What It’s Really Like to Hike Svaneti

I’m pacing the three-meter length of the shoebox Northface store in Tbilisi, occasionally bouncing on the balls of my feet to fake like I know what I’m doing. The sales girl smiles at me encouragingly, but it’s hard to know how these shoes will feel after I hike Svaneti for four days. I smile back at her though, bravado on the outside and thinking to myself, Who the hell got me into this?

The answer, of course, was me.

I’m doing something new, a yearlong experiment that started as the seed of an idea in Kyiv, sprouted in New York, and grew roots in Tbilisi. I’m taking a few of the fundamental beliefs I have about myself, and I’m challenging them. Some of them are serious, personal enough that even my loud keyboard isn’t ready to type them out for the world to see. But some of them are light-hearted. I’m not good at languages. But what if I am? I’m too scared to learn to drive a motorbike. But what if I’m not? (Don’t worry, Mom, I haven’t gotten to that one yet.) I’m not an outdoorsy person.

But what if I could be?

The four day hike in Svaneti from Mestia to Ushguli is one of Georgia’s biggest tourist attractions, and there was no way I was going to miss it, no matter how little cardio I do. So I found a friend who was the outdoorsy type, an easy target, and persuaded him to buy a ticket to Georgia, effectively committing myself to something that I would have, in most years of my life, avoided with extreme laziness.

To say I was physically underprepared for a four-day hike covering nearly 60 kilometers and climbing over 3000 meters is a vast understatement. But I was about to do it anyway. So if you’re wondering what it’s really like to hike Svaneti, here we go.

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Day One: Mestia-Zhabeshi

Rolling off the minibus in Mestia, coming straight off the overnight from Tbilisi, my mind was still catching up with what we were about to do. Mestia was bigger and more developed than I expected, but even at 9am the town was still sleeping. That’s Georgia, for you.

The only people who did seem to be up and about were the taxi drivers. “You need a taxi?” they’d ask from the driver’s seat.

“No thanks,” I said. “We’re going to walk.”

“Oooohh, big rain, big rain.” They wouldn’t say any more, but they’d shake their heads and look mournfully off into the mountain distance.

As far as sales pitches went, it was working pretty well.

But I was optimistic. The weather report had said it would rain the entire week, and it wasn’t raining at that exact moment, so maybe we would luck out entirely. We started off, nearly taking a wrong turn while still technically in town. The clouds were low, covering the impressive range that surrounds Mestia, but I was happy just as long as it wasn’t raining.

About an hour and a half in, the deluge started.

It poured.

It poured for hours. We struggled up the mountain, climbing into the clouds and zero visibility. Our rain jackets proved totally useless, and we struggled to follow the trail when we couldn’t pull out the maps without destroying them. We slide into a hamlet, though the only life we saw were cows and a gorgeous horse that Ryan wouldn’t let me pet because according to him horses are ‘dangerous.’

Wait until I tell him what I think of mountain trekking.

Splashing through puddles along the road, we came to a house that had a painted sign hung over the gate “Guesthouse and Home Made Kitchen.” Ryan and I didn’t even need to discuss it. I pushed open the gate and two men in the yard looked up at us. They were properly outfitted for the rain, thigh-high fisherman approved boots and all.

“Gamarjoba,” I said, rain dripping down my face, but already he was calling us into his kitchen.

Inside his wife and the family matriarch sprang into action. The family didn’t speak English or Russian, but Georgian hospitality transcends words. The husband built up a fire in the wood burning stove and set us down in front of it. The wife pounded out dough for khachapuri. And the matriarch. This frail, bent woman with her hair tied back with a flower scarf, hobbled over to the stove to manage the actual cooking of the khachapuri. It was the kind of situation where I’m pretty sure in the States I would have been yelled at for not helping, but in Georgia I’d be yelled at for interfering if I tried to open the oven door for her.

She kept trying to chat with us and was confused when we only answered apologetically that we only spoke English. A three or four year old boy poked his head in, looking a little sleepy, and I was grateful that peek-a-boo does not require common words.

When we finished stuffing ourselves with khachapuri and salad, we lingered for as long as felt polite. I was not eager to get back into the elements. But there were kilometers to go, still, so we pulled on our squishy shoes and damp jackets, and the family got ready to see us off.

