{"id":7062605,"date":"2026-09-21T01:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/adventure\/what-is-it-like-living-in-tbilisi-georgia-as-a-digital-nomad-family-wild-junket\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T01:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:32:18","slug":"what-is-it-like-living-in-tbilisi-georgia-as-a-digital-nomad-family-wild-junket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7062605","title":{"rendered":"What Is It Like Living in Tbilisi, Georgia as\u00a0a Digital Nomad Family \u2013 Wild Junket"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Last Updated on September 14, 2026<\/p>\n

We moved our family from Spain to Tbilisi a month ago, and this post covers exactly why we picked Georgia \u2014 plus the honest bits about living in Tbilisi.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new around here: my husband and I have been working remotely and living abroad, changing countries every few years with our daughter since she was 2 years old. I\u2019m a travel writer, he\u2019s a software engineer, and we\u2019ve lived in Spain<\/a>, the Netherlands, Mexico and most recently South Africa. Our daughter Kaleya is 11 now, and she\u2019s been worldschooled for nine of those years, traveling to over 60 countries with us. <\/p>\n

Travel had shaped her into the adventurous and adaptable little girl that she is today, and we want to keep this lifestyle going for as long as she\u2019s happy. When our year in Cape Town<\/a> wrapped up in May, we spent this summer in Spain having the same conversation we have every couple of years: right, where next? We narrowed our choices to Montenegro, Thailand, Japan, and Georgia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Georgia stood out amongst the others for various reasons. I\u2019ve traveled Georgia before and absolutely loved it, and I knew we would have a good time here. In nomad forums and conversations with other travelling families, Tbilisi also kept popping up and it sounded like more digital nomads are staying here than ever. By August we were on a plane here and now a month later we\u2019re settled in our new apartment, with our kid in a new school, a dog who\u2019s adjusting, and an alphabet none of us can read yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Why We Moved to Georgia<\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve had more questions about this move than any other we\u2019ve made. My own mother had to look up where Georgia was. So here\u2019s the full answer \u2014 why we chose Tbilisi, what it costs, and how life looks here.<\/p>\n

A New Adventure<\/span><\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve lived in Europe for a long time, so we weren\u2019t that interested in moving to a city in Western Europe that we\u2019re familiar with. Georgia is different from the Europe we\u2019re familiar with and unique in many ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The language isn\u2019t related to anything \u2014 it\u2019s a genuine isolate, with no connection to any other language family anywhere. The alphabet is its own alphabet, all loops and curls, and until you learn it you can\u2019t read a single shop sign. Sitting between Europe and Asia, the country is truly a Caucasian nation with its own cultural identity.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting Georgian classes next week and I cannot wait for the challenge. Kaleya is also learning it in school and she\u2019s excited to share with us all the new Georgian words she\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n

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Easy Access to the Mountains<\/span><\/h3>\n

After a year in Cape Town<\/a> with Table Mountain basically at our back door, we knew we couldn\u2019t go back to a city without nature surrounding it. I\u2019d actually been to Georgia once, about 10 years ago, and honestly my favorite thing about the country is the snow-capped mountains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tbilisi delivers on this in a way I didn\u2019t expect. The city is green, it\u2019s built into hills, and you can be on a funicular or cable car looking down over the whole thing about twenty minutes after leaving your front door. The Greater Caucasus<\/a> \u2014 proper mountains, glaciers, the works \u2014 is a few hours\u2019 drive away. We are heading to the Kazbegi mountains<\/a> this weekend and we cannot wait!\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Visa Policy is Generous<\/span><\/h3>\n

Georgia lets citizens of around 98 countries stay for a full year without a visa. That makes it so much easier for us. In every place we\u2019ve lived, we usually have had to apply for digital nomad or temporary residency visas, which can be a pain. Here we get the same 365 days, no application, no fee, nothing to organise before flying. If you\u2019ve ever tried to relocate a family, you\u2019ll know what a relief that is.<\/p>\n

One important caveat: this is a tourist allowance, not residency. The year resets when you leave and come back, and many people I know who\u2019ve stayed here long-term just do a border run to Armenia or Turkey and start again. Georgia has been tightening up on overstays with bigger fines and entry bans, so if we stay beyond a year we\u2019ll look into a proper residence permit rather than relying on border hops forever.<\/p>\n

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The 1% Tax Setup<\/span><\/h3>\n

This is the thing every article about Georgia leads with, and it\u2019s usually oversimplified \u2014 including in my own Instagram caption, so let me be more careful here.<\/p>\n

Georgia has a Small Business Status for people registered as Individual Entrepreneurs. It\u2019s 1% on turnover up to 500,000 GEL a year (about US$185,000), then 3% on anything above that, and if you go over two years running you lose the status altogether. It\u2019s a real registration with real obligations \u2014 monthly filings \u2014 and certain professions are excluded from it entirely.<\/p>\n

Whether it fits your situation depends enormously on what you do and how you\u2019re paid. Mine as a freelance writer and Alberto\u2019s as an employed software engineer are two completely different cases. We\u2019re not tax advisers and this isn\u2019t tax advice<\/strong> \u2014 we recommend talking to Expat Hub<\/a>, who helped us with our IE application.<\/p>\n

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Great International Schools\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

We have tried homeschooling, and it genuinely worked \u2014 with online classes for 3-4 hours a day, afternoons free for fun activities like rock climbing, robotics and mountain biking. Kaleya has also tried a mix of schools: from small Montessori schools to green schools. But Kaleya is 11 now, and we feel it\u2019s time to enrol her in a fully accredited international school that challenges her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So she\u2019s back in a physical classroom at an international school here, and so far it\u2019s going really well. There are kids from a dozen different countries in her year, the place runs like clockwork, and the facilities honestly surprised me. She came home after her first week with the names of four new friends and so much excitement! Watching her settle in has reassured me about this move more than anything else.<\/p>\n

Tbilisi has genuine choices here, which matters \u2014 there are British, American, German, French and Georgian-international options, but fees are that much cheaper than in Western Europe. Most schools I looked at fall somewhere between 10,500 and 50,000 GEL a year (roughly US$3,800\u201320,000). These are the schools we narrowed down to:<\/p>\n

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What We Actually Spend Here<\/span><\/h3>\n

The cost of living in Tbilisi is generally lower than in Western Europe \u2014 but rent has climbed a lot in the last few years, due to COVID and the Russia-Ukraine war. Honestly, we spend the same here as we do at home in Spain, but we do have a fuller life here. We eat out in restaurants more often, book experiences, go to cafes and take ride-sharing taxis without worrying too much about how much we\u2019re spending.<\/p>\n

Some rough numbers (US$1 is about 2.7 GEL):<\/p>\n