After 5 great nights in Tbilisi, a beautiful city well suited for backpackers, we hopped on another bus and headed to the neighbouring country of Armenia, to the capital of Yerevan, which is a great digital nomad destination. The bus ride there was ridiculous and the driver was a madman. I was feeling car sick (due to his rally car driving) and ended up having to move to the front seat.
We arrived in one piece and set out to find our hostel. After hiking up 110 stairs (yes, we counted them) we arrived to the top floor hostel. It was 40 degrees out so we were sweating pretty good by the time we arrived! The hostel was great, had only been open for 2 months, had a communal kitchen, coffee and tea all day, a tv/couch lounge area and really nice and helpful staff.
Our room was upstairs…turns out the a/c hadn’t been installed upstairs yet! I took one look at the small room with the sun beating in through the window and said “there’s no way I’m staying in this hotbox of an attic!” The owner (somehow..) could sense my concern and said that we could move to his home next door to sleep the following night. So, we toughed it out for one night with a fan, cold, wet towels on us and finally got some sleep around 1:00am. We moved to his home beside the hostel and it was much better.
As it was so hot during the day our only options were to go out before 10:00am or after 9:00pm. We spent the daytime in our hostel with other travellers chatting and drinking some Georgian wine we had brought with us. There were some sights to see though and we went out a couple of nights to see some jazz music and have dinner.
One day we went to an outdoor bazaar which sold everything from kittens to artwork. We saw a beautiful water fountain light show and walked around a few trendy streets.
I don’t know if it was just the heat or what, but we didn’t find Yerevan NEARLY as appealing as Tbilisi. So, after only 3 nights, we packed up and headed back to Tbilisi for another great night before boarding the long 26 hour bus ride to Istanbul, Turkey.
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It is not often that this part of the Caucuses are explored by backpackers, great to see something new! Thanks for the writing and photo!
Cheers for the comment RG! The fact that not many backpackers go to the Caucasus countries was one of our main draws for heading there. Glad you enjoyed the post. Safe Travels.
That spider looks like the one of Mexico City outside of Bellas Artes! 😮
PS. Was it very expensive to travel in the Caucasus? I’m thinking about doing that next year! Turkey to Georgia to Armenia to Azerbajan to Kazahstan.
Nice! That would be a great trip for sure. People don’t often travel to that part of the world, and I’m not sure why. We spent 160 GEL/day in Georgia (which at the time was $100, but since the dollar is so strong, it’s probably less) , and we lived quite well, not very budget at all. We were about the same in Armenia.
Cheers!
That looks interesting!
Hey guys,
I used to live in yerevan half the time between 2008 and 2011 and I really loved it there. it’s a laid back city. and people are very nice and friendly. I think it’s more appealing than tbilisi. for me it was way cosier. but in winter it kind of lose its charm after sun set with almost empty dark streets as early as 6-7 pm. and the main obstacle at first was communication due to lack of english. rural areas are very beautiful. especially summers, if you come by land from iran, there are villagers on the road side selling fresh fruits, tasty home made wine as the oldest wine making equipment was found in armenia and delicious kebabs. but the roads on the armenian side are narrow, bumpy and with some pretty blood curdling hairpin turns. I hope I can go back soon to have a caucasus tour by land going through azerbaijan, georgia, armenia, nagorno-karabakh and taking some of the many possible trekking trails in the region especially Janapar trail in karabakh. I am sorry for all my comments being so long
Hi Alibaba,
Thank you for your comment. We enjoyed Yerevan as well, but preferred Tbilisi! We heard of, and met, many Iranians coming over to Yrevan for the weekend 😉 Cheers!
I’m heading there along with Georgia and Azerbaijan on a backpacking trip next week. I hope its not too hot !
I’m very excited about Tbilisi.
I hope it’s not too hot too! Enjoy, Tbilisi is really cool.
I believe you 🙂
I have friends who have been to Armenia this summer and they had a great experience, in the same period I traveled to the opposite direction, to Poland, but I intend on going there this fall.
I have visited both Armenia and Georgia a few times. Yerevan specifically can get really hot, but still a lot to do. There are a lot of day tour options as well. We did a lot of trekking, mountain hiking, water rafting etc. But I guess the best thing about both Armenia and Georgia is food plus it’s very cheap, we tried a lot of different restaurants, my partner fell in love with xnkali (not sure if it’s correct spelling) and now every time we travel somewhere he always tries to find Armenian or Georgia restaurant for us to go to as the ones in the UK are not great.