Batumi is one of the cheapest seaside cities in Europe: the 6km boulevard, every beach, the cable-car-free viewpoints and half the museums cost nothing. Add 1 GEL buses, 5 GEL bakery khachapuri and hostel beds from 25 GEL, and three days here run under 100 GEL.
Start at Piazza (built 2009, Venetian-style with mosaics and a clock tower) then walk five minutes to Europe Square with the Medea statue holding the Golden Fleece. Both squares are open 24/7 with no entry fee, and morning light before 10:00 means empty frames.
The 1866 Orta Jame on Chkalov Street is Batumi's only surviving mosque, with hand-painted floral ceilings. Entry is free; women borrow a headscarf at the door. The surrounding Kala courtyards on Kutaisi and Memed Abashidze streets show pre-Soviet balconies for nothing.
The 25-metre Cha-Cha Tower at the boulevard's Miracle Park end was built in 2012 to dispense free Georgian grape brandy from its fountain. The taps run only sporadically now, but the clock tower, the surrounding gardens and the sea terrace stay free all year.
Tamar Kvesitadze's two 8-metre steel figures move through each other over roughly ten minutes, starting around 19:00 in summer. Standing on the Miracle Park waterfront costs nothing, and the Alphabet Tower behind lights up at dusk for the same price.
The covered market on Tbel Abuseridze Street opens around 07:00 and is where locals buy churchkhela (2-3 GEL), Adjaran sulguni cheese (12-15 GEL/kg), tkemali plum sauce and mountains of hazelnuts. Vendors expect gentle haggling on fruit by the kilo.
The small tone-oven bakeries along Chavchavadze sell hot lobiani (bean-filled bread) for 3-4 GEL and khachapuri slices for 4-5 GEL, straight from the clay oven. Point at what you want; most counters have no menu and no English.
Neighbourhood khinkali houses around Gogebashvili and Parnavaz Mepe streets charge 1-1.20 GEL per dumpling, so five khinkali plus bread and lemonade lands under 10 GEL. Order kalakuri with meat broth and eat them by hand, leaving the tough top knot.
The 1881 park around Lake Nurigeli is free to enter and stays open late. Locals bring bakery bread and market cheese to the lakeside benches; pedal boats cost about 10-15 GEL per half hour if you want to spend anything at all.
Bus 31 or a marshrutka from Chavchavadze Street runs the 9km to Green Cape for 1-2 GEL in about 30 minutes. The 1912 garden spreads over 108 hectares of Japanese, Himalayan and Mexican sections with cliff paths straight down to the Black Sea.
Below the botanical garden the pebble beach is public, free and far quieter than the central strip. There are no sunbed fees if you sit on your own towel, and the water is noticeably clearer than in front of the boulevard hotels.
The Argo cable car charges around 25-30 GEL return, but the walk up to St Nicholas Anuria Church on the same ridge is free and takes 40 minutes from the port district. The terrace gives the same panorama over the bay, port cranes and Alphabet Tower.
The Ardagani Lake fountain show runs free most summer evenings from roughly 21:00, projecting water screens and laser images across the lake. The surrounding lawn is a standard local hangout, and the walk there from the boulevard takes 15 minutes.