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Wanna hear the brutally honest truth about this airline?...

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Georgia

Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia 🌇 in €60s-€260s rtn 

Arrive a couple of hours early at the airport to bounce above the vortex…

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Greece, Singapore, South Africa and more 🌿 in €130s-€590s rtn

This is the best sale we've seen from this airline in aaaages...

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Poland, India, Korea, and more 📍 in €80s-€560s rtn

A sale AND super cheap baggage?! Say no more!

London Stansted

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Turkey, Georgia, Egypt and more 🏛️ in £60s-£290s rtn

London Luton

Georgia & Armenia 🍷 in £70s-£190s rtn  

This sale has a little something for everyone! 

Innsbruck

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Greek Islands, Egypt, Azores, and more 🌴 in €70s-€270s rtn 

There&#39;s a lot of stray dogs in Georgia,  like loads. Something happened years ago where  people couldn&#39;t afford them and they were turfed out but Georgia as a nation and a people decided to collectively look after them , feed them and vaccinate them. I&#39;ve not seen  a skinny one yet and you see  bowls of food and water everywhere. 

Anyway to prove how well they are looked after , I went to certain section of the beach today , where 2 years ago , a dog was my pal all night as I  wandered around enjoying a few beers in a few bars and sure enough , there he was today. A bit colder and older but in good fettle , he never recognised me.🤣. The photos below are a few years apart.

Story from EagerVisitor59014

Postcard from johan

While Georgia was always somewhere I wanted to go, I thought booking ATL (Atlanta, Georgia) to TBS (Tbilisi, Georgia) was extra hilarious. Everyone I met got a kick out of the fact that I was visiting Georgia from Georgia. Tbilisi was an amazing city, with great food, sights, and history. It&#39;s also close to the Armenian border, which made a day trip extra easy. Definitely worth the long flight.

Postcard from Harry

I’ve only spent a few days in Tbilisi, but I’ve had an amazing time and I’m looking forward to exploring more. I also have trips booked to visit Kazbegi, Mtskheta, and many more places, so I’m excited to enjoy some of the country’s rich history, culture, and nature. The outstanding wine and low prices don’t hurt either 😁

You guys saved me my JFC premium membership fee several times over it with just this one trip, and I’m looking forward to saving more as the years go on!

Postcard from Ben

Dear all at JFC,

I&#39;ve had my eye on Tbilisi since before the pandemic, and I expected getting there from Glasgow might not be so easy. In fact, the Edinburgh via Istanbul connection looks ideal! Since I joined JFC, I&#39;ve been waiting for Georgia to come round -- as soon as I saw this in my inbox I knew I had to jump on it! Premium membership has already paid for itself now :) Thanks for all your hard work getting these amazing deals through to avid travellers like me.

thank you very much for this great deal. My subscription has already paid off!

Postcard from Wouter

Panama

Hey there, Travellers,
It's time to invoke the "c word" again &mdash; chaos. Anyone planning to travel over the next couple of weeks should be prepared for potential travel chaos, as storms, strikes, and government shutdowns could well change your plans.
In Europe, flights to, from, over, and around France will feel the impact of <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/furious-ryanair-boss-warns-100-000-passengers-could-have-flights-cancelled-next-week-13442651">air traffic control strikes</a> from October 7th - 10th. Meanwhile, in the USA, an ongoing government shutdown could result in delays at TSA checkpoints and even lead to cancellations.
And here in the UK and Ireland? Let's just say I'm currently listening to the wind and rain batter my windows thanks to the first named storm of the season. Dublin Airport has been cancelling flights all day, while airports in the UK are poised to follow suit.
On the plus side, if we can't go anywhere right now, it's the perfect excuse to make plans for the future. Let us know where you're off to next <a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/detour-206-georgia-love-story-plan-for-chaos#comments">in the comments</a>!
Happy travels and safe landings,

Katy - Editor of The Detour

My Love Affair with Georgia (the Country, Not the State &mdash; Though I&rsquo;m Sure She&rsquo;s Great Too)

The Detour Editor Katy is a budget travel aficionado who has already travelled to more than 50 countries. Whether she's at home or on a foreign adventure, she has a particular talent for stumbling upon tasty Georgian restaurants.

