How to cross the Georgia/Türkiye border at Wale/Türkgözü (+ Tbilisi - Kars Travel Report)

On our most recent trip, my brother and I set out to do something a little bit off the beaten path. We had spent a week in Tbilisi, Georgia, and wanted to take the Dogu Ekspresi from Kars to Kayseri. 

Which meant that we had to find a way from Tbilisi to Kars. The Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway isn’t in operation as of this writing, but there’s a good - albeit slightly adventurous - way to get there. 

Normally, you’d go to Batumi, cross the border south of Batumi, then go to Hopa in Türkiye and take a bus to Kars. But there’s a better way.

Leg 1 - Tbilisi -> Borjomi 

First, we took a train from Tbilisi to Borjomi. It leaves from Tbilisi Central Station at 06:35am every morning, and according to the schedule, takes about 4 hours to get there. For us, it was closer to six, as we had to wait for other trains to pass and change locomotive once. 

It’s a scenic ride in an old Soviet train, would recommend doing it. You’ll share the car mostly with elderly Georgian men, who are happy to share their food with you. 

You can buy a ticket inside the train; there are machines in every car where you drop in 2 GEL in coins, and get a ticket. 

Leg 2 - Borjomi -> Akhaltsikhe 

Once you’re in Borjomi, walk from the train station to the bus station. From there, you’ll take a Marshrutka. The ones to Akhaltsikhe do not stop at the bus station itself, but on the other side of the street (here). 

Price is 5 GEL, and it takes about 50 minutes to get there. 

Of course, you could also just take a Marshrutka from Tbilisi directly to Akhaltsikhe, which would be faster. 

Leg 3 - Akhaltsikhe -> Wale Border Crossing Point

After a great lunch, we needed to get to the border. From Akhaltsikhe, you’ll have to take a taxi that drops you off there. You can find one at the Marshrutka station. 

According to a local, the price should be 20 GEL; we only managed to negotiate 30. Still fair, because it takes ~25 minutes. 

Leg 4 - Crossing the Border 

The border crossing itself is mostly crowded with trucks; we didn’t see anyone else trying to cross the border by foot. With our German passports, there were zero problems, and we cannot confirm other reports of the border being closed or needing to bribe officers. Everything went super smoothly. 

Note that after crossing the border, you are in a different time zone. 

Leg 5 - Türkgözü Border Crossing -> Posof 

Behind the border, there’s a small café where you can exchange money (at horrendous rates) and get a cab from one of the local taxi drivers (ours also happened to be the mayor of Posof or something, he definitely knew everyone there). 

They’ll take you anywhere you’d like; to Ardahan, they quoted us 2500 TRY (~65€ at the time of this writing), to Posof 500 TRY, which we managed to negotiate down to 400 TRY. 

Posof is a nice village with about 2000 inhabitants, a few tea salons and restaurants. Since there weren’t any buses leaving at 4pm when we got there, we decided to spend the night there. 

Ates Hotel was solid, ~32€ for the overnight stay including soup for breakfast. 

Leg 6 - Posof -> Ardahan

Apparently, there’s supposed to a Dolmus (Turkish Marshrutka) directly to Kars, but in practice, these don’t exist (several other reports confirmed this). There are, however, 2 Dolmus’ leaving for Ardahan - the next biggest town - at 8am and 8:45am. The price for these were 180 TRY (~4,70€). 

Going into Ardahan, we were also stopped at a checkpoint and had to show our passports. Again, no issues. 

Once you get to Ardahan, you have to go from the Dolmus station to the actual bus station (Otogar). It’s a ten minute walk. If you’re not staying in Ardahan, we didn’t feel like one would be missing out on anything. 

Leg 7 - Ardahan -> Kars 

There’s a Dolmus to Kars approximately every hour (I believe, to be confirmed). Our 11am one already left at 10:53am, so don’t cut it close - like in Georgia, they sometimes just leave when they’re full or close to full. 

Price was 150 TRY (~3,90 €). 

The drive is 75 minutes of cool landscapes, not much else happening. Make sure to remind your driver that you want to go to Kars, we’ve heard of several people who were just dropped off by the highway and had to walk a few miles.

This was more complicated than it needed to be, but definitely an adventure - and totally worth it. Would recommend doing this if you have the time and somehow end up on this crazy itinerary. 

Total Price for the route Tbilisi -> Kars was 19 € per person. But it also took us ~30 hours to get there. 

Hope this was helpful!