7 Days in Albania Without a Car (Tirana + 3 Day Trips)

I just got back from a trip to Albania with my mom. We were supposed to go to Turkey. Then Turkey got politically complicated, my mom got scared, and I found myself scrolling Instagram at 1am watching a stranger swim in water so clear it looked fake, titled “Albania.” I turned to my mom and said, why not Albania? And that, more or less, is how we planned this trip.

Here’s why. My mom and I have done Europe, plenty of times (check out my other travel guides). So, we were looking for something different. We wanted somewhere neither of us had been, and the Balkans were right there. Albania it was.

Quick background if you’re new here: my mom and I travel together to all sorts of amazing places. Last summer, we did the south of France, this summer we visited the Balkans, and next year, we’ll do Turkey or Vietnam.

I have to be honest though, in an effort to be more spontaneous, or simply because I sometimes leave things to the last minute (oops), I didn’t do any research or plan anything until a couple of weeks before.

Which is how I almost landed in Albania not knowing three things. One, there are no trains. Two, the buses are unreliable. Three, the famous Albanian Riviera you keep seeing on your feed requires a tour, a private driver, or a rental car.

Before we move forward, I have a confession to make.

I am 26 years old and I do not have a driver’s license. My mom doesn’t drive either. I grew up in Peru, and I live in New York, where a car is a monthly expense you pay for the privilege of never finding parking. So, I never really needed one. Which makes traveling to these types of destinations more complicated. I am working on it, and yes, you have my permission to laugh at me.

Anyway. We had already booked the flights and a hotel in Tirana, so the plan became: base in Tirana and book day tours. It turned out to be the best decision of the trip, and we saw three countries in seven days because of it.

Is Albania safe?

When I told people I was visiting Albania, they looked confused and asked “why?” or brought up the Albanian mafia. My mom brought up the mafia. My mom’s friends brought up the mafia. Even though google said it was safe, I had some doubts, it is a new country after all. But I thought: We’re Peruvian, I live in New York, we know the basics, we’ll be fine.

Then, a few weeks before we left, my mom started sending me the news in the form of TikToks. There were protests all over Tirana about a luxury resort planned on a protected stretch of coast. My mom takes the news seriously, so for three weeks before the trip, she asked if we should still go, if it’d be better to cancel, and she wondered if I might be threatening her life… Hispanic moms are dramatic like that.

Once we were in Tirana, we walked past the protest three separate times. The first time, I thought it was an outdoor concert. There was music. People had brought their kids. People had brought inflatable flamingos, because the resort would sit next to a lagoon where flamingos breed, and the flamingo became the symbol of the whole thing. It was the most peaceful protest I have ever seen in my life, it looked like a block party. The U.S. could never.

So believe me when I tell you: Albania is totally safe.

Because I was unsure of what to expect and because we were landing in Tirana at midnight, I had pre-booked a driver to take us to the hotel. BUT, our flight got delayed and the driver left us. So there we were at Tirana airport at 1am deciding between the men asking you if you needed transport (sketchy) and the local Uber equivalent (Patoko). I downloaded the app Patoko. The driver spoke a bit of English and spent the whole ride telling us how safe everything was, which is either reassuring or exactly what a murderer would say, depending on how tired you are. The hotel staff said the same thing: you can walk alone at night as a woman here. We did. Nothing happened, repeatedly. We felt incredibly safe.

But what about the mafia, you might ask. Well, our tour guide gave us a theory, which I’ll pass along because I found it weirdly lovely: the mafia does its business abroad and brings the money home but never does business at home.

I also noticed how friendly and hospitable Albanians are, although for full disclosure I do live in New York, so I might not be used to kindness.

Where we stayed in Tirana

We stayed at MonarC, right in downtown Tirana, directly across from the mosque of Namazgah.

If you get a room facing it, the view is stunning. The breakfast is included and actually good, the hotel is within walking distance of everything you’ll want to see, and it’s affordable.

Now the part nobody tells you about the room with the mosque view is the call to prayer that happens five times a day. The first one is around 5am. When you are across the street from the speakers, “across the street” is a generous description of the distance between you and the sound. The first day I found it beautiful, honestly moving, one of those “we are somewhere else” moments. By day four I was lying in bed at 5:02am doing math on how many more of these I had left. If you are a light sleeper, get a room on the other side of the building or simply stay further away.

How long to stay in Tirana

Honestly, two days is enough for Tirana. It’s safe and pleasant and there’s good food and coffee, but there just aren’t many sights left standing. The city is the base, not the trip.

You’ll see everything you need to see in only two days. However, if you’re a digital nomad or traveling for longer, Tirana does have tons of coffee shops to work from and seems like a fun city to live in for a little while.