By Katy

This one&rsquo;s long overdue. Honestly, it&rsquo;s only taken me so long because it&rsquo;s nearly impossible to know where to start. Like any good romcom, there have been a few (mostly entertaining) bumps in the road during my relationship with Georgia. So, I&rsquo;ll just start at the usual place: the beginning.
This love story begins like most life-changing romances: with a good meal.
Back in 2018, I visited Stockholm for the first time. I have a friend there (hi, Noora!) who insisted that we must go out to her local Georgian restaurant for dinner. &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Never had Georgian food before.&rdquo; Little did I know that it&rsquo;d begin a years-long obsession that I&rsquo;m yet to find a cure for.
I have no memory of what I ate that night beyond <a href="https://www.tasteatlas.com/beyond-adjaruli-khachapuri-varieties-youve-probably-never-tasted">khachapuri</a>. But that&rsquo;s all it took. Turns out a simple cheese bread can unlock doors, change worldviews, and shape the way you live forever. Okay, I&rsquo;m maybe going a little over the top here, but what can I say? I&rsquo;m in love!

From that point on, I took every chance I could for an hour or two in the company of a cheese-filled dopamine boost and the heady delights of an orange wine. The butterflies in my stomach (or was it hunger?), the wonder of discovering something new and different every time&hellip; Like the early days of any romance, I was always left wanting more.
From then on, I&rsquo;d carve out time to savour even the smallest taste of Georgia whenever I could &mdash; and sometimes, I even felt like it was seeking me out, too. From Scotland to Estonia, Lithuania to T&uuml;rkiye, we began seeing the world together. Georgia loves to travel too, it seems.&nbsp;
A year after first tasting that stringy liquid gold encased in its soft, bready vessel, I finally decided it was time to take our relationship to the next level. I needed to experience the real deal, so when Jack&rsquo;s sent me a &pound;38 return trip from London to Kutaisi (I was a just member back then!), I couldn&rsquo;t say no.&nbsp;
But unfortunately, that trip wasn&rsquo;t to be. As talk of Coronavirus spread around the world, the idea of travelling solo to a completely new country where I&rsquo;d have zero language skills wasn&rsquo;t appealing. Instead, I still made the trek to London, where I would have caught that flight, and consoled myself with some khachapuri&nbsp;there before hunkering down at home for a year and a half.

Fast forward a couple of years, and it was time to try again. In 2022, I discovered that I was not the only one among my group of friends who had been harbouring a fascination with the Caucasian country. And after a couple of years mostly stuck at home, we were ready for adventure.
By that time, I had begun working at Jack&rsquo;s, so I knew all the hacks for finding cheap flights. Since that convenient London-to-Kutaisi route hadn&rsquo;t made it out the other side of the pandemic, I had to get creative. With nothing but small backpack bags stuffed to the brim, we budget airline-hopped from Edinburgh to Katowice, and then over to Kutaisi. Anything to reach my beloved Georgia!
After a late landing and a long immigration queue, we finally emerged from the airport and dashed to catch our 3.5-hour coach to Tbilisi. It&rsquo;s important to note at this point that, due to the slight delay in arriving, we hadn&rsquo;t managed to pick up a Georgian SIM in the airport, and none of our phones supported an eSIM.
After about 50 minutes on the bus, we ground to a halt just before entering the highway. And good job, too, because ahead of us there had been a landslide. Every car on the motorway was stuck with no escape.
Thankfully, we were able to get off the road and into a local town to wait until the road was cleared. Cue hours of expensive communications with our Airbnb host using roaming data, shockingly rustic railway station loos, knocking on the window of a 24-hour pharmacy for water (and chocolate), and playing in the snow.

