Georgian Revenue service is providing information on tax free shopping and the VAT refund on their website , but unfortunately in Georgian only. As the process is quite different than in other countries, we decided to share our experiences about it.
Travelling to Tibet by the new Qinghai-Tibet railway was awesome and easy. No notorious travel permits were needed. Tibet itself with its mountainous scenery and minority people reminded us of Bolivia, which we love, except that it was way more touristy. Still, at least the train trip was worthwhile.
Travelling the trans-siberian railway all the way from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, Russia. And visiting Voguls on the way. We started our Trans-Siberian railway ride from Kuokkaniemi, a small village situated near Sortavala and Finnish border in Karelia. The trip ended in Vladivostok near Japan and Korea totaling well over 10.000 kilometres. It would have been possible to do the trip in about eleven days, but we wanted to stop every once in a while and look around. We bought our tickets one by one, just to the next destination, and got this way a lot of experience of Russian bureaucracy, despotism of the police (militsiya), and the lack of any kind of logic in Russia. We knew right away that our Experiment would at least be challenging. In Santeri’s words: Russia should be avoided at any cost.
Recent hostilities in the Middle-East have led to millions of passengers to miss their hotel bookings , flights and cruises. Carriers and online travel agencies ( OTA ) are exploiting the situation. When a refund is carried out, both OTA and the carrier lose money. They deliberately sabotage refunds so that customers give up their money.
Travel bloggers are selling dreams paid by various tourism bodies. Promoting luxury, fast travel, and the most faraway locations messes up local economies and generates more waste and pollution.
It's been 15 years since we left Finland to wander the world. Azerbaidjan became our 100th country as we visited Baku, which is within a short train trip from Georgia.
We wanted to escape the high season in the coastal Mediterranean Balkan states and so were asking around for suggestions where to go. Upon this mission, we got into contact with Portuguese Vicente on BeWelcome hospitality exchange, which is a free alternative for couchsurfing , and got interested in the place where he had been staying on and off for some years. The place is Kalna in Stara Planina Mountains that run from Serbia to Bulgaria.
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