Saranda (Sarandë) is the beating heart of the Albanian Riviera — a lively coastal city curled around a horseshoe bay, gazing across the water at the Greek island of Corfu. It’s where most travellers base themselves to explore southern Albania, and with good reason: from here you’re minutes from the Blue Eye and the beaches…
With its powder-white sand, calm turquoise shallows and a cluster of tiny islands just offshore, Ksamil has earned its nickname as the “Maldives of Europe.” Sitting at the southern tip of the Albanian Riviera, this once-sleepy village is now Albania’s most famous beach destination — and for good reason. This guide covers the best beaches,…
Few places in Albania look as unreal as the Blue Eye. A deep sapphire “pupil” ringed by glowing turquoise, fed by ice-cold water surging up from a cave so deep no one has ever reached the bottom — it’s one of southern Albania’s most photographed natural wonders, and an easy half-day trip from the coast….
Tumbling down a mountainside in a cascade of grey slate roofs, Gjirokastër is one of Albania’s most atmospheric towns — a UNESCO-listed “City of Stone” where Ottoman mansions, a vast hilltop fortress and cobbled bazaar streets sit layered over a turbulent modern history. Many travellers blast past it on the way to the coast; those…
Cascading up two hillsides above a turquoise river, Berat is one of Albania’s most photogenic towns — a UNESCO World Heritage site where tiers of white Ottoman houses, each studded with rows of windows, climb toward a castle that people still call home. Nicknamed the “City of a Thousand Windows,” Berat packs over two millennia…
Tucked into a green valley deep in the Accursed Mountains, Theth is the jewel of the Albanian Alps — a remote stone village of slate-roofed houses, waterfalls and a famous mountain pass that draws hikers from across the world. Once almost impossible to reach, Theth is now a short drive from Shkodër thanks to a…
If there’s one journey that turns up on every northern Albania itinerary, it’s the Lake Koman ferry. For about three hours, a boat winds through a flooded river canyon where sheer mountains drop straight into still, jade-green water — a landscape people regularly compare to the fjords of Norway or the rivers of Southeast Asia….
For the vast majority of visitors, the answer is simple: no, you don’t need a visa to visit Albania. It’s one of the most open countries in Europe — most travellers can turn up with just a valid passport and stay for up to 90 days, and US citizens can stay for a full year….
Getting around Albania is part of the adventure. There’s no useful passenger rail, so travel runs on a mix of share-minibuses, intercity coaches, hire cars and taxis — each with its own quirks. The short version: a rental car gives you the most freedom, while furgons (minibuses) are the cheap, local, leave-when-full backbone of public…
Yes — Albania is one of the most affordable destinations in Europe, and your money goes noticeably further here than in Greece, Croatia or Italy. But “cheap” no longer means “almost free”: coastal prices have climbed since 2022, and a seafront week in August is a very different budget from a spring road trip inland….
