Georgia

Georgia sits where Europe and Asia lean into each other, and it distilled the best of both into something entirely its own. This is where wine was invented eight thousand years ago, still fermented underground in clay qvevri, and every meal builds toward a supra, the legendary feast where a toastmaster turns dinner into theatre and strangers into lifelong friends. Tbilisi charms instantly: sulphur bathhouses, carved wooden balconies leaning over the river, a café scene with real electricity. Then the Caucasus rise like a wall. Drive to Kazbegi, where a lone church stands against a five-thousand-metre backdrop, or into Svaneti's tower villages, barely changed in a thousand years. Hospitality here is not a service standard. It is a sacred duty, and you will feel it daily.