Gudauri, 1 Week Splitboarding/Snowboarding

We had a great week in Gudauri! We did have a replacement for Ilia (Vano), but Vano was really great. Skied some awesome slopes and made it back safe every time. The hotel and food were great as well. We also liked that we didn't just ski but also met some of the locals on the way, for example the caretaker of an old church on top of the mountain we walked up. So we can recommend this one!

Both explore share and Ilia have been super helpful into making this trip. Explore share team has been super friendly and helpful and Ilia team has been very supportive and skilled. Highly recommended.

Due to the weather we had to break off our trip half way. Too bad. The response time of Explore-Share could be improved. Apart from that, good service. Ilia couldn't come last minute, but send Bekar as replacement guide. He was an excellent guide and very pleasant person to be with.

Snow conditions were challenging and our guide did an excellent job finding the local powder! I would recommend this trip to anyone and I would highly recommend a LOCAL guide. They know the lay of the land and I think our trip was very successful due to their local knowledge compared to some of the other groups we saw with non-local guides.

Ilia together with his colleague Giorgi were the best guides we could have wished for. Not only showing us great skiing and ski touring spots but also introducing us to the Georgian life.

Excellent trip with Ilia. Found us some great snow, even though conditions in the area weren't the best. Svaneti is beautiful. Also provided a great cultural experience with great food and telling us all about Georgia. Highly recommended.

Le service Explorer fonctionne à merveille et me servira peut-être une autre fois. J'en parle également autour de moi

Svaneti is a great place. We had an excellent trip

I did a backcountry ski trip in Georgia last month; your site connected me to a local guide there, Ilia. His guiding service in Mestia was absolutely wonderful. They were organized, responsive, and passionate about their beautiful home country which they generously shared with us. Ilia connected us to one of his colleagues, Gio, who was top notch. We had a remarkable time and have them (and you!) to thank for this!

Absolutely stunning trip with Ilia as a great guide. We had a very authentic experience - a perfect mix of great powder tours and cultural insights. The organisation was flexibly adjusted to the conditions, but seamlessly. We always felt safe and well taken care of. We'll come back and can highly recommend a trip with Ilia, especially if you are looking for some adventures. Ilia, thank you for this outstanding experience.

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Pre-Trip: Service from Explore-Share could have been better. What should have been a simple request with payments was badly dealt with. Taking automatic payments is a strange and unusual way of booking a guide. This was eventually dealt with though I had to argue for some time. Pre-trip support from guide could also have been better - getting an E-mail response on queries about the trip was not easy. I suggest a shared E-mail between the guide team would enable a better response capability if some guides are on the mountain etc. Although saying that, once in Svaneti we found even the most remote villages have Wi-Fi.... During the trip: Guide service was brilliant. Airport pick up was spot-on. Accommodation and food was great. There were two challenging aspects - the weather and the start of the Coronavirus issue. Guide team dealt well with both curve-balls (E.g. restaurants closing, and arranging slightly earlier return transport to Tbilisi). We had a great week, I would strongly recommend these guys to anyone visiting Georgia.

All in all we had a really great time with perfect weather and snow conditions. However, we had some „problems“ with the organization of Georgia Guide Office. It started when we arrived: The driver was obviously expecting 6 instead of 7 people. Seemed like Ilia got the booking wrong, as we initially booked 6 to start with the booking and then added the 7th person later. So apparently he booked a car and accommodation for 6. The driver was a bit confused and we followed him to his car. It was way too small for all of us and all the luggage. He somehow managed to put everything on the roof and in the trunk. It was super small and uncomfortable with our backpacks on our laps. We could only go max. 80 km/h on the highway due to the overweight. It took about 12h until we finally arrived in Mestia. Next, we specifically asked for a hotel with sauna, which Ilia confirmed beforehand (Grand Hotel Ushba). Except one night in Ushguli (which was great), we stayed all nights in Guesthouse Ushba. When we asked our guide about sauna, he referred us to a sauna that we had to pay for. It was really nice, but also quite expensive with 20€ per person for 2h. We used it 3 times during the week. Our guide was a nice guy but couldn’t meet our expectations at all. He was doing his „normal“ ski touring program, which for him included 1000-1200m a day. Every day we had discussions with him about the program as we wanted to get the maximum out of our trip and the day. For him it was take it or leave it. We had the impression that he wanted to return early afternoon to drink beers with his colleagues. One time we left him behind and kept on by ourselves. Another day he also left us after 800m and we followed another guide to the peak. Turned out our guide had severe physical problems, so it seemed like he couldn’t make more than that. The last day they gave us a different guide which was fine. After two days we talked to Ilia about the situation and he said they will try to meet our expectations but nothing much changed really, except the different guide for the last day. For us it was quite unfortunate as we specifically asked for alpine tours and 1500-1800m per day. All in all we still had a great time. We just didn’t get what we asked and payed for. The service and contact through Explore-Share was really good, Lupe was very supportive and answered really quickly.

Excellent week! Ilia and his local guide Bequ did a fantastic job.

We spent a week organised by Illia and his team between Mestia, Ushguli, in Februar 2020. Our guide was Gogi. He was also driving us from Tbilisi to Mestia and in Mestia for the daily ski tours. We spent a fantastic week. Everything was very well organised. Gogi found very nice ski tours, that matched what we wanted, i.e. between 1000 and 2000m climbing per day in nice landscapes with good powder. Gogi was also always concerned with our security (avalanches) and we had always the impression to be in good hands. Thank you for this very nice week !