Tiny bags, big backpacking dreams

After much dreaming and planning, finally our very first actual "backpacking" trip to Georgia was about to dawn. And by this I mean that unlike when Tiger was a baby, and whilst we had a big backpack, I think I only actually carried it a few times. This time, I was aiming for us both to have backpacks but tiny ones and was relishing the challenge of minimalism and traveling with "hand luggage only".

I also had been itching to go back to Georgia since a solo backpacking trip in December in 2012. However, despite several years of wanting to go back, there were no direct flights or easy ways to do this until finally, Easyjet came up trumps with two return flights (with the free small under seat bag 45 x 36 x 20cm) for £336.92, which we booked back in November 2024.

Had we wanted to add luggage, this would have cost between £42.49 and £52.99 for hold luggage or £26.24 for paid-for cabin bags per flight. We were also able to book seats 14A and 14B for free (yay!) when we booked the flights and were able to check in 30 days ahead.

When we checked in, we also bought food and drink vouchers for £8 which give £10 credit redeemable against food and drink (includes meal deals). The voucher code was printed on our boarding passes. The rules are that you must use it on the selected flight, and no more than 6 vouchers may be purchased per passenger per flight. We bought 4 vouchers per flight so we had vouchers to the value of £80 for £64.

Here was our fabulous hand luggage only Georgia packing list for one adult and one six and a half year old!:

• 2x 20L day packs from Mountain Warehouse (dimensions: 45 (H) x 26 (W) x 20 (D) cm)

• 1x Packable Tote Bag from Mountain Warehouse

• Small fabric handbag

• Bank cards: Revolut, Nationwide (debit & credit), HSBC (debit & credit)

• Tiger's iPad, my iPhone

• Adult clothes in one small stuff sack: 4 dresses, 1 long sleeved t shirt, leggings, nightdress, underwear, swimming costume.

• Child clothes in one small(er) stuff sack: 4 dresses, 2 t shirts, 5 shorts, PJs, underwear, swimming costume.

• Adult lightweight raincoat

• Child lightweight raincoat

• Bubblebum inflatable car booster seat

• Kids wristband and Apple Air Tag for Tiger

• Toiletries bag: travel toothbrushes x2, small tube of toothpaste, 100ml shampoo, 100ml conditioner, deodorant, razor, tweezers, 22g Sudocrem, 20g vaseline, paracetamol, Calpol Six Plus Fastmelts, suncream, menstrual cup.

• Medication cooler travel case

• Travel corkscrew

• Sunglasses x 2

• Reading glasses (me) x 2 (just as well as one broke!)

• MOMAX Multi Travel Adaptor Plug and cables.

• Powerbank

• In-ear noise cancelling headphones (for me)

• Souncore noise cancelling headphones (for me)

• Tiger's headphones

• Selfie stick

• Phone mount

• Mini hand held fan (and torch)

• Small loomband set

• Small plasticine set

• Scratch pads

• Pencil case with pens, scissors, tape

• Travel journal for Tiger

• 2x foldable water bottles

• Books downloaded on iPad for bedtime

• Bradt Guide to Georgia.

• Paperwork: Passports, my driving license, Tiger's birth certificate, travel insurance documents, spare passport photos, photocopies of passports, hotel reservations, transfers, and tickets.

  
  

So finally D-Day was here and on Friday 1st August, we finished up with our holiday camp / work respectively and headed over to Luton, about 1.5 hours drive away, and checked into our favourite hotel, the Luton Town Centre Premier Inn, which this time was £43 including the parking in the NCP car park next door for two weeks!

As Saturday 2nd August dawned in our purple palace, and we got dressed in our holiday clothes - we wore our one pair of shoes each (closed sandal style) onto the plane and a lightweight fleece each! We were able to have breakfast in the Premier Inn at 09:00 (£10.99 for me, free for Tiger), dropped our last bits back to the car, and jumped in our Luton Airport Taxi for £12. As this was a reasonable hour, I decided to avoid the £5 barrier charge that Luton has now and walked the last ten minutes from the drop point at the Mid Stay Car Park. This was pretty straightforward and there were also loads of other people doing it!