Things to do in Tirana

My first impression of Tirana was that it doesn’t look classic European. It feels modern, because it is. Between the wars, the communist decades, and everything after, most of the old buildings are just gone. It also used to be a small town until it got named the capital in 1920.

This is the part where I have to admit we knew nothing about Albanian history walking in, and it hit us hard.

Here are a few things we did in Tirana.

Bunk’Art Museums

Albania was closed off under a communist dictator so paranoid about invasion that he built roughly 170,000 concrete bunkers across a country smaller than Maryland, making it the country with the most bunkers. It is crazy when you think about. And you still see them in fields, on beaches, in the middle of nowhere.

Two of them in Tirana were turned into museums, Bunk’Art 1 on the outskirts and Bunk’Art 2 right downtown.

We did the downtown one. You walk underground through the actual bunker and read about what the country lived through, and you come out into the sunlight feeling very quiet. Go. It is the one thing in Tirana I’d call a must.

We didn’t do Bunk’Art 1 because it was a bit far, however we were told it is huge, a five-story bunker with 106 rooms. It is also near the Dajti Ekspres cable car. If you don’t want to venture on your own, you can take this tour that includes the entry ticket and transport.

Our tour guide’s family story is the one my mom still repeats. Foreign products were banned, including Coca-Cola. An uncle who was a diplomat smuggled one bottle in. There were nine siblings. So they poured it into shot glasses so everyone could have an equal sip. Albania wasn’t a free country until the early 90s. That is not a long time ago. It just makes you think about all the things we have that we might take for granted on the daily, like soda.

Skanderbeg Square

Skanderbeg Square is huge and flat and walkable, and everything you want to visit is nearby, such as the Et’hem Bej Mosque, the Tirana Castle, Bunk’Art 2.

Btw, the Tirana Caste is not a castle in the sense you’re picturing, it’s the old walls turned into an open-air strip of restaurants and little shops.

The Old Bazaar

The old bazaar is where you buy your souvenirs and fresh fruit. I collect a shot glass from every trip and this is where I got mine. Go on your last day, it’s worth it and there you’ll find the most affordable souvenirs.

Coffee culture in Albania

I drink two to three cups a day, and I absolutely love coffee. I go to bed thinking about my morning coffee.

Albanian coffee comes in a cup the size of a thimble, at least when compared to American coffee shops, which are huge, and it is the strongest thing I have ever put in my body. By day two I was jittery. By day three, my mom’s stomach had filed a formal complaint. I have done Vienna, I have done Italy, and I am telling you Albania wins the coffee competition. Also the coffee shop culture is the whole social life of the city, so you’ll be sitting in one either way.

Restaurants to eat at

Era: Modern take on traditional Albanian food. And it was the best meal of the trip for us. Dinner for two with an appetizer and a glass of wine was around $45, which in New York gets you meal for one.

Oda’s Garden: everyone will tell you to come here. And it is sort of hidden close to the old and new bazaar. It has a nice patio and the food is amazing.

Millenium Garden Lounge: this is more of a lounge or coffee shop with casual food options. The food is ok, but you’re there for the ambiance. We went here twice because it is in the middle of the tourist area, they have great coffee and music every day all day.

Order the shopska salad wherever you are in the Balkans, tomatoes, cucumbers and a snowfall of white cheese on top. We had it almost every day and I miss it. My mom said it was the freshest cucumber she has ever had.

How to get around without a car

Albania sits in the middle of everything. Montenegro is up the coast. North Macedonia is over the mountains. Greece is south. And because the country has no trains and the buses are unreliable, there’s a whole ecosystem of day tours out of Tirana that will drive you across a border, hand you to a guide, and bring you back by dinner.

We noticed people boarding the Kotor bus with suitcases. They weren’t coming back. They were using the tour as a one-way ride to Montenegro. Same thing on the way to Ohrid.

I’ll say this too, with full awareness of the irony: driving in Albania looked easy. Nobody honks, nobody swerves, the roads we were on were well maintained, and I found myself thinking that if I had a license, I could have done this myself. So, if you do have a driver’s license and are open to renting a car, I’d 100% do that. I love doing things on my own and while taking a tour has a lot of pros, you are limited on how much time you can spend in each place.

We did four day trips out of Tirana. Here they are.

Day trip 1: Kotor, Montenegro

I booked Kotor because it’s a UNESCO old town and I wanted to go to Montenegro so bad. What I did not check until after booking was the pickup time, which was 5:45am, or the drive time, which was about four hours each way. My mom took this news the way you’d expect. However, the early pickup time works because then you get back to Tirana in time for dinner and you avoid most traffic. This is the exact tour we booked: Montenegro UNESCO Kotor & St Stefan.

