivan which will take you and bring you back for £9 (30GEL) – I’d be really surprised if you find someone cheaper. There is no charge for the actual hike, just for the minivan.

Beautiful walk through Kazbegi
The hike to the Fortress starts out rocky and ends up flat

The minivan leaves everyday at 10am and will pick you up from the same place they drop you off at 4:30pm. Mountain Freaks bill this hike as 7 hours, but it’s actually 6. Anyway, the only downside to this hike is that there’s no loop, you have to walk out the same way you walked in.

Hiking trail through Kazbegi
There are two working monasteries along the way, one for men and one for women

Other than that, the hike is very pretty, taking you past snowy white mountains, eerie abandoned villages, working monasteries and to the old Fortress. It is a long walk, so you will have to keep an eye on the time, it took us 3 hours to walk to the fortress, half an hour for lunch and 2.5 hours back.

Hiking in Kazbegi
The abandoned village is creepy and beautiful at the same time
Hiking in Kazbegi guide
Locals reckon there might be about five people still living around these houses
Castle in Kazbegi
The weather can change fast in Kazbegi, it started hot and turned cold and rainy. But the Fortress is worth the walk

Keep in mind that there are no food or water stops along the way, so bring your own, and a rain jacket as the weather can quickly turn.

Hikes in Georgia
There’s plenty of ruins peppered along the route
Hiking in Kazbegi
Walking too far off the beaten track can mean soggy boots

The Kazbegi Waterfall Hike

Georgia country hike
It’s an easy, fun, 20-minute hike to the waterfall from the main pathway sign (if you’ve been dropped off by a taxi).

This isn’t so much a hike as it is a gentle climb. The waterfalls are too far away from Kazbegi to walk, so you’ll need to hire a taxi to take you there and wait for you to finish. A taxi should cost you £15 (50 GEL) (for three people) including the waiting.

hiking in Georgia
The walk to the waterfall also makes for some pretty cool photography

There’s only so far the taxi driver can take you before you’ll need to jump and walk the rest. It’s a 20 minute walk to the ‘big’ waterfall (we didn’t bother with the ‘small’ waterfall), the driver will expect you to spend around 30 minutes taking pictures and eating lunch, then 20 minutes back. It’s an easy up-hill walk.

Waterfall in Kazbegi
This is the ‘waterfall’ just north of Kazbegi, it’s a 20-minute drive plus a 20-minute walk from the town centre

After your hike the driver may offer to take you further up the road to a monastery and to the Georgian border for another £5 (20GEL). It’s not particularly worth it unless you really want to see the outside of this monastery.

Monastery in Georgia
A pretty monastery but not worth the extra money - unless you’re really into your monasteries

The Gergeti Glacier Hike

Hiking in Kazbegi guide
The mountains surrounding Kazbegi just go on forever … as does the hiking

This is a long and arduous hike. It took us around six hours to get to the ‘monument’, which is a cross on some stone bricks.

Kazbegi mountain top
Recorded as ‘Monuments’ on Maps.Me, there are plenty of stone walls with crosses on top in the mountains

Serious hikers will have snow equipment, crampons and poles and will make it all the way to base camp. If you’re just hiking (like we did) then you can only go as far as the monument. It is a long hike and the views are beautiful but they don’t change the whole way up so there’s no real sense of achievement as you’re continuously looking back down the mountain at the same path.

Skis in Kazbegi and hiking
If you don’t fancy walking back down the mountain you could always ski!

There is also an easy and a hard way up. We took the hard, long way up and the easy way down – unintentionally though. As you stand at the foot of the Gergeti Trinity Church looking at it, do a 180 turn and you’ll see a faint trail snaking up a green hill.

Gergeti Trinty Church Kazbegi
This is the hill you’ll need to walk up to start the Glacier hike. As you’re walking upwards keep to the right and once at the top take the right pathway

Walk to the top and you’ll find an information board. From there the trail goes left or right. Left looks easier as it veers round the hill and is flat while right looks harder and shoots straight up. We went left, and it was hard and long. Right turned out to be the easy route! If you like hiking you’ll love this walk – so long as you take the right route!

