Are you travelling overland from Georgia to Turkey? The Sarpi border crossing on the Black Sea coast is the easiest land crossing between the two countries and always open. So, without further ado, let’s find out how to get from Batumi to Hopa.
In this transfer guide, we will show you step by step how to get from Batumi to Hopa by tourist bus and a mix oof public buses and local mini buses. On top of that, we will reveal why booking a private transfers is not worth the investment and share some useful tips on how to prepare your border crossing the best way.
Key Takeaways
- By Tourist Bus:Take a tourist bus like Metro Turizm from Batumi to Hopa for a simple 2-3 hour trip; book tickets online and be ready to cross the border on foot at Sarpi.
- By Mini Bus: For the cheapest way, take the local city bus 16 or mini bus line 88 to Sarpi, cross by foot, then catch a Turkish mini bus to Hopa; total trip about 2 hours.
- By Private Transfer: Taxis require switching vehicles at the border and negotiating prices, so buses or minibuses are easier.
- Useful Tips: Before crossing, have your passport and visa ready, exchange some Lari for Turkish Lira, and book your Hopa or onward stay ahead.
Table of Contents
Where to Stay in Hopa, Turkey
Spending the night in Hopa? Reserve your stay at one of these hotels:
The Cheapest | Cihan Hotel | starting from $ 61 per night | |
The Best-Reviewed | Nana Hotel | starting from $ 112 per night |
How to Get from Batumi to Hopa
Batumi, Georgia, and Hopa, Turkey, are roughly 100 kilometres (or 63 miles) apart, with a direct drive taking around 38 minutes. Batumi and Hopa are, however, separated by the Georgia-Turkey land border, meaning that travellers need to complete border control procedures before continuing their journey.
From Batumi, you can get to Hopa by tourist bus, a mix of public buses and mini buses and by private transfer. In the following sections, we will break down each option step by step:
By Tourist Bus: The Straightforward Option
For a hassle-free transfer from Batumi to Hopa, book an online ticket for one of the tourist buses travelling between Georgia and Turkey, such as Metro Turizm and Lüks Karadeniz. The ride from Batumi Bus Station to Hopa Otogari takes between 2 and 3 hours and ticket prices start from $ 16.25 (or 14.44 €) per person.
Book directly on the official Obilet website, the main website for bus tickets in Turkey. When booking your trip from Batumi to Hopa, consider taking one of the earlier connections of the day to account for delays along the way.
At the Sarpi border crossing, your bus will drop you on the Georgian side of the border. Then, you will cross the border on foot and get back on the bus on the Turkish side. Depending on the time of day, waiting times at the border crossing may vary a lot.
Once everyone is back on the bus, it’s back onto the road and to Hopa Bus Station. There, you can either get off to grab some lunch and hop onto another bus or simply stay on your bus to continue on to Trabzon, Ankara or Istanbul, depending on the itinerary you chose.
By Public Bus & Mini Bus: The Cheapest Way
While taking one of the large tourist buses is not all that expensive, there is a cheaper way to get from Batumi to Hopa: the mini bus route.
Since we opted for this option, we will give you a detailed breakdown of how to get from Batumi to Hopa by minibus (marshrutka).
- Get up early, ideally at 6 AM, and check out of your hotel in Batumi. The earlier you arrive at the border crossing, the faster you will pass it.
- From your hotel, head to the nearest bus stop on the main boulevard (look up on Google Maps as Tbel Abuseridze St.).
- From there, hop on bus 16, pay by tapping your phone or the Batumi transport card (0.70 GEL), and enjoy the ride.
- Alternatively, you can also head to the mini bus staton in Central Batumi (this is exact location of the mini bus stop).
- From there, hop on bus 88, pay your fare in cash (2 GEL) to the driver, and enjoy your ride.
- Both buses end at the Sarpi border crossing bus stop, right in front of the border crossing.
Once you arrive at the Sarpi border crossing, exchange your last Georgian Lari (GEL) for Turkish Lira (TL) and head to the border crossing building. There, you need to get stamped out of Georgia first and then pass Turkish immigration.
With your entry stamp, you are set to continue your trip on the Turkish side:
- On the Turkish side, walk from the border crossing building and find a line of mini buses (dolmus) parked on the side of the road.
- Confirm with the driver that the mini bus is headed to Hopa and pay your fare in cash (50 TL to 100 TL), and wait for the bus to fill up.
- In usual chicken bus manner, the driver waits for the bus to fill up all the way, before departing. At the border, this only takes a few minutes though.
- Once the bus is full, it’s back onto the road and to Hopa. The ride will take no longer than 20 minutes.
- In Hopa, the mini bus will drop you off at the local mini bus stop (this is the exact location of the mini bus stop).
- From the mini bus stop, follow the road into Hopa for about 20 minutes to get to Hopa Otogari (Hopa Bus Station). There, you can get national buses to destinations all over the country.
We started our trip in the center of Batumi and took the first bus of line 16 at 6:50 AM. At this time, the border crossing was still relatively calm, our bus basically brought the first flood of people, and we crossed within 30 minutes.
We arrived at Hopa Otogari at 08:30 AM, after less than 3 hours in total (adjusted for one hour of time difference between Georgia and Turkey).
By Taxi: The Easy(ish) Option
One might think that the easiest way to get from Batumi to Hopa is simply calling a taxi to drive you there, but it’s not as easy as that. To get to Hopa by taxi, in most cases, you will still have to get off the car at the border crossing, cross on foot and find new transport on the Turkish side.
If you want to travel by taxi, you can call a Bolt to your hotel in Batumi and ride with it to the Sarpi border crossing. There, you will drop, cross the border and find a new taxi to take you to Hopa.
