Discovering the World with D

When I first told people I would go on holiday to Albania, the usual reaction was: ”Why would you go there?” ”That seems really unsafe!” ”Don’t you want to go somewhere else instead?”

This got me a bit uneasy and I started reading one blog post after the other in order to calm myself down. Now that I’ve come back from that holiday, I can tell you: 100% GO GO GO! It’s an amazing country to visit and you well get back so much from the people and from nature. So let’s dive right in!

Side note: I planned everything in advance, because to me it felt safer and because I love doing it. But you could just as well plan it as you go.

Things to know before you go

First, the country is a lot bigger than you can imagine and has a lot to offer, so you definitely need enough time. I went for 8 days and still missed out on the whole northern part of the country. I would recommend spending around 10-14 days there. I promise you won’t get bored!

If you go for less than 10 days, you need to decide whether you want to concentrate on the North or the South. The North is more mountainous and you are likely to find snow there even in April. The South is closer to the nice, instagrammable beaches. I decided to stick to the South and really feel like I got the best of both worlds as the South still has a lot of high mountains as well.

Next, you need to decide on the period that you want to go. I went in April and I would definitely recommend it for hiking or visiting the important sites as it’s not crowded with other tourists, it’s cheaper and the weather is perfect – not to hot and not much rain either. However, for the beach, April is far to early. The sea is quite cold (too cold for swimming in my opinion) and many businesses are shut because of the lack of tourists. If I would go again, I would probably opt for late May, early June or for early September. We also asked some locals and apparently in the winter there’s enough snow on the mountains to go skiing. So if you’re into that, I would recommend checking that out too.

Albania is generally considered to be a very safe country and I can confirm this. Wherever I went, whether that was in hotels, restaurants or at the wine tasting, I encountered really friendly people. Everyone was super helpful and they all seemed really happy and proud for me to visiting their country.

Don’t forget Albania has had a tough past, being in a communist dictatorship until the early 90s. People were very poor during that period and this can still be felt today. A lot of the houses are unfinished and a lot of people still leave in the countryside, looking after their sheep, donkeys or cows.

On a more positive note, the streets in Albania are mostly in great condition. A lot of the streets have been newly redone and are quite wide. The only thing you need to get used to is the driving style – Albanians drive a little crazy. I rented a car and was a little nervous. But I quickly realised that driving was actually quite ok.

Albania is very very cheap. If you are travelling on a budget, this is the place for you. Me and my boyfriend usually ate for 20 to 25€ total without looking for super cheap places. I’m sure you could find a lot cheaper. You can easily find hotels for around 30€ a night too. Although, I would suggest booking in advance to profit of the cheap deals.

However, you definitely need cash. Most of the small businesses or restaurants don’t take card. It’s only really used in hotels, at car rentals or at other touristic places. I suggest getting your money from an ATM of the Credins Bank. Our first hotel suggested this to us and claimed that they have the lowest feas.

Finally, the food and drinks are fantastic. I tried a lot of traditional Albanian dishes such as Byrek, Flija and Fergese. They also have a lot of Pizza and Pasta aswell as Feta cheese, since Italy and Greece are just around the corner. The raki can be made from lots of different fruits and tastes really really good even though it’s hard alcohol. As for wine, they have a couple of really nice red, white and rosé bottles. I usually stuck to the house wine, which was generally quite sweet but delicious nonetheless. Finally, they have many cool bars, especially in Tirana and Saranda, where they serve delicious cocktails (bonus: they only cost about 5€ each).

How to get to Albania

There are a couple of different ways to get to Albania. You can take the ferry from Corfu or Brindisi to Saranda, or drive across the border from Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia or Greece. The most popular way however, is to fly into Tirana International Airport which is what I did.

I flew from Brussels South Charleroi Airport by WizzAir. It was my first time flying with them and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. They were very friendly and even upgraded us to seats with extra legroom on the flight back. Tirana airport is very small but modern.

To get from the airport to Tirana, you have a couple of options: bus, taxi, hotel shuttle… My flight there was quite late in the evening (I believe the plane was meant to arrive at 11pm). When I checked online, I read that the last bus would leave the airport at 11pm, so I knew it would be tight to catch it. I decided to contact my hotel to see if they had a shuttle service and thankfully they had. It was the best decision I made, because our flight got delayed and I was glad I didn’t have to deal with the hassle of finding a taxi and checking if it was trustworthy. In the end, it cost about 20€.

On the way back to the airport, I decided to try the bus, as it was much cheaper than a taxi and my flight was in the early evening so there was less of a hassle. And I do have to say, that worked out great. The bus picked us up on time and dropped us off on time as well. And it only cost 400 Lek (around 3,50€). So a total bargain compared to the taxi or shuttle (which are roughly the same price). If you go to the website of the Tirana airport you will find all the details including the locations, timetable and price.

How to get around Albania

I was contemplating on wether to hire a car or just taking the bus from one place to the next. The car made me a little nervous as I was worried about the conditions of the roads and the driving style of the locals. However, it gave me the possibility to be a lot more flexible and to stop wherever I felt like it. Plus, since I went to Albania in April, it wasn’t considered to be high season, so I wasn’t sure if busses would run as frequently.

The decision was quickly made: I’m renting a car! I decided to go through a local company in my home country, who would get everything in order, so that I just had to go and pick it up at Entreprise in Tirana. I ended up with quite a new Suzuki Swift and was delighted by the end of the holiday. It got me everywhere I wanted without a problem.

Initially, I used maps.me to get around as I didn’t have a SIM card – so no 4G connection. I downloaded the map of Albania before getting there and used the app offline. I opted to buy one the second day and have since used Google Maps. But both apps worked equally fine.

So if I had to do it again, I would definitely chose to hire a car again. It’s free of any hassle and gives you the flexibility to stop that you will need when driving through the stunning landscape that Albania has to offer.

That’s all for now. Make sure to pop back soon to keep up with future travel tales and tips. Until then be sure to ”Explore. Dream. Discover.” (Mark Twain)

D. x