We had a great guide who made the long drive feel shorter. My favorite thing she told us: the Albanian flag used to be yellow and black. Yellow during peace, red during war. So much war happened that at some point they just left it red. If that’s not a country summarizing itself, I don’t know what is.

Kotor is a walled medieval town located between mountains and a bay so still it looks like a lake. It’s tiny, very old, and feels like a fortress.

We had about three hours of free time, which was enough to walk the whole old town, wander the little market, grab food and look through the shops.

There was an optional boat ride on the bay that I really wanted to do. My mom is terrified of boats for reasons no one has been able to identify, so we didn’t do the boat ride. The water looked so beautiful though.

Montenegro was so worth it, and I wish I’d stayed a night or a whole week. Montenegro deserves more than three hours, and if I did this trip again I’d use the tour as a one-way and sleep in Kotor or I’d stay in Budva, which is a bigger city you’ll pass through before making it to Kotor.

Day trip 2: Berat, Albania

Berat is the one everyone tells you to see. “The city of a thousand windows,” one of the oldest towns in Albania, white Ottoman houses stacked up a hill. It’s about an hour and a half from Tirana, so it’s an easy day.

This is the tour we booked, it was around $30 per person: Berat and Belshi Lake tour.

The tour first takes you to Berat Castle, and then drops you off in the city of Berat for lunch and free time. The castle was beautiful; there are people still living there, and it is very picturesque.

But I have to be honest with you, because otherwise what are we doing here: Berat was underwhelming.

It looks exactly like the photos and there’s not much beyond the photos. You walk up, you look at the windows, you look down at the river, you’re done. Also, the Belshi Lake is a nice lake, but nothing too special and it is simply a coffee stop on the drive to the castel.

You might want to exchange a few euros and bring cash for small purchases. It is a small city so most small shops didn’t accept cards.

My mom wasn’t feeling great that day so we mostly ate, and even so it didn’t feel like we’d missed much. I met an English guy on the tour who had walked the whole thing and came back with the same face I had.

The food was the highlight. I had baklava and traditional meatballs in tomato sauce, and I discovered that in Albania in summer you will be eating watermelon at every single meal whether you ordered it or not. Our guide told us Albania grows a huge share of the watermelon that ends up across Europe. Best watermelon of my life.

If you love nature and want to hike or spend a slow night in the hills, I could see staying a night in Berat. If you’re short on time, this is the day trip to cut. Give the day to Kotor or Ohrid instead.

Day trip 3: Ohrid, North Macedonia

If you only do one day trip from Tirana, it’s this one.

I knew nothing going in. I saw one photo of the lake, it looked beautiful and that was all I needed to book it. And then we got there and I immediately started looking at Airbnb prices on my phone. The water in Lake Ohrid is so clear you can see the bottom from the hill, the old town is gorgeous, and it is an up and coming destination so there are no crowds yet.

It felt like an if-you-know-you-know place, and now you know.

This is the tour we booked: Ohrid & St Naum. It was an early wake-up time and long drive, but not as bad as going to Montenegro. You get a guide telling you about Albania’s history on the drive there, and a local guide telling you about North Macedonia’s history. We made a pit stop at St Naum on the way back and it was gorgeous.

Ohrid is famous for its churches. There are 365 of them, one for every day of the year, so you can basically sin on Monday, go to church, the priest absolves you from your sins, you sin again Tuesday and there’s a fresh church and a fresh priest who hasn’t heard about your past sins.

We didn’t get inside a single one, unfortunately. There was a wedding, then another one was closed, then another had an event. So we walked. Up and down, because the town is all hills, past the old houses and along the lake, and it was one of the best walks I’ve had anywhere.

I wanted to get on a boat. I wanted to paddleboard. I wanted to do every water activity offered to me and I wanted to physically be in that lake. One day was not enough. Give it two, three, four. Rent a place on the water. The Airbnbs are surprisingly cheap and I am mildly obsessed with the idea of coming back for a full week and doing nothing but swimming and eating shopska salad. Which, yes, we had for lunch. With a sandwich. It was perfect.

Day trip 4: Durrës, Albania

Our last full day, we wanted the sea. Durrës is about 40 minutes from Tirana, it was briefly the capital a century ago, and it’s one of the oldest cities in the country, with a Roman amphitheater sitting right in the middle of the town.

You don’t really need a tour for this one. A taxi is around $30 to $40 each way and you can just go. We took the day tour anyway because it included a walking tour of the ancient sites before the free time, and because by day six I had stopped making decisions. We saw the amphitheater, learned the history, and then had three or four hours at the beach. We booked this tour, it was around $20 per person: Durres, Venetian Tower, and Golem Beach Day.

And the Adriatic. omg. Barely any waves, water so clear and calm it felt like a sand bath. My family doesn’t do resorts, that’s never been our idea of a vacation, but a proper beach afternoon at the end of a week of early pickups was the beach day of my dreams. You can see how happy I was in the photos.