After a restless night aboard the coach with 40-odd others, it became clear that the driver had no idea when we&rsquo;d be able to move again. Thankfully, the one passenger who spoke both Georgian and English knew of a 6am commuter train, headed to Khashuri, which would perfectly circumnavigate the closure. So off we went.
Tickets acquired, we made our way towards the <a href="https://wander-lush.org/trains-in-georgia-country-tips-map/">beaten-up, single-carriage Soviet relic</a> on the platform. It was still dark, there was no indication that this train would take us where we wanted to go, and we couldn&rsquo;t speak the language. As I grabbed the handles by the door to pull myself up into the unlit train, my husband jokingly (but somewhat prophetically) went full horror movie and whispered the words, &ldquo;Welcome to the abattoir.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s when the stench of raw meat hit me like a ton of bricks. 
<a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/my-love-affair-with-georgia-the-country">Keep reading...</a>

Travel Tales

On travelling First Class with kids...

"I haven't flown first class before, but our family had a fantastic experience when we ended up on a Lufthansa 747 at short notice in business class from Frankfurt to Mexico City. The flight was not full, and I had selected bassinet seats in the mini cabin because we actually had two lap infants. However, we ended up with the entire section of 12 seats completely to ourselves, with control over all window shades and IFE screens, our own personal flight attendant, use of any bedding we wanted from any of the seats -- all curtained off from the rest of the massive plane!&nbsp;
What we experienced must be what it's like to fly private! So yes I agree that actually flying private is the only way to consider that you've purchased peace &amp; quiet... but maybe try to go in as a group of friends and book up a mini cabin section of business class on planes that have such a setup! 
Otherwise, kids should be able to travel with their parents/accompanying adults in whatever seats the airline will sell them. However, our experience was that United Polaris was much too private in each seat to be very enjoyable traveling as a family with small kids. Business class cabins with a more open layout give parents better ability to monitor and care for their young one, and suite style seats should be much better suited to those wishing to zone out from whatever is happening in the rest of the aircraft." - DaringSightseer12881

On conscientious, community-focused travel&hellip;

"I write a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/shropshire-slow-travel/marie-kreft//9781804692639">guidebook to Shropshire</a> (new edition coming out in November).&nbsp;It's in Bradt's Slow travel series, so it does encourage self-powered travel above all else. 
But even after flying to a destination, I think we can be better (or more responsible) tourists by taking time to learn about the people, history and culture of the region we're staying in; trying out a few words of the language (even if we look silly - it shows willingness); visiting 'lesser known' attractions rather than just the crowded must-sees, and shunning big/international businesses in favour of smaller restaurants and hotels, local producers and tour guides, so we put our money directly into a local economy and maybe help to keep skills and jobs alive.&nbsp; I don't think there's anything wrong with being a tourist, by the way, especially for people who are curious and sensitive about how they go about their travels." - Marie

Plus, one Traveller in our Facebook community needs your help!

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<div dir="auto">"Looking at 10 days in Panama - ideas on where to stay, what to see, transport/guided tours. Thanks." - Yvonne</div>
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So, dear readers, have any of you been to Panama? <a href="https://members.jacksflightclub.com/articles/detour-206-georgia-love-story-plan-for-chaos#comments">Share your top tips</a> for making the most of 10 days in the country, so we can make sure Yvonne has an amazing trip!
Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in The Detour? Just let us know below 👇