Climbing Mount Kazbegi

Mount Kazbegi is slap bang between Georgia and Russia. The inactive stratovolcano is Georgia’s third highest peak. Unfrotunately for us, the weather was too bad to climb to the top (late April) as weather conditions change rapidly in the area. We looked into booking it with ‘Mountain Freaks’ as they seemed the most professional, on-the-ball agency in the area.

Hiking in Kazbegi guide
It really does go on forever, but it’s so worth it!

About Kazbegi

While it’s now called Stepantsminda (as of 2006), the locals and almost everyone we spoke to still refers to the town as Kazbegi. There are two main reasons people visit, either to see the Trinity Church and then leave immediately or to do some serious hiking. There’s not really much else to do there. There’s one ATM machine, a bunch of supermarkets (some take card) and a handful of restaurants.

Where to stay

Finding a place to stay in Kazbegi is easy. There are loads of options, however you’ll find most of them are a long walk from the main town centre, and unless you have your own transport, you’ll need to get to the town centre often to grab a cab. We stayed at Soul Kazbegi Guest House, which is slap bang in the centre. For three people in one room is rather cramped, but they have private bathrooms in each room, a communal area with a washing machine, clean sheets, kitchen and seating area all for £17 a night. This was the best deal we could find in the area. We ended up staying here for 6 nights, looked at other places but still felt this was the best value for money. You can find them easily on Booking.com. When you get there you’ll need to Whatsapp the owner (wifi password is written on the wall along with the owner’s number) and he’ll turn up quickly to show you to your room. He speaks excellent English and is a good guy.

Getting there and transport

From Tbilisi a marshutka (minivan) will cost you exactly £2.98 (10GEL), which is ridiculously cheap for a 3-hour drive. Make your way to the main bus terminal in Tbilisi, and as you get bombarded with drivers asking if you want to go to Kutaisi and Batumi, just keep saying Kazbegi and they’ll point you in the right direction. The Kazbegi marshutkas are on the east side of the bus terminal. Keep in mind that taxi drivers will offer you a ride as well, but these may not be legit cars, and even if they are (and despite what they say) they’ll charge more than 10GEL and wait for more tourists. Your best, and safest bet is to get in a marshutka, which has a Kazbegi sign in the window and a bunch of other tourists waiting to go.

The drive itself is special, so don’t nod off. You’ll be heading up the Georgian Military Highway, which weaves its way north over mountains and rolling green hills. You’ll pass monuments and mountains on the way so have your camera ready. The driver should stop twice for toilet and refreshment breaks too. Typically, buses back to Tbilisi start at 7am and go every hour until 12pm. But do check as this may change dependent on the time of year.

Peace statue in Georgia
Don’t worry, The Georgia Russia Friendship Monument on the Military Highway isn’t being knocked down. Your driver may stop off here for a quick break. If you fancy paragliding, this is where they do it too

Once you’re there you’ll be dropped off in the main town centre. This drop off point is where taxi drivers converge all day long to take tourists around Kazbegi. You’ll find plenty of drivers speak great English, so communication won’t be a problem. Some will also give you their number and you can call them whenever you need to go somewhere. Do shop around as prices vary between drivers.

Extra tips and tricks

  1. Save money on water by filling up at the fountain in the centre of town. Locals drink from here (and so did we for seven days without a dodgy tummy).
  2. Download the Maps.Me app to your mobile phone, and then download the Kazbegi region map. It’s free and has all the trails clearly marked on there so you can’t get lost.
  3. Don’t get caught out without the right gear, the weather can be vary temperamental in Kazbegi.
  4. Do get to the Gergeti Trinity Church as early as you can, the white busses can really ruin a picture.
  5. Don’t forget to take the left hand pathway up to the Gergeti Church, you’ll regret the middle and far right paths!
Kazbegi guide
You might get some funny looks from tourists, but this is where all the locals fill up

Join an organised tour

Alternatively, if you’d like to join an organised tour to visit Kazbegi in Georgia, we recommend booking on Viator. There’s a range of tours to choose from dependent on your budget.  

Liked that? Try these...

ps. We may receive a small commission, at absolutely no cost to you, if you purchase any products using the links on this page. We’re not sponsored by anyone, are completely impartial and don’t run ads. So this helps us keep the site running. Thank you for your support.

Leave a comment