# New Gudauri or Old Gudauri: where to stay

Page: https://bookhome.ge/guides/new-gudauri-or-old-gudauri

> The two parts of the resort are a couple of kilometres apart and feel like different places: what each is like, who it suits, and what to ask an owner first.

Gudauri is not one place. "Old Gudauri" is the village that the resort grew out of, strung along the Georgian Military Highway where it levels out below the pass. "New Gudauri" is the group of apartment blocks built from the 2010s onwards around the bottom of the main lifts, a couple of kilometres further up the road. Taxi drivers know both names, and they take you to whichever one you say, so say the right one.

## New Gudauri

This is the resort as most skiers picture it: apartment blocks with names like Loft, Atrium, Hills, Gondola, Monte, Alpic, Quadrum, Redco and Four Seasons, the numbered blocks of the New Gudauri complex, and the base stations of the Pirveli and Shino lifts and the gondola among them. From most apartments you walk to a lift in ski boots, which is the whole point. The shops are here too: two SPAR supermarkets, a Carrefour, the rental shops, and the restaurants and bars in the ground floors of the blocks.

The catch is the word "walk". New Gudauri is built on a slope, and the difference between a block 100 m from the gondola and one 800 m away is twenty minutes a day in boots, carrying skis, uphill one way. Owners on bookhome.ge state the distance to the nearest lift in metres, and it is the first thing to look at.

New Gudauri suits anyone who came to ski: groups, families with children in ski school, and people who want to come back to the flat at lunch. It is livelier in the evening, and in the holiday weeks it is full.

## Old Gudauri

The village is lower and quieter, along the main road: hotels, guesthouses, a few restaurants, and the older ski infrastructure at the bottom of the lower slopes. Prices are lower, the views over the valley are better, and nobody walks to the gondola from here. You drive or take a taxi to the lifts in the morning, five to ten minutes, and some hotels run their own shuttle.

Old Gudauri suits people on a budget, people with a car, and people who are here for the mountains more than for first lift: summer hikers, paragliders, and anyone who likes a village more than a resort.

## What to ask an owner

Whichever part you choose, an apartment listing tells you less than you need. Ask:

- **Which block, and how many metres to which lift.** "Ski-in, ski-out" means different things to different people; a number does not.
- **Is there a lift in the building, and which floor.** Carrying skis up four flights is a different holiday.
- **Where the skis and boots go.** A ski room in the building, a rack in the hall, or the balcony.
- **How the flat is heated**, and whether there is a carbon monoxide detector where gas is used.
- **Parking**, if you drive up: most blocks have some, not all of it cleared after a snowfall.
- **Whether the price includes the booking fee**: on bookhome.ge it does, because there is none.

## The road between them

It is about two kilometres and a few minutes by car. In a storm, when the road above Mleta is closed, both parts of Gudauri are cut off together, so the choice makes no difference to that; the details are in our guide to getting here from Tbilisi.

[Apartments in Gudauri](https://bookhome.ge/apartments/gudauri.md)