Reader's Corner

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across web this week.
<ul>
<li>Follow in Jane Goodall's steps with a visit to <a href="https://www.pinyourfootsteps.com/gombe-national-park-walking-with-chimps/">Tanzania's Gombe National Park</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2025/09/30/talks_underway_on_repatriation_flights_after_play_c/">Passengers have been left stranded</a> after Icelandic budget airline PLAY went into administration this week, only 6 years after the country's last low-cost carrier, Wow Air, faced the same fate. </li>
<li>Let the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20250926-nine-of-the-worlds-most-unforgettable-train-trips">world's most iconic train routes</a> inspire your future travels. </li>
<li>Here's how <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/jet2-holiday-summer-2025-viral-song-meme-b2837336.html">Jet2 and&nbsp;that song</a> became this year's inescapable summer meme. </li>
<li>And finally, plane diversions can happen for many reasons, but <a href="https://local12.com/news/nation-world/ryanair-flight-fr8718-flight-diverted-after-strange-passengers-freak-out-before-eating-flushing-passports-cincinnati-lavatory-law-enforcement-alleged-asylum-strategy-compensatation-ultra-low-cost-carrier-ulcc-business-incidents-travel-incidents">passengers eating their passports</a> has to be one of the weirdest we've ever heard.</li>
</ul>

Travel News

For the Love of Georgia & Planning for Chaos

After a restless night aboard the coach with 40-odd others, it became clear that the driver had no idea when we&rsquo;d be able to move again. Thankfully, the one passenger who spoke both Georgian and English knew of a 6am commuter train, headed to Khashuri, which would perfectly circumnavigate the closure. So off we went.
Tickets acquired, we made our way towards the <a href="https://wander-lush.org/trains-in-georgia-country-tips-map/">beaten-up, single-carriage Soviet relic</a> on the platform. It was still dark, there was no indication that this train would take us where we wanted to go, and we couldn&rsquo;t speak the language. As I grabbed the handles by the door to pull myself up into the unlit train, my husband jokingly (but somewhat prophetically) went full horror movie and whispered the words, &ldquo;Welcome to the abattoir.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s when the stench of raw meat hit me like a ton of bricks. As I moved through the first compartment, I was greeted by huge plastic containers full of mystery cuts of mystery animals, accompanied by grubby older guys in dusty work clothes. I quickly averted my eyes and made my way onwards through the darkened compartments.
Eventually, in the second-last of 8 compartments, I found a couple I recognised from our bus and joined them&mdash;this felt safe. Ish. We sat down on the solid bench seats, knowing we had a couple of hours of discomfort ahead of us, but at least there would be safety in numbers, right?

A few minutes later, the train started squeaking ominously along the platform, still in complete darkness. Sleep-deprived and basing our whole onward journey on the word of one seemingly kind man on the bus, we began to accept that we may be chugging along to our deaths.
&mdash;
Now, you may be wondering if this can possibly still be a love story, but stick with me. Every relationship has its ups and downs, and this was definitely a bumpy patch. But it does get better&hellip; eventually. Hang in there.
&mdash;
The lights in the train compartment flickered on and off for the next two hours. All we could see out the windows was the occasional glowing neon cross on the hillside, which only added to the discomfort.
But when the darkness lifted, and the sky became navy blue, we could make out the snowy, <a href="https://youtu.be/BoP-KlDyoRI?si=VY9wPv1t8CK962vt&amp;t=14">mountain landscapes of the Imereti region</a> around us. It was breathtaking. Snow-dusted trees scaled from the valley below to the peaks above us, churches and monasteries now peeking out as the sun rose through my rose-tinted glasses.
The train meandered on for a couple of hours, occasionally stopping at another tiny station in the middle of nowhere to squeeze on yet more commuters. Eventually we pulled into a relative metropolis and the train&rsquo;s final stop, Khashuri (population: 28,000).
Holding our breath, we manoeuvred our way off the train past containers of meat and into the snow. Relief &mdash; we had made it off alive!&nbsp;
And then we remembered that we still had to get to Tbilisi.

