PANKISI  –  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. 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.”