The matriarch took a big breath and bellowed some sort of send-off for a full minute. Ryan and I looked at each other nervously, then to the wife. We were trying to figure out if we had just been blessed or cursed by this legendary Georgian mountain matriarch, but the wife’s expression was unnervingly neutral. So we just thanked them one more time and struck off.

The rain had cleared, miraculously, and we finally got to see the scenery that makes Svaneti a hiker’s paradise. Ancient Svan stone towers, snowcapped mountains, blankets of wildflowers.

But just because the weather had cleared didn’t mean that rain wasn’t still a problem. Natural beauty is great, but the combination of the rain and the annual snow melting meant that streams had turned into rivers and rivers had turned into torrents. We soon hit a stream that, on most days, would probably not have been difficult to hop stone-to-stone across.

Today was not one of those days.

We hiked upstream for about half an hour and still couldn’t find a good place to cross. I was ready to heaving rocks into the river to create my own bridge when we saw two locals (and a dog) just barely upstream of us, leaping across the rocks like Bolshoi ballet dancers.

“Go,” I muttered to Ryan, and we scrambled across the rocks. The locals noticed us trying to follow them, and they lingered on the other side. I learned then that Ryan is the kind of river-forder who makes a quick assessment and then just goes for it. While I’m the kind of river-forder who perches on the edge of a slippery rock and stares hypnotically into the churning waters.

Guess which one is better.

In the end, the thirteen year old boy and his dog helped me cross the river (kinda weird to jump into the arms of a thirteen year old, but it’s mountain survival up there, guys), and as soon as we were safely over the locals walked briskly off as we stumbled our way back downstream towards the trail on shaky legs.

Of course, as soon as we walked back to the trail, we saw someone had laid some logs across the river just downstream of where we had first encountered it.

After that it was relatively easy walking the rest of the way to Zhabeshi. We started to run into locals, who always asked us where we were headed. They helpfully pointed us the right way. When we rocked into Zhabeshi there were two boys riding their bikes back and forth across the bridge into town.

“Where are you going?” they asked us in perfect English, and then they escorted us to our Zhabeshi guesthouse.

I guess in a village of a dozen houses everyone knows each other.

Day 2: Zhabeshi-Adishi

When we woke up it was, miraculously, not raining. However Luca, the host at our guesthouse, informed us the clouds were gathering and the downpour would start around noon.

“Look,” he said, “It’s a three hour hike from here to the summit. Peak elevation for the day. I can drive you there, and maybe you can make it to Adishi without getting too wet.”

It was an appealing offer. Skip the hardest part of the day’s trail and potentially outrun the rain? The other four hikers at the guesthouse, an Israeli couple and two European guys, were taking the offer.

We opted to hike.

I guess for me, it was a matter of pride. It definitely wasn’t out of enthusiasm or anticipation of fun. But I signed up for a four-day hike because of the challenge, and I wasn’t going to take a shortcut. I didn’t want to regret wimping out.

An hour later, I wished I had wimped out.

On day two of the Mestia-Ushguli hike you climb uphill over 800 meters, and nearly all of that happens in the first three hours. The path runs through a forest, so you don’t even get that many views – though when you do break through to clearings, the sights are pretty stunning. The sky grew overcast and started spitting rain, and the dread set in that we would work so hard to get to the top and the panorama would be completely clouded over.

But luckily the skies never opened. We finally pulled ourselves up to the panorama point, where the trail intersects with a road under a new ski lift. The road is a barren place, but any direction you turn the mountains rise up in front of you. I’ve never been to the Rockies or the Alps, but the Caucus Mountains have set a pretty high bar in terms of jaw-dropping mountain ranges.

The next part should have been easy.

But the problem with the trail intersecting with this new road is that it’s not entirely clear which way the trail continues. There were a couple of options, and after taking a look down either of them, we chose the upper road.

“Look, I see people over there,” Ryan said, pointing to four tiny people on a distant ridge.

We walked for about twenty minutes along the top of the mountain until we reached the group, four men staring out at the views.

“Hola,” one of them said to us. “This is the wrong road. We were waving at you to try to get you to go a different way.”

“Oh…” Ryan said. “We thought it was a – come on over! wave.”

The man laughed and shook his head, then pointed down the hill.

“The path is just below us. I went to look. Keep walking until you get it. Go straight.”

“To the left,” one man said.