<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en">CC image</a> courtesy of Dāvis Kļaviņ&scaron; on <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2p4YR3u">Flickr</a>
That was a whole other ordeal. One that definitely made me wonder if my affections had been misplaced. There were no onward trains to the capital, so we decided we&rsquo;d see what our fellow airport coach survivors were planning. The word on the street was&nbsp;&ldquo;marshrutka&rdquo;, a kind of <a href="https://relentlessroaming.com/georgia-transport-guide-marshrutka/">minivan/taxi hybrid</a> common in ex-Soviet countries.&nbsp;
When we approached the marshrutka drivers pitched up at the station, they welcomed us in, then suggested that we all put our bags in one vehicle and travel in another. Alarm bells started ringing, so we politely declined that offer, and opted instead to trudge 20 minutes through the calf-high snow to the bus station&hellip; which turned out to be boarded up. Not a bus in sight.
In front of the station, however, stood another marshrutka, magically containing some of our earlier coach and train buddies. So, we gave in and hopped aboard. We asked the driver how much the ride would cost (7 Georgian lari, around $2.50/&euro;2.20/&pound;1.90), then, realising we still hadn&rsquo;t been to an ATM, decided we&rsquo;d worry about how to pay the driver once we got to Tbilisi.&nbsp;
Ducking through the door, it was immediately clear this would be a cosy ride. The seats were narrow and it seemed like the van was already nearly at capacity. But as we squeezed to the back, our fellow passengers flipped down previously invisible bench seats where the aisle used to be. A cosy ride just got cosier, but thankfully nobody on board had questionable hygiene &mdash; other than us, by that point.
Remarkably, the marshrutka ride went off without a hitch (there are plenty of articles online that prepare you for a ropey ride), stopping only a few times along the route upon request, and we arrived in Tbilisi around 1.5 hours later. I say &ldquo;Tbilisi&rdquo;, but it was actually a more like a sea of marshrutkas surrounded by a market, the city visible in the distance.

We bundled off and asked the driver where we could find an ATM. He gestured into the distance, around a corner. Sleepless and bleary-eyed, one of my friends volunteered to go and find cash, while the rest of us stayed with the driver as collateral.&nbsp;
After a long five minutes, he returned successful, and we were free to finally explore Tbilisi. We attempted to put our limited brainpower together and form a plan for reaching our accommodation. Ultimately, the lack of SIM struck again, and negotiating with the local taxi drivers was our best option.
The gang of drivers saw us coming a mile off &mdash; foreigners with no clue and few options. They quoted high, I haggled until we settled upon a price for the two cars we&rsquo;d need to carry the five of us. I&rsquo;d pay for both once we arrived. Sounded easy. But in the maze of the old town, one of the drivers lost his way, ultimately dropping off my friends 5 minutes away and requesting payment before they left.
They paid. I also paid for them. We had been conned, like everyone warns you might happen with taxis in foreign lands. We later learned that using the Bolt ride-share app was the best way to avoid this &mdash; again with the needing data!&nbsp;
But honestly, by that point, we were just grateful to have arrived. We were finally in Tbilisi, the quiet rabble of butterflies in my stomach beginning to flutter once again.

My Love Affair with Georgia (the Country, Not the State — Though I’m Sure She’s Great Too)

Georgia

Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia in €60s-€260s rtn

Greece, Singapore, South Africa and more in €130s-€590s rtn

Poland, India, Korea, and more in €80s-€560s rtn

Turkey, Georgia, Egypt and more in £60s-£290s rtn

Georgia & Armenia in £70s-£190s rtn

Greek Islands, Egypt, Azores, and more in €70s-€270s rtn

For the Love of Georgia & Planning for Chaos

My Love Affair with Georgia (the Country, Not the State — Though I’m Sure She’s Great Too)

Travel Hacks, Flight Tips and Amazing Fares

How to do Christmas differently this year: 5 unexpected places to get festive

Jack’s Fright Club - the creepiest travel experiences from the JFC team

Where in the world can you rock up and pitch up, legally? 10 of the best wild camping spots!

Story from EagerVisitor59014

Postcard from johan

Postcard from Harry

Postcard from Ben

Postcard from Ben

Postcard from Wouter