We had tried to use the Pre-Book Security option 4 days before our flight (which is free) but it didn't work saying "Time slot booking is available 5 days before your flight. Not all flights are eligible for Prebook Security" so perhaps our 12:30 flight to Tbilisi, Georgia was one of the flights you just couldn't use this on!

You can also book Fast Track for £7 per person but as I had read that Luton now has new and improved security machines meaning that liquids and large electronics can now stay in your bag, you don't need the dreaded plastic bag for your liquids anymore, and you don’t need to remove them from your luggage I decided I would save us £14. Our bags went through the machines twice for some reason but otherwise it was plain sailing through security and we had lots of time to shop in the airport and added a (small!) puppy teddy to our collection! I was also chuckling to myself about the storms about to arrive in the UK when we were heading to much sunnier climes!

On the plane, we settled into our seats in row 14 for our almost 5 hour flight which was due to arrive at 20:20 (with Georgia being a 3 hour time difference, ahead of the UK). With the iPad, my phone and headphones fully charged, films downloaded from Netflix and audiobooks from the Borrowbox library app we were well prepared plus the phone mount worked amazingly well to clip my phone onto the tray table! This little gadget was just brilliant and made life so much more comfortable on the flight. I also had a bag to colour in, we'd bought a magazine in the airport and we made masks. We didn't get onto the scratch pads and plasticine but always time for that!

Due to our investment in the food vouchers, we also distracted ourselves with food and drink! Here is the full on board menu if you are flying out of the UK. I got an adult meal deal (lightly dry curry!) with a soft drink (£8.75), two little 187ml bottles of Malbec for £10.85, chips for £2.75, a cheese snack box with a drink (£10.50) and a kids meal for £10 which included an activity pack. This totalled £42.85 and we got £40 worth of vouchers so we saved £8! The kids "mini menu" is £10 and has a choice of mains: ham and cheese toastie, margherita pizza, chicken nuggets or a snack bag which contains laughing cow cheese dip with breadsticks, raisins, apple strawberry smoothie, mini cheddars and a kinder bar plus a kids activity pack. Tiger went for the snack box as they had run out of nuggets!

Our arrival went very smoothly with no waiting around for luggage and immigration was straightforward. I'd come prepared with Tiger's birth certificate but we didn't need to show it or indeed any hotel bookings. With a UK passport, you don't need a visa but there are some restricted areas you cannot go to, specifically South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The full UK Foreign Office travel advice for Georgia is here.

I had found the Wanderlush blog a great souce of information - the airport information is here. Tbilisi Airport (Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport, TBS) – is the main airport. There is one terminal for both international and domestic flights. Tbilisi International Airport is very small (there are just 7 gates!) and very easy to navigate.

After immigration, we met our driver then my first priority was to get my .hands on some local currency, Georgian lari or GEL. All ATMs in Georgia accept foreign cards (Visa and Mastercard). So we headed to the ATMs on the right-hand side of the automatic doors before the arrivals hall exit. There were two ATMS - TBC Bank (light blue colour) and Bank of Georgia (orange colour with a lion logo).

I also knew that I needed to get a SIM card and read all about how to do this the most cost effective way on the Wanderlush blog. It seemed to be cheaper to go to a Magti office the next day, however it would be a Sunday and more of a faff so I decided to bit the bullet and pay a little more (60 GEL, £16.50) by getting my new SIM card in the airport itself. This package was for unlimited internet and free calls in Georgia and it ended up working brilliantly throughout our trip in Georgia - no complaints! The lady put the SIM card in for me and taped mine to the card. One little recommendation I'd have for anyone is to bring a tool to open your phone up - not so much for when you arrive, but when you get home and need to reinsert your home SIM.

After we'd got the SIM card sorted, it was time to leave the airport. The airport is located southeast of the city centre so following the Wanderlush advice I booking a transfer with GoTrip for 52 GEL (£14) to get us to our hotel in Old Tbilisi, about 25 minutes away.

When we arrived, our host was there to show us around the Airbnb-style apartment. This was Heritage Rooms for 3 nights (46 GEL, £110) at 6 Sultanishani Street and it was a super cool little place for us with AC and fridge, a downstairs and upstairs bathroom. It actually had a sofa bed and a sofa chair but they weren't made up and we just shared the main double bed instead. I hung up all our clothes and fell into bed by 10pm!