Georgia is a Great Value

Greetings from the Republic of Georgia, where I’ve been leading a group tour that involved cultural sightseeing, days of skiing, and lots of food and wine debauchery. This was the only country in my living abroad book that I hadn’t set foot in personally, so I’m glad to see it is still holding up well on the value side. One-day ski passes are $29, beer and wine are half or less what you’d pay in the USA or Canada, and a subway ride is under 40 cents. My first hotel when arriving early was $32 per night and we stayed at one of the nicest ones in Tbilisi, right next to Parliament, for under $100 per night. My local expat friends Tom and Meg from Eat This! Tours say the majority of monthly rents are currently running $400 to $1,400 so it doesn’t cost much to live well here.

Splitwise App for Group Travel

Separate checks are a server’s worst nightmare if they will even do it, but usually they won’t for a group in countries where that is not common. I used the Splitwise app for the first time this month as 10 of us dined and drank around Georgia together, with one person picking up the check each time then entering what other individuals owed into Splitwise. After 19 “Check please” transactions, most of the expenses canceled out and I owed 3 people a small balance that added up to $49 total. Because of this app, we hardly ever needed cash (and people could take turns racking up travel points).

A Cheaper Priority Pass Back Door

If you don’t fly business class or have another way into specific airline lounges, Priority Pass is a great alternative in most international airports. I wanted to have it in place before a long layover in the Istanbul airport, but to get it included with a credit card now usually requires an annual fee of $400 or more, more than just buying membership outright. I found one exception though. This Altitude Connect card from US Bank only gets you four included lounge visits a year, but it has no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and you get 20K travel portal points after a $1,000 minimum spend. So yes, I got my Istanbul food and drinks gratis in the nice lounge there instead of paying some of the highest airport prices in the world.

World’s Best Airlines

I’ve been flying on Turkish Airlines on this trip, which was #10 overall in the full-service category of this list of the best airlines in the world. Rankings are all about the criteria used and the criteria in this one are the factors that really matter once you’re on the plane, like seat pitch, meal/drink service, entertainment, and charging outlets. Taking the top spots were Korean Air and Qatar in the full-service category, JetBlue and Westjet in the hybrid category, and AirAsia and Jetstar in the budget category. Click the link to see a few other classifications for regional airlines.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

03/27/25