Hello and welcome to a new video
In this video I'm going to talk to you about the cost of living in Georgia
My wife and I spent over a year living in Georgia.
So we have a really good idea of what it costs day to day...
...living in Tbilisi, in Batumi and other cities.
So I'm going to break it down into a few things.
I'm going to talk about accommodation.
Transport.
We'll also talk about eating out and supermarkets, buying food.
And lastly about mobile data because it's a very important thing...
...when you're travelling or if you're a nomad and you need to work online.
OK. So let's start with accommodation.
It really depends how long you're going to be staying in Georgia.
If, for example, you're going for a couple of days, maybe for a week.
Then probably your best bet is something like Booking.com or maybe Airbnb daily rate.
Or you could actually contact a hotel directly on their website and find it in that way.
Price wise, you're looking at anything from £8 a night for a hostel...
...all the way up to 100's of pounds for a really posh hotel in the centre.
If maybe you're planning to stay for a bit longer. A month, couple of months, 3 months.
Then you're probably better off going with Airbnb and booking 28 days.
Usually, you get a discount.
If you don't see a discount when you look on Airbnb.
Message the owner and ask for one.
Maybe it's not rented that month and they'll actually get a full month's money.
So it's possible that they'll rent it to you for a whole month with a discount.
You can get up to a 50% discount if you contact people and do it that way.
If you're staying for a very long time. So maybe 6 months or a year.
Then there's a website called myhome.ge.
Myhome.ge you'll find loads of properties all around Georgia.
And you can rent directly from the landlord.
You can contact them and negotiate a price.
This will be probably the cheapest way to rent long term in Georgia.
The drawback I think for us and why we didn't use it.
Is. Yes you get a bed, maybe a TV maybe a few things.
But very often there's no linen, and there may be no kitchen utensils, plates and cups.
So you would need to buy that kind of stuff.
Not always but mostly what we looked at, it was like this.
We didn't really want to be doing that, because we didn't know how long we would be there.
So if you're planning on staying for a few years then it's worth it.
What we did, was a long term Airbnb thing.
So we contacted people. If they weren't offering a discount, then we asked for one.
But most places will offer some long term discount.
It also depends where you are in the city.
So if you're in the centre touristy part of say Tbilisi or Batumi.
Then it's unlikely that you're going to get a discount in the main kind of tourist season.
But the further out of the town centre you go, the more likely that you will get this discount.
So it's definitely worth it. And as I said, that's what we did.
Money wise. You can pay anything from £200 a month...
...all the way up to £500-£600 pounds a month. Really depends where you are in the city again.
You only really need to go 4-5 stops out of the centre...
...and prices will start to fall. So it's kind of worth doing this.
And, I'm going to get onto transport in a moment, but it's so easy to get around the cities...
...that you don't need to be in the centre.
One thing to note is that a lot of people...
Airbnb, ok that's fine, you're going to pay on the Airbnb system.
But if you rent through myhome or if you negotiate a discount maybe on Airbnb.
It's possible that they will want the money in dollars, in US dollars.
Fortunately, you can go to the cash machines in Georgia and take out US dollars.
So you can do that, that's not a problem.
But just bare that in mind. It's because the currency in Georgia is kind of up and down.
They want a safe currency. If you like.
So onto the next thing I want to talk about and this is transportation.
Now if we talk about England, it's very expensive to use public transport.
But in Georgia, that is not the case.
You've got a few choices. the one we preferred was Bolt.
There's no Uber in Georgia.
But you've got Bolt. Yandex taxi is another option. But...
Yandex taxi, the cars weren't as new. Whereas Bolt, it was mostly Toyota Prius cars.
In fact, if it wasn't a Toyota Prius then we were very, very surprised about it.
So taxis, yeah they're really, really good.
In Tbilisi, there's a metro But only in Tbilisi.
And that will cost you 50 Tetri per ride. 50 Tetri is about 10 pence (15 cents).
For 1 ride.
There are no zones. You can get on on one side of the city.
Go all the way to the other side of the city and it's 10 pence.
Or you can go one stop, and it's the same. So that's really good.
Other ways to get around the city. You have city buses.
They're actualy brand new. They bought new buses when we were in Georgia.
Super modern buses.
Another option for getting around the city. So if you're not near a metro station.
Then you can use a marshrutka. A marshrutka is basically a minibus.
I don't like them because they cram people on a marshrutka
And if you're unlucky, you end up stood under somebody with their armpit in your face.
And that can be unpleasant.
And I also get very travel sick so that's not good for me.
So I preferred the metro and taxis.
Other ways to get around. There are cable cars. In Tbilisi and one in Batumi as well.
So the cable cars go from Rike park or there's one which goes from another region of Tbilisi...