“Straight, straight,” the first insisted. “You can’t miss it.”

So we started off down the hill, still slightly unsure if we were supposed to go straight or to the left, and choosing some sort of drifting course instead. It was nice to be going downhill again, though the steep angle was murdering my calves. After about ten minutes we found a path that ran parallel to the road above us, taking a much gentler slope along and down the mountain.

“Is this the trail? I mean, it must be.”

It wasn’t.

But at that point, we were sure it was. And the walk became so peaceful, so serene with the wildflower dotted hillside meadows and patches of blue sky easing our worries of rain, that we didn’t really question it. So while our individual suspicion kept growing as we repeatedly lost and found ‘the trail,’ it wasn’t until we found ourselves facing waist-high undergrowth, about two hours from the summit, that we decided to talk about it. We had been following cow paths. There was no longer a chance of us just going ‘downhill’ to find the proper trail – it had disappeared into a small wooded area, and we didn’t want to push our way through thick trees.

“Well, we know the village is that way,” Ryan said, pointing to the next ridge. We could see a couple of trails running along the hillside, though at this point we were starting to wonder if they were also just cow paths.

But we knew the general direction we needed to go, so we decided to press on through the underbrush. It was going on more or less tolerably until we hit the stream.

“I think it’s easier to walk on the other side,” Ryan said. “We have to cross anyway.”

He was right. The undergrowth on our side was turning from bushes to trees, and the opposite side did look easier. Probably stream would have been easy to jump across later in the year, but with the spring snowmelt it had widened. It wasn’t deep, though, so we opted to just splash through it. The going was a bit easier, if muddier, on the other side – for about ten minutes.

“Well,” Ryan said, staring at the wall of trees in front of us. “That worked for a little while.”

But when we looked to the stream, we had at least some relief – the trail was on the other side. We had finally corrected our course.

The only trick thing was, the stream was more difficult to cross here. It was deeper and seemed rockier, which made me less confident I’d make it across without totally falling over. We couldn’t backtrack either, as trees on the other side blocked our access to the path.

There was one dry-ish spot in the middle of the stream that, if we could get there, would be an easy splash through a shallow section to get to the other side. So we found a couple of larger branches, set them up as makeshift bridges, and started teetering across.

I was almost to the ‘island’ in the center when I head someone, “What are you doing over there?!” and I looked up. The four Barcelonans from the top of the ridge were stopped on the trail, watching us, amused disbelief on their faces.

They reached out to help us splash over the rest of the way. “What happened? We said just go downhill.”

We laughed off not being able to follow simple directions. “We thought we had found it!”

They wished us better luck, now that we were on the trail, and set off as we pulled off our hiking shoes and wrung out our socks.

“I’m switching to my Birkenstocks,” Ryan said.

Twenty minutes later we had broken through the wood and came out around the ridge to catch our first sight of Adishi.

Adishi is a mesmerizing village. There are maybe a dozen houses, a few of Svaneti’s famous towers standing sentinel among them. It feels like a village frozen in the Middle Ages, except that guesthouses advertise wifi. Locals would poke their heads out of their windows when they heard us and ask where we were going. We gave them the name of the guesthouse Luca had recommended to us, and they pointed us down the street.

When we finally found the house, at the bottom of the hill, our friends from the Zhabeshi guesthouse were waiting. Amazingly, they had only arrived twenty minutes before us.

“How was the hike?” they asked us. I just groaned.

Our trail buddies decided to check out a waterfall we could see from our guesthouse windows. They recruited Ryan to go with them. I opted for a nap, waking up just in time for an amazing dinner the three babushkas who ran the guesthouse spread out before us.

Day 3: Adishi-Iprali

While yesterday had started with an immediate climb, Day 3 began with an easy amble through meadows rife with wildflowers. We headed out with our trail buddies, following the river. Ryan again wouldn’t let me go pet the grazing horses, though we did see a foal that was probably just a few days old.

The first challenge of the day was fording the river. When we showed up at the crossing point, half a dozen local men waited with a few horses. They weren’t enthusiastic salesmen – as opposed to the two hikers on the other side of the river, shouting at us to just ford across on our own.

“Here’s a stick!” one of them yelled, hurling over a unconvincingly looking 5 foot walking stick.

The gray water looked a little too rapid for me. “I don’t know—“

And then Ryan splashed in.

