Tourists are discovering a fascinating destination on the edge of Europe — but it’s on a US warning list

By Elizabeth McBride, CNN

(CNN) — When travelers head to the Pankisi Valley, the warnings often begin before they arrive, usually from the mouth of a concerned taxi driver, unsure they should be driving tourists to this remote destination.

“‘Why are you going there? What are you doing? I don’t know, it’s not safe for you there,’” the drivers say, according to Khatuna Margoshvili, a guesthouse owner in the rugged, beautiful valley.

Pankisi in Georgia, the former Soviet country beyond the eastern fringes of Europe, has long carried a reputation shaped more by headlines than tourism. In the early 2000s, Chechens fleeing Moscow’s war on their homeland used the valley as a refuge. Russia alleged some were former militants.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States claimed al Qaeda operatives were present in Pankisi and speculated that Osama bin Laden was among them — allegations that were never proven. The stigma deepened in the 2010s, when ISIS recruited dozens of residents from the valley.

Today, it’s a different story, as visitors who do make the journey are discovering. A 2023 report by the US Agency for International Development described Pankisi as “peaceful,” and online searches for Pankisi Valley return listings for horse-riding tours, felt workshops and classes in making khinkali dumplings, rather than reports of Islamic extremism.

And while the US State Department still cautions American citizens against travel to the region, many are still making the trip.

“In the past two, three years, 80% of our guests have come from America,” Margoshvilli says.

Unusual traditions

Tourism in Pankisi is still relatively new, and remains limited compared with more established destinations in Georgia. But interest has grown as accommodations have sprung up and tour operators have begun to include the valley in their itineraries.

Karolina Zygmanowska, a guide with Weekend Travelers Georgia, began organizing tours to Pankisi two years ago.

“People asked for the tour, so we started to run it. The interest started after we heard that a number of guesthouses had opened there,” she says. “They have their own community, their own culture — their food is even a little bit different from other parts of Georgia.”

Most families living in the valley are Kists, descendants of Chechen and Ingush settlers who migrated to Georgia in the 19th century. They speak Chechen, alongside Georgian and sometimes Russian. They follow Sufi and Sunni Muslim traditions in a country that is predominantly Orthodox Christian.

Every Friday, women from across the valley gather at the Old Mosque in the village of Duisi to perform zikr, a rite rooted in Sufi mysticism. Participants move in a circle, chanting, singing and clapping as the pace gradually increases. Pankisi is the only place where women perform zikr, and visitors can ask to observe the ceremony.

Pankisi sits close to Tusheti, a mountainous region already popular with hikers, but tourism in the valley itself is only just taking shape. Over the past decade, community initiatives — many supported by foreign aid — have helped build a small tourism industry from scratch.

For some residents, the motivation to open up to tourists went beyond income. Margoshvilli is a member of the Pankisi Valley Tourism and Development Association (PVTDA), founded in 2018 by a group of women who hoped tourism could help change perceptions of the valley.

Their efforts have drawn international attention. In 2020, Lonely Planet included Pankisi in its guide to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. That same year, Georgia’s tourism board began promoting the region on its website — just two years after a controversial counterterrorism raid in the valley.

Uncertain times

Locals say unemployment previously played a role in ISIS’ success recruiting young people online, and the PVTDA describes tourism as “the only industry” currently available in the region. But the future of that industry is uncertain. A freeze on USAID funding, followed by the Georgian government’s introduction of a “foreign agent law” restricting acceptance of overseas funding, has left development projects in limbo.

Margoshvilli received USAID support to open her guesthouse a decade ago. “We were one of the very first in the valley to open,” she says. “We thought it would be possible to earn money, even though there were very few tourists at the time.”

Other initiatives followed. Young people connected to the Roddy Scott Foundation — the valley’s English-language school and a former recipient of USAID and EU grants — now work as tour guides during the summer season. The Pankisi Women’s Council, which has also partnered with European and US donors, has supported local entrepreneurship and vocational training.

“We have different projects, we have professional ones — sewing, woodworking, pottery, cooking, veterinary medicine and medical ones,” says Guliko Khangoshvilli, a member of the women’s council. “We also had tourism courses, so that locals could learn about tourism and how to open guesthouses.”

But the uncertainty weighs heavily. “We are still working without pay and waiting to see what will happen,” she says.

‘It was perfect’

Shenguli Tokhosashvilli is among those who benefited from earlier investment. In 2017, the Pankisi native received a USAID grant to start Kisturi Draft, a small brewery producing a traditional Chechen non-alcoholic drink made from rosehip and hawthorn. He left his job as a lawyer in Tbilisi to return home.

The product’s label features Tebulosmta, a mountain on the border of Georgia and Chechnya. “This beer is a tradition from Chechen people in the past, our Chechen brothers and sisters,” Tokhosashvilli says.

Today, Kisturi Draft is sold locally and in restaurants in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and the Black Sea coast city of Batumi. Visitors can sample the drink at the brewery’s patio in the village of Omalo, which has become a regular stop for tour groups. But Tokhosashvilli is cautious about expansion amid the freeze on foreign funding.

He said few Georgians visit the valley. “My friends in Tbilisi asked me if they needed passports, or a special visa to visit Pankisi,” he says.

For foreign visitors, that reputation can come as a surprise. Joanna Horanin, who runs the travel blog The Blond Travels, visited Pankisi while traveling in Georgia.

“I really wanted to go somewhere where there aren’t too many tourists and it’s a bit more remote — somewhere with an experience of simple village life,” she said.

“We did horse riding, a trip to a waterfall — and then when we came home, we had a meal of khinkali. These were different, because normally they’re with meat and mushrooms, but in Pankisi they were with nettle.”

“It was perfect. It was probably one of the best experiences we had in Georgia.”

She laughed about the valley’s reputation

“It’s apparently dangerous,” she says. “And I had no idea about it.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.