Since Bolt doesn’t work on the Turkish side, you will have to find a regular taxi. In most cases, you will have to negotiate the price of the ride with the taxi driver on the spot.
As you can see, this option isn’t any less complicated than simply taking the bus 16 to Sarpi and hopping onto a mini bus on the Turkish side and not really worth the hassle.
For a seamless crossing with the same driver, you may book a ride with a local transfer company. They will have a driver get you to the crossing and pick you up after, but this will cost you at least $ 25, often times more.
5 Things to Do Before the Sarpi Border Crossing
Either on your last day in Batumi or on the day of your border crossing in Sarpi, there are a few things you should take care of before crossing the border.
Consider these useful tips before passing the Georgia Turkey border crossing:
- Prepare Your Travel Documents: At the border crossing, you will need to present either your ID card (mostly for EU/Schengen citizens) or a passport with at least 6 months of validity.
- Check, if You Need a Visa: Consider that some countries, such as Mexico, still require an e-visa to enter Turkey. Apply for it at least 72 hours in advance to have it sorted by the time of your crossing.
- Get Some Turkish Lira: Exchange Georgian Lari for Turkish Lira in Batumi for the best exchange rates or at one of the stands directly in front of the border crossing. The minibus is paid in TL.
- Get a Data Plan for Turkey: Don’t fancy travelling without internet? Set up an E-SIM for Turkey. By the way, setting up an E-SIM for Turkey is only possible from outside of Turkey.
- Book Your Hotel in Turkey: Similarly, you cannot use Booking.com inside of Turkey to book hotels rooms in Turkey. Confirm your booking beforehand to avoid having to look for hotels on the spot.
Prefer to get from Georgia to Turkey another way? Besides the Sarpi border crossing, there are other ways to get to Turkey, too. We outlined them in our separate Georgia Turkey transfer guide.
Where to Stay in Hopa, Turkey
Usually, people don’t stay overnight in Hopa. Hopa is a small town with little to see, a classic border town so to say. If you arrive early in the morning, you will have more than enough time to make it to another larger city down the road to spend the night there.
If you cross the Sarpi border in the evening though, book a stay at one of these Hopa hotels:
Budget | Cihan Hotel | Cheapest stay, breakfast included | starting from $ 61 per night | |
Comfort | Nana Hotel | Best-reviewed, More comfortable | starting from $ 112 per night |
Where to Go From Hopa
In Hopa, you can essentially pick any Turkish bus company and destination to continue your journey into Turkey, from the closest city of Rize all the way to Ankara, the capital, and Istanbul. If you haven’t made any plans so far, you might want to check out some of the most popular routes to take.
From Hopa Bus Terminal, these are the best routes to continue your journey:
- The Black Sea Route: Continuing your journey along the Black Sea coast would be the most intuitive choice after arriving to Hopa. From Hopa, you can use shorter tourist buses or mini buses to visit Rize, Trabzon and Altinordu, before heading to Ankara or Istanbul.
- The Cappadocia Route: Between Hopa and the larger cities of Ankara and Istanbul, Cappadocia is easily the biggest tourist magnet. Spend a day or two in Cappadocia before heading all the way west. From Hopa, you can get to Cappadocia via the direct bus to Kayseri, which takes 17 hours.
- The Dogu Express: The Dogu Express is Turkey’s longest continuous train journey, covering over 1,300 kilometres in just about 30 hours – and it’s not too far from Hopa. Simply hop on a bus from Hopa to Kars, which takes about 6 hours and catch the Dogu Express from there.
Curious about the Dogu Express? We continued our journey from Hopa on the Dogu Express from Kars to Ankara and shared our full experience in this Dogu Express review. Check it out!
The Bottom Line
Getting from Batumi to Hopa is much easier – and cheaper – than most think. Simply take the public bus to the border, cross to the other side by foot and hop onto the mini bus waiting there. Overall, the Batumi Hopa transfer should take you no longer than 3 hours and cost you less than $ 5 by mini bus.
For a more comfortable transfer, you may book a direct bus operated by Metro Turizm and Lüks Karadeniz or a private transfer operated by a local transfer company. Bear in mind though, that neither of these options save you the mandatory stop at the border, so they won’t save you all that much time anyways.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best day trip from Batumi?
From Batumi, you can take several day trips along the Black Sea coast to the North and the South. To the North, you can visit the beaches of Kobuleti, while in the South, you can visit Gonio Fortress to learn more about Adjaria’s history, hike up to the Gonio Cross or check out the Andrew the Apostle Sculpture outside of Kwariati.
How to pay for a bus in Batumi?
The blue public buses in Batumi run entirely cash-free. Instead, you either pay by tapping the local transport plastic card or your own credit card. A single ride in the bus costs 0.70 GEL. The ticket machines accept all foreign-issued VISA and Mastercards.
Which is better, Batumi or Tbilisi?
While Tbilisi has more of a metropolitan feel to it and generally more activities to offer, Batumi has more of a beach feel. In Batumi, you can stay in a studio apartment with a view of the Black Sea, stroll around the old center and try the region’s famous Adjarian Khachapuri.
Hey! We are glad you are curious about travelling the Middle East.
We are Nancy & Elias.
Over four years of backpacking and digital nomading made us fall in love with the Middle East. We have lived on the Red Sea coast in Egypt, lived in a Bedouin Camp in Jordan and travelled 6+ Middle Eastern countries overland.
As we continue to travel, we share our battle-tested travel advice on this blog, from travel reports and transfer guides to accommodation recs and saving hacks.