Ryan is a tall guy and takes big, determined strides, and he was across the river before I even had time to process a complaint. The two European guys we were hiking with looked unhappily at the rushing torrent. Undoubtedly, they were going to have to ford now too.

Considering all our other river crossings had been less than thrilling (or maybe too thrilling), I was not excited about this endeavor. However, crossing on a horse would cost me four times as much if I hired one on my own, without my trail buddies. Everyone else was changing into their sandals.

All right then.

The two Europeans crossed the river and then threw the walking stick back to me. I double checked all my pack straps. The river wasn’t that deep, maybe right above knee level, but it was going fast. Just go in with confidence, I thought, and splashed in. I made it about a third of the way across before the undercurrent really hit me.

“This is f—ing cold!” I shouted in desperation, struggling to keep my balance. I made the mistake of looking up from the raging waters. The two hikers who had encouraged us over were looking at me with expressions of horror and anxiety.

Well too late now. Ok, you can do this. Just walk across and don’t lose your balance. And with all the grace of a baby elephant, I managed to haul myself across the river and collapse on the other side.

Once the Israeli girls crossed over, we relaxed on the far side of the river, eating our packed lunches and watching the hikers coming after us. Some chose to hire a horse, some barreled across on foot, no one fell over. The locals just watched, probably waiting for someone to fall in. After about twenty minutes, we decided to continue.

And then the climbing started.

For the first forty-five minutes or so, the climb seemed pretty manageable. There’s an amazing viewpoint of a glacier that we stopped at for a while. I’d never seen a glacier like that, and even with the peaks of the mountains clouded over it was spectacular.

After that, the climb became brutal. I don’t know if it was actually any different than previous days or if my body was just over this little adventure. Ryan and I fell behind the others as I struggled to keep up.

We eventually made it to the summit about an hour and a half later, and the panorama was stunning. You could see the glacier, Adishi in the distance, and snow-capped mountains all around. Apparently that year there had been an insane sandstorm from the Sahara that had swept all the way to Georgia, giving some of the snow a yellow tint. We rested for a bit, had some coffee using the burner the Israeli girls had brought, and then got back to it.

It was all downhill from then on out, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily easy. The rain started up again. We came face-to-face with the remnants of an avalanche. Giant snow boulders blocked the trail, slippery with ice and mud. One misstep would have sent us tumbling down the mountain, but we made it across with careful balancing and passing one set of hiking poles back and forth.

It was hours before we got to Iprali. The plan was that Ryan and I would stay the night there and continue the hike the next day, while our friends planned on catching a taxi straight from Iprali to Ushguli, skipping the last day of the hike. But by the time we staggered into Lalkhori, the village just downhill of Iprali, we were all so tired and in need of hot food and a beer our trail buddies decided to stay the night and head to Ushguli in the morning.

There were only four or five houses in Lalkhori, so we easily located the guesthouse recommended to us and spent the evening stuffing ourselves with hot khachapuri and drinking beer from 2L plastic bottles before collapsing into bed.

Day 4: Iprali-Ushguli I mean, Koruldi Lakes, Mestia

We all woke up feeling terrible.

For some it was exhaustion, for some stomachaches, others hangovers. I think, for once in my life, I had eaten too much cheese. Only one girl bounced out of bed, ready to face the day with any joy.

Our trail buddies decided to call a car to take them back to Mestia, skipping the last day of the hike. Ryan and I held a special council. Even though we had both been very adamant that we were doing the entire four day hike and we were doing it right, the combination of the elevation map, disappointing reviews of the hike, and general queasiness made us soft.

We opted to skip Ushguli and go back to Mestia with our trail buddies.

The ride back to Mestia reminded us a little bit like Rainbow Road on Mario Kart – a cliff-side road that would surprise us alternatively with newly paved patches and also washed out hairpin turns. The trip did little good for our team, and when we arrived back in Mestia we all crashed for a few more hours.

However, our Israeli friends would not let the day be wasted. They had found a ‘nice little hike’ just outside of Mestia. You hire a car to take you most of the way up the mountain, and then it’s a two hour walk to a couple of alpine lakes.

When we reconvened after our naps to start the hike, they stared off into the distance behind us with vague smiles on their faces. “It might be a little more difficult than we thought.”

