Food
Food Categories, unlike tags, can have a hierarchy. You might have a Jazz category.
I’ll be honest: I came to Tbilisi because of a spreadsheet.
Someone in a nomad Slack channel shared a cost-of-living comparison — Tbilisi vs. Lisbon vs. Chiang Mai vs. Medellín — and the numbers were absurd. Rent for a central one-bedroom: $400. A meal out: $5–8. Gigabit fiber in most apartments. I booked a one-way the next morning.
That was six weeks ago. Here’s what the spreadsheet didn’t tell me — and what actually matters when you’re trying to build a life that runs on Wi-Fi and discipline.
The Signal
Let’s start with what every nomad asks first: how’s the internet?
Short answer: better than you expect. I ran speed tests at nine locations across the city over three weeks. Home fiber (Magti, the main provider): 220 Mbps down, 180 up. Cafés averaged between 40–80 Mbps. The coworking spaces I tested all cleared 100. For context, my apartment in Lisbon averaged 45 on a good day.
Mobile data is cheap and fast. I picked up a Magti SIM at the airport for 15 lari (about $5.50). Unlimited data for a month. Topped it up directly from the Quppy app — they support mobile top-ups in 120 countries, and Georgia’s on the list. Took maybe ten seconds. No hunting for a top-up kiosk on day one.
One caveat: some older buildings in Sololaki have thick stone walls that murder Wi-Fi range. If you’re apartment-hunting, test the signal in every room before signing. I learned this the hard way — my first spot had dead zones in the kitchen and bathroom.
The Workspace Layer
Tbilisi’s coworking scene is small but functional. It’s not Lisbon or Bali — you won’t find twelve options on every block. But what exists is solid.
Terminal
The default answer, and for good reason. It’s a converted Soviet-era publishing house in Marjanishvili — high ceilings, raw concrete, excellent natural light. Wi-Fi: 150+ Mbps consistently. The community is small enough that you’ll know names within a week, large enough that you won’t feel trapped.
Day pass: 25 lari ($9). Monthly: 250 lari ($90). The café downstairs makes a surprisingly good flat white.
Impact Hub Tbilisi
More polished, more event-driven. Good if you want structured networking — they run pitch nights, workshops, the usual ecosystem stuff. The space itself is clean but a bit corporate for my taste. Wi-Fi: 120 Mbps. Monthly: 300 lari ($110). Worth checking out for a day pass to see if the vibe fits.
The Café Circuit
This is where Tbilisi surprises. The café culture here is exceptional, and most places actively welcome laptops. My rotation: Leila in Vera (fast Wi-Fi, big tables, nobody rushes you), Stamba Café in the Stamba Hotel lobby (beautiful space, solid connection, overpriced coffee but you’re paying for the architecture), and Linville in Vake (best actual coffee, slightly slower Wi-Fi but enough for calls).
The Money Layer
Georgia runs on the lari, but card acceptance is higher than you’d expect. Most restaurants, cafés, and grocery stores take Visa and Mastercard. Street markets and marshrutkas (minibuses) are cash-only.
My setup: I receive client payments in a mix of USDT and EUR. When USDT comes in, I convert to EUR within Quppy, then transfer via SEPA to my European account. Takes about two minutes, arrives same day. For lari, I withdraw from ATMs using my European card — Bank of Georgia ATMs have the best rates and don’t charge their own fee.
One thing I appreciate about this city: it’s genuinely cheap without feeling like you’re cutting corners. My monthly spend, including rent, coworking, food (eating out most meals), transport, and the occasional wine-fueled dinner: around $1,100–$1,300. In Lisbon, I was spending $2,400 for a comparable quality of life.
The Living Layer
Most nomads land in one of three neighborhoods: Vera (quiet, leafy, residential — my pick), Vake (slightly upscale, good cafés, further from Old Town), or Sololaki/Old Town (photogenic, touristy, some buildings are questionable structurally).
Finding an apartment: skip Airbnb for stays over a month. Join the Facebook group “Tbilisi Rentals & Apartments” and negotiate directly. Expect to pay $350–$500 for a furnished one-bedroom in Vera or Vake with fiber internet included. Most landlords want cash in lari, paid monthly. Some accept bank transfers. None accept crypto yet — give it time.
Transport: the metro costs 1 lari ($0.35) and covers the main axis of the city. For everything else, Bolt is the standard — a 20-minute ride rarely exceeds 8 lari ($3). I bought a secondhand bicycle in my second week and haven’t used Bolt since. The city is hillier than it looks on a map, but that’s just free cardio.
The Social Layer
Here’s where Tbilisi over-delivers.
The nomad community is at an interesting inflection point — large enough that you can find your people within a week, small enough that it hasn’t calcified into cliques. Terminal hosts weekly events. There’s an informal Friday drinks thing that migrates between wine bars in Vera. And the locals are, without exaggeration, some of the most hospitable people I’ve encountered in a decade of travel.
Georgian hospitality isn’t performative. It’s structural. You will be invited to a supra (a traditional feast) within your first month. You will be handed homemade chacha (grape brandy) by a stranger. You will be told that you’re not eating enough. Accept all of it. Oscar would lose his mind here — I actually texted him a photo of a cheese-filled bread boat and his only reply was a plane emoji.
The Verdict
Tbilisi isn’t perfect. The air quality drops in winter (wood-burning heating is still common in older buildings). Some bureaucratic processes require patience and a Georgian-speaking friend. The nightlife is world-class but will ruin your Monday if you’re not careful.
But the fundamentals are strong: fast internet, low cost, genuine community, and a city that’s complex enough to stay interesting beyond the honeymoon phase. I came for six weeks. I just extended my apartment lease to four months.
If you’re the kind of nomad who wants a city that challenges you rather than caters to you — Tbilisi is your next stop.
