Does this Cairo-Tblisi trip sound feasible?

May 24, 2022 1:49 PM

I would like to take a trip from Cairo to Tblisi and am trying to do most of it by ground transportation wherever possible - any tips for this?

This is stretch of cities and countries I've always wanted to see. I will surely have to fly for parts of it, but often like to find buses and trains wherever necessary to see some small towns and other landscapes.

This is a loose sketch, but one idea would be-

• Fly from the US into Cairo for a couple days
• Take a bus to Suez for a bit
• Train or bus to Sharm El Sheikh
• Flight to Tel Aviv
• Visit Jerusalem, back to Tel Aviv
• Fly from Tel Aviv to Beirut
• (Somehow get from Beirut to Latakia, Syria, although possible bad idea?)
• (Probably Latakia a no-go, so flight to Yerevan)
• Train from Yerevan to Tblisi
• Possibly do things outside Tblisi or other places in GA, but terrain looks a bit tough
• Fly home

I've done some tricky trips like this, but I like the adventure even if it means sometimes things go wrong or there are monotonous moments. I've never been to these parts of the world and would love any feedback, pros or cons. I really would love to see the coast of Syria, but for obvious reasons not sure this is feasible (although I follow a lot of YouTube travelers who have gone with no problem).

Thanks!

posted by critzer to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

I can't speak to the other parts of the trip, but I would absolutely plan to spend some time in the mountains while you're in Georgia and possibly check out some towns on the Black Sea as well. Tbilisi is a lovely city and Georgia is a kick ass country. Please eat a mountain of dumplings for me.
posted by jeszac at 2:11 PM on May 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oh and the train from Yerevan to Tblisi is easy. Just remember that you are likely to cross the border late at night and will need to pay a visa fee in the in the currency of the country you are entering. (Or at least this was true 10 years ago when I was stuck there in my PJs with the wrong currency!)
posted by jeszac at 2:25 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I don't think you'll be able to fly from Tel Aviv to Beirut - in fact, I don't think you'll be able to enter Lebanon if there's any evidence you've been in Israel. Israel will give you a paper visa, so you can remove it from your passport, but from memory, Lebanon won't let you in with a passport showing that you entered Israel from Jordan or Egypt or showing that you left Israel to Lebanon via Jordan or Egypt, which will show from your Egyptian exit stamp. Most people wanting to go to both countries on the one trip go the other way (Lebanon first then Israel), for this reason. You'll likely be interrogated at the airport in Israel about your time in Lebanon but be let in. It may also be difficult/impossible to enter Syria with evidence of entry to Israel. My information is out of date so it's worth investigating thoroughly.

Do visit the West Bank if you make it to Jerusalem - you can catch a bus from Jerusalm to Ramallah for just a few shekels (you'll need to take your passport). And Tblisi and Georgia are delightful! Have some kachapuri for me!
posted by happyfrog at 2:57 PM on May 24, 2022 [4 favorites]

The Jerusalem --> Ramallah leg got me thinking. How about: Jerusalem --> Ramallah --> Amman --> Beirut? It also looks like you could fly from Beirut directly to Yerevan.

Re: Travel into/out of Israel... if you're a U.S. citizen, you can (or at least, I did, once upon a time) get a second valid U.S. passport by proposing your itinerary, explaining to the U.S. passport agency the issue. Please don't take my word for this, but it might be worth checking into with the U.S. passport agency. Or the Israeli consulate in your current country, for that matter, which has experience in these types of things.
posted by Citizen Cane Juice at 4:53 PM on May 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

One thing to potentially be aware of is that both Egypt and Lebanon are countries particularly vulnerable to grain supply shocks resulting from the Ukraine / Russia situation, and may be experiencing significantly increased instability over the coming months.
posted by kickingtheground at 5:21 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

• Train or bus to Sharm El Sheikh

Sharm El Sheikh is very touristy, caters to high-end tourists - lots of resorts. Dahab is a bit further from Cairo, but much more chill - lots of good snorkeling/diving, lots of budget motels/hostels. It's also easy to arrange a tour to climb Mt Sinai, which I really recommend doing - I did the one that you do a night, arriving at the top by sunrise.

If you go all the way to Dahab, it's relatively easy to take a bus to Tel Aviv. It's a full day's trip, but so would be traveling back to Cairo, to catch a flight to Tel Aviv. It's admittedly been awhile since I did this, so you should look into current conditions, but it was one of the more relaxed Israeli border crossings I've done.

Cairo recs: don't just see the pyramids at Giza - they are, indeed, awesome, but so are the much less visited pyramids at Saqqara and Dahshur. They do take a bit more effort to get to, but it's doable. Al-Azhar park is beautiful, especially in the evening. I'd also budget at least three full days in Cairo, if you enjoy cities - a day for the pyramid cites, a day for the old city, a day for Coptic Cairo. The Friday Market is also worth a visit.

Also, even if you don't care much about ancient Egypt, Luxor really is amazing, you can see much of the Valley of the Kings in a day, and there is a direct bus from Luxor to Dahab.
posted by coffeecat at 5:45 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

As an American, I would not travel to either Syria, or Armenia, right now, as we are backing Ukraine, and they are allied with Russia in this invasion.
posted by Oyéah at 7:18 PM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Georgia terrain isn't that rough, it's just poor - but the nature is lovely, and the tourist infrastructure is improving in leaps and bounds. Lots of very pretty monasteries around Tbilisi that you can get to via marshrutka, or hire a car for more leisurely exploration of the Tbilisi environs, the Military Road, going up to the Caucasus or west to Batumi and the Black Sea (bigger journey, but there's a train going there). Fantastic cheeses in the western part of the country especially.

But yeah, right now it might be tense everywhere there. Tbilisi is apparently overrun with Russians escaping from Russia to somewhere not covered by Western sanctions, and there's the usual rumours of taking advantage of the Russian army being tied down to do something of varying degrees of stupidity re: Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:11 PM on May 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

The US State Department puts the Sinai Peninsula outside of Sharm-al-Sheik and all of Syria into the "Do Not Travel" category. They do tend to be pretty cautious, but it's worth considering.
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:42 AM on May 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm in Tbilisi now, and last I heard the train from Yerevan was running regularly again. You might want to check it closer to your time. There's lots of options for getting around Georgia, depending on what you're looking to do. Hit me up if you have specific questions and I'll do my best to help!
posted by korej at 8:34 AM on May 25, 2022