Considering we had a car take us up most of the way, I couldn’t imagine it would be that difficult. I was feeling great by that point and happy to get on with a hike without my backpack. We found a driver in the main square of Mestia and piled into his Delica, the favorite car of Georgian off-roaders.

It is possible to hike the entire mountain from the base, but it’s just a steep winding road. Everyone we passed looked fairly miserable. To be honest, we weren’t that much happier – the road was narrow and in places washed out. The Delica had a dial on the dashboard to show the degree of tilt as the driver avoided potholes and places where the road just… wasn’t.

The hike to the Koruldi Lakes is undeniably stunning, especially because when Ryan and I had arrived in Mestia days earlier it had been shrouded in low cloud cover. There are breath-taking views of Mt. Ushba, and the cows roaming around give it a very Sound of Music feel.

That being said, we all seemed to struggle on this hike. Perhaps we hadn’t recovered as much from our slow morning as we thought we had, or maybe reaching a few small lakes was not as satisfying an accomplishment as reaching a new village for the night. Still, with mountains like this it was hard to complain.

So, am I an outdoorsy person now?

Well, I don’t know. I’m not immediately turning all my vacation plans into multi-day hikes or checking out camping gear. Probably a better question is – am I glad I did Georgia’s most popular hike?

Yes, the Mestia-Ushguli hike, even if you don’t get all the way to Ushguli, totally lives up to the hype. Svaneti is a stunning are, like nothing I’d ever seen before. It is possible for people who aren’t ‘hikers,’ as long as you’re prepared to sweat a little and curse a lot. Even if I didn’t always enjoy the hike, even if I hated it and myself some of the time, I am 100% glad I did it. Would I recommend you go hike Svaneti? For sure.

I would probably even do it again myself, with a little persuasion.

Advice for Hiking in Svaneti

I definitely recommend checking out Jozef’s advice trekking on Mestia-Iprali. It’s really informative and the comments have a lot of useful information if you have a more specific question.

(The thing is, both Ryan and I agree, that the man who wrote these excellent guides to hiking in Georgia makes this four day hike sound like something he decided to do on a Tuesday after work just because the weather was nice. I think he’s probably someone who could have joined the Olympics but didn’t because the competition ruins the fun, but honestly even with his mild warnings he made it sound less stressful than my 45-minute walk to work next to insane Tbilisi traffic.)

You can pick up maps of each day’s hike from the tourist information office in Mestia. They’re helpful, but they’re also kind of delicate. It’s better to download maps.me and the maps of the hike onto your phone.

The best way to arrange accommodation is, like Jozef recommends, asking your guesthouse owner for recommendations. We booked our first night in advance, mostly for logistical ease. That guy gave us a recommendation for the next guesthouse, and that woman gave us a recommendation for the next one. If you go during peak season, July and August, you should definitely book your first night in advance and you might ask your host to call ahead to reserve space for you, just to be on the safe side. See below for my accommodation recommendations in Svaneti.

If you’re worried about getting from Ushguli back to Mestia, it might be worthwhile to try to find a driver when you arrive in Mestia who can help coordinate that for you. When we wanted to go from Iprali to Mestia, our trail buddies called a driver who had helped them in Mestia. He arranged for a friend to come pick us up. It cost about 160 GEL for the trip, which wasn’t bad split between six people.

What To Pack for Hiking in Svaneti

I would definitely recommend sturdy hiking shoes for Svaneti. The Mestia-Iprali trail isn’t too difficult, but there is some climbing up steep, stony paths and splashing through floods, so something waterproof and supportive with good traction is important. I picked up a pair of Northface hiking shoes before I left and they worked great.

I would also recommend bringing a pair of hiking sandals with a back ankle strap. Our trail buddies switched into them when they needed to ford any rivers.

I definitely recommend hiking poles. I did not have them, and I think they would have made my life so much easier when crossing streams, climbing up, balancing myself hiking down – basically the entire time.

Bring some legit hiking rain gear. I, personally, have no idea what this means. I have a rain jacket that’s more like a windbreaker. When I wear it I end up feeling like I’m in Florida, it keeps me so hot and humid. A serious rain jacket is a good idea, and if you want to stay extra dry you can pack a pair of waterproof hiking pants.

At the very least bring an extra pair of socks. This may go without saying… but someone should have said it to Ryan. Especially if you do during the rainy season – your clothes are not going to dry overnight at the guesthouses. Pack at least one change of clothes.