...up to the mountain.
The funicular railway is another way to get up to one of the mountains.
If you get one of these.
This is a Tbilisi transport card.
So you can find these in all the metro stations. Go up to the kiosk and ask the woman...
...for a transport card.
You put money on it. And with this you can use the metro, the city buses and the cable cars.
You put credit on this and just tap it on to the electronic thing, and it's fine.
So it's quite modern.
You can't use these on Marshrutkas, you have to pay cash.
And also you can't use it if you go on the funicuar railway.
So. Funicular railway, I have another card in my wallet here.
So this is for the funicular railway. It's a Mtatsminda card.
Mtatsminda is the mountain right over Tbilisi. It means holy mountain. Mtatsminda
You buy this card for about 2 Lari and then you top it up.
And then each ride on the funicular costs you 6 Lari. So 6 Lari up, 6 Lari back.
But it's not much. It's about £1.50 ($2).
OK moving on. I'm going to talk about eating out and shopping in supermarkets.
Our favourite restuaurant in Tbilisi was the Radio Cafe. We miss the Radio Cafe.
It was a fantastic place. Amazing food, good prices.
Usually we went there, we had a meal, a few drinks. It cost us £10-15. For 2 people.
So it's very good value in Georgia.
Georgia's famous for khachapuri, khinkali
I couldn't eat any of this unfortunately, because I'm gluten free and lactose free.
But in this restaurant they catered for me a bit. We got to know the manager.
So it was a really friendly, nice place.
Coffee?
Kind of coffee shops/bakeries called Entree.
The coffee's really nice and it's cheap. I used to have an americano, and it was 5 Lari.
My wife loved these salmon rolls that you could get there as well.
There were lot's of deserts and stuff. So it's a really nice place to go and have coffee.
Supermarkets. You've got a few choices.
My 2 favourites were Europroduct and Agrohub.
And there's also one called Goodwill and then there's Carrefour.
There are lots of choices. You can even buy gluten free stuff, which is good for me.
Although not good for my stomach. Because, unfortunately, I did put on lots of weight.
Because I was eating too many gluten free biscuits.
In Batumi there's wasn't as much choice, so I lost weight. But anyway, that aside.
It's there if you want it. So if you have allergies like you're lactose free, you're vegan...
There are soya milk options, lactose free. Almond milk as well, that's another option.
As I said, my favourite place to go and buy stuff was Europroduct.
Europroduct are convience sized stores. So they are not huge supermarkets.
But it's mostly imported products. So it can be a bit more expensive.
But you'll see some things that maybe you're familiar with from your own country.
There are loads of those around tbilisi as well. There's none in Batumi.
One in Kutaisi and a few other places. They're mostly in Tbilisi.
So, that's a good supermarket to go to.
Another one we used was Agrohub. Now this is kind of like an upmarket supermarket.
In Britain, think of your Waitrose. It's like the Waitrose of Georgia.
Again, lots of imported products. The prices a bit more expensive in Argohub.
Probably the cheaper end of the market would be Goodwill and maybe Carrefour.
Price wise. If it's imported, it's quite expensive.
Fruit and veg was really cheap in Georgia. You could buy fruit and veg incredibly cheap.
And. Don't forget also you can go to the markets.
Go and speak to the people in the markets.
The quality generally was really good on market stalls.
And then also you're kind of buying directly from people.
Rather than putting money into the pockets of corporations.
If that's you're thing then that might be a good thing as well.
OK. So let's move onto the last thing I want to talk about which is mobile data.
So everyone now has a mobile phone. It's expensive to roam
And. There's no free roaming in Georgia. With your home sim card.
So the best thing is to buy one. Even if you're only there for a week, buy a sim card.
It's so mush easier and it's incredibly cheap.
There are 3 main networks. Magti. There's Beeline and there's Geocell
We started off with a Beeline sim card and in Batumi it was ok.
But when we got to Tbilisi, the coverage wasn't as good. So we changed to Magti.
We paid 30 Lari a month for 20 GB of data.
So that's about £7 a month. ($10)
To wrap up. Georgia is a cheap country.
If you're from The West, if you're from a country where you've got a bigger salary.
Then you can live like a king in Georgia, or a queen.
I would definitly recommend you visit Georgia. It is a beautiful country.
I'm going to do a few more videos about the pros and cons of living in Georgia as well.
It's a good place to be based for a year, for example.
Because. You can live cheaply, you can `save money if necessary.
So thank you for watching this video. I hope I didn't ramble for too long.
I hope it's useful. If it was useful then please subscribe to my channel and give it a like.
And. Leave a comment. If you've got any questions about Georgia,
write a comment below and I can try and answer it for you.
So thank you and I will see you very soon.