Getting from Kutaisi airport to the city — all the options

Kutaisi International Airport is the arrival point for most low-cost flights into western Georgia, and it is not in the city. Here are the four ways out of it, with the honest trade-offs. The shuttle bus. Cheapest, timed to flights, and it runs to Kutaisi centre as well as onward to Tbilisi and Batumi. Good if you are travelling light and your flight is at a civilised hour. Less good with three suitcases and a sleeping child. Taxi. Available at the terminal on any arrival. Agree the price before you get in, and expect it to be higher at night. Straightforward, but it is the option where arriving visitors most often feel they overpaid. A pre-booked transfer. Fixed price agreed in advance, a driver waiting with your name, no negotiating at midnight. This is what we recommend to guests arriving after dark, and we run them ourselves — arrange it with your room and it is one less thing to solve while tired. A rental car at the airport. Makes sense if you are heading straight out — to Svaneti, Batumi, or a hotel outside the centre — or if you are going to want a car for the trip anyway. We hand cars over at the terminal at any hour, insurance and unlimited mileage included, so the car is waiting rather than collected the next morning. One practical note whichever you choose: flights here land at genuinely unsociable hours. If you are arriving at 03:00, the thing that matters is not the distance to your hotel — it is whether the front desk will be awake. Ours is, all night, every night.