Plain answers to the questions people actually ask in Mestia — cash, museums, the trek, the road and the electricity story.
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Cash, overwhelmingly. Guesthouses, marshrutkas and museum tickets run on lari, and the trek villages have no ATMs at all. Mestia has ATMs, but they can run empty on peak weekends — draw what you need before the weekend and before leaving town. Budget 85–150 GEL per person for guesthouse half board on the trek (2026 range).
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00, closed Mondays (+995 322 99 71 76). The listed adult ticket is 7 GEL, but foreign visitors are commonly charged 20 GEL in practice (reported through 2025–26). Bring cash either way.
Reportedly open daily 10:00–18:00, around 10–20 GEL, cash only. It has no official page, so confirm locally before making the walk.
The Chazhashi museum-reserve — the tower-village core that put Upper Svaneti on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1996 — charges 2 GEL.
The village buses are set by Sakrebulo decree — 1 GEL from Lenjeri, 2 from Latali, 3 from Becho, up to 8 GEL from Khaishi and Chuberi, one way, and free for registered disabled residents and for schoolchildren going to school. The municipality also publishes the intercity table: Zugdidi 35 GEL (08:00 and 12:00), Kutaisi 40, Tbilisi 50, Batumi 50, all leaving at 08:00. The flight is 90 GEL to Natakhtari, 50 to Kutaisi. Every one of those figures is on the "What the ride should cost" page on this site. The Ushguli vans and the trailhead taxis have no published price at all.
The shared vans back to Mestia thin out after lunch — the last ones leave around 15:00, at 20–40 GEL a seat. That range is what travellers report, not a tariff: nobody has ever published a price for the Ushguli vans. Don’t linger past mid-afternoon without a plan — once the vans go, it’s a private ride or a night in a guesthouse.
Day three of the Mestia–Ushguli trek fords the glacier-fed river at Adishi. Cross early in the morning, when the water is lowest; through the season a local horseman ferries hikers across for 20–25 GEL.
It has been since the 1990s. From 2026 the municipality is being metered: power stays free up to a consumption limit, but as of August 2026 the limit and the above-limit tariff had not been published (the change was announced on 1 June 2026). Blackouts in recent winters were traced to illegal crypto-mining, which is now being cleared.
Winter tires are legally required on the Zugdidi–Mestia road from December through March. The road also loses a few days most years to rockfall or avalanche — see the Zugdidi–Mestia road weather page on this site.
No — Mestia has no local outlet. News travels through the regional mountain-news site mtisambebi.ge, national media, and Facebook groups.