Bring hiking pants! Because we went at the end of June and the weather was overcast most of the time, it never got really hot. However, I had only packed shorts and athletic capris. This would have been fine – except for the day we ended up bushwhacking through the meadows. There was a lot of undergrowth we had to push through, and my exposed legs got devoured by bugs. It looked like I had chicken pox. Ryan had no problem that day, as his legs were totally covered.

It’s also worthwhile to pack some lightweight warm clothes, like a hiking jacket. At high elevations, when it was overcast and windy, it could get uncomfortably cold.

If you are hiking the Mestia-Iprali trail, you don’t need any camping gear. There are guesthouses to stay in each night. However, there isn’t much in between, and it’s not like there are stores in these villages, so bring any food and snacks you might want on the road. Our trail buddies had a little camping stove because they liked to stop for coffee breaks.

You’ll hear that the mountain water is fine for drinking. Our guesthouse host in Zhabeshi actually warned us not to drink the water, due mostly to animal waste contamination. I only ever filled up my water bottles at the guesthouses. And even then, some people were using water purification tablets.

I’d also recommend packing some toilet paper. It’s up to you, but just remember that you’re hiking through the mountains and it’s not like there are great bathroom breaks.

Of course, things like a headlamp, a hiking first aid kit, and sunglasses are a must.

Where to Sleep in Svaneti

Mestia

Nino Ratiani’s Guesthouse: Staying here after several days of hiking was like staying in luxury. Nothing crazy fancy, but it is clean, modern, comfortable and run by friendly staff. They welcomed us with cake and tea. They also serve dinner on the premises, which our trail buddies told us was good. We ate breakfast there, which was substantial and delicious. Meals are extra but good value for money.

Zhabeshi

Guest House Kakhiani: Run by Luca, an entrepreneuring young Georgian, Kakhiani was a great first stop on the trail. Clean and comfortable, with plenty of khinkali to go around. Luca is also super attentive to guests’ needs – he drove our trail buddies up to the summit the first day because of the threat of rain. He also is very social and speaks excellent English and is happy to give you a little insight into Georgian life, politics, and culture.

Adishi

Jora Kaldani: I can’t find a website for this guesthouse, which is a shame because it was one of my favorites. The guest rooms were in a separate two-story part of the house, reminding me a bit of the kind of wooden accommodation you would stay in at camp. It was run by three mountain women who very savvily sold my friends beer when they went to ask for tea. Delicious food and comfortable beds, along with stunning views of the waterfall. The guesthouse network seems tightly linked (Luca from Kakhiani gave us this suggestion), so if you’d like to stay here just ask the host at your Zhabeshi guesthouse to help arrange it for you.

Iprali/Lalkhori

Sweet Home: Alright, this one comes with a caveat. Our night there was splendid. The owner served a great dinner with some of the best khachapuri I’d ever had and she was well supplied with beverages. However, in the morning there was some confusion about us leaving. She offered to give us a ride, but we thought she would only take us to Ushguli, not Mestia. So we called another driver. She was upset, I think, that we didn’t use her and kept trying to bargain with us. By that time the other driver was already on the way so we didn’t want to cancel on him. However, he was going to be at least another hour.

In the meantime, she asked us to get out of the rooms – ostensibly so she could clean them. I don’t blame her for asking us to get out. Most hikers leave pretty early anyway, and she has other chores to do to run her farm. She did let us hang out in the yard until our driver showed up. But our hiking buddies thought it was rude that she kicked us out. Apparently she also locked the door to the house so we couldn’t use the bathroom, though I didn’t notice this.

Sure, it was an uncomfortable misunderstanding, but I’m not sure if she was really as spiteful as she maybe came across to our hiking buddies. Also, there are not a lot of options in the Iprali/Lalkhori area. The food was good and the evening was pleasant. If we hadn’t woken up feeling sick, we probably would have left with a good impression of this place.

You can check out best prices for guesthouses in Svaneti here.

So there you have it — what it’s really like to hike Svaneti from someone who is not an outdoorsy type at all. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer or point you in the right direction!

Have you ever pushed yourself to do a hike that was outside your normal limits? Got one you want to recommend? Like I said — I’m not planning all my holidays around them, but I’m opening to trying another!