If you’d rather be based at the beach than in a city, you can stay in Durrës and do every single day trip we did. All of the tours pick up there too, you’ll just wake up earlier. It’s quieter than Tirana, only a few blocks of restaurants along the water, more of a chill town than a lively one. For some people that’s the whole point.

Other day trips

We didn’t do these, so I can’t review, but these are solid options too:

Bovilla Lake and Gamti Mountain: Our tour guide’s top recommendation, a hike up to a viewpoint over a turquoise reservoir about an hour from Tirana. My mom is not a nature person. When the guide suggested it, she made a face and looked at me with an expression that said there was absolutely no way. If you hike, this is apparently the one.

The Albanian Riviera (Ksamil, Sarandë, Blue Eye): This is the part of Albania going viral on your feed, and yes, there’s a day tour. I asked our guide and she talked me out of it. It’s about five hours each way, so you’d spend ten hours in a bus for a few hours of beach. Her advice, which I’m passing on: don’t day trip it, go stay there for a couple of days. We loved the beach but it wasn’t a must for us, so we skipped it. Next time.

Kosovo: An easy way to add another country to the trip. By the time we had to choose, it was Kosovo or the beach, and after a week of old towns and early pickups we chose the beach. No regrets, but if you’re the type who collects countries, it’s right there.

Everything you need to know about Tirana

I promised you the logistics too, so here they are.

Money: Albania is cheap. Hotels under $100, dinner for two at a nice restaurant around $45, coffee about a dollar. Everyone says bring euros to exchange for lek. We never exchanged a single euro. Card worked everywhere, including corner stores, including on the day trips. Obviously, little shops didn’t accept cards, but we never found ourselves in a pickle needing cash; there was always another option. Twice we couldn’t buy a bottle of water. That was the extent of the crisis. If you’re going to small towns or the Riviera and want to buy tiny souvenirs, carry a little cash. Otherwise, tap and go.

Phone: I have the AT&T plan that lets me use my phone abroad like I’m at home, so I never needed an eSIM. If you do, everyone I know uses Airalo and loves it. I can’t vouch personally, but I’ve never heard a complaint.

Getting around Tirana: Walk. Everything radiates out from Skanderbeg Square and everything we wanted was within twenty minutes on foot. Taxis are cheap too.

Taxi app: There’s no Uber or Bolt in Albania, so we used Patoko, which is their local alternative, and it was perfect. For the return to the airport, we simply asked the hotel to call us a taxi and it was about $15.

The airport: Honestly, don’t bother pre-booking a driver, I had a bad experience with Welcome Pickups because the driver left us stranded, so just download Patoko or coordinate pickup through your hotel.

The day trips: Honestly, there’s no need to book anything too far in advance, Albania isn’t over-saturated like other destinations so you can relax a bit. We booked some of the tours a week in advance or even a day prior. And remember they’ll pick up in Durrës too.

Shopping: My mom and I had just shopped Madrid into the ground and we came in hopeful. There are malls, the brands are the same brands you have at home, the prices are higher than at home, and there isn’t much of a local boutique scene. Save your money for the day trips and the food.

How I’d lay out the week: Day 1 land and rest. Day 2 Kotor. Day 3 free in Tirana. Day 4 Berat, or skip it and take a second free day. Day 5 Ohrid. Day 6 Durrës. Day 7 leave. Two rest days in the middle of four early mornings is the reason we came home rested instead of wrecked.

Every place in this post, plus the restaurants and day trip stops, is pinned on my Google Maps list with notes. Drop your email and it’s yours.

A note for solo female travelers

Albania is safe. I’ll keep saying it. But something happened that I want to tell you about anyway.

I posted one Instagram story from Durrës, a little collage of me and the beach, with the location tagged. Within the hour I had three DMs from three different men asking if I lived in Durrës, whether I was traveling, and how long I was staying.

It didn’t go anywhere and I’m fine, but it was a good reminder that the safety of a country and the safety of the internet are two different things. Post the location after you’ve left. Be aware of who’s around you. Watch your drink. Normal rules, every country, including the safe ones.

How I stay healthy through all the traveling

I get asked all the time how I travel for weeks even months, without ever getting sick. And I do tons of things in the name of health, especially after a cancer diagnosis a few years ago. But the most important things are: rest, movement, nourishing food. In Albania, we walked everywhere, the food was fresh and nourishing, and sleep was prioritized. Travel is part of a healthy life, not a break from it. If you want the routine I keep on the road, I wrote an entire article with tips on how to never get sick on a trip again.

Albania was such an amazing trip! We came home with a lot of gratitude and a very specific awareness of how much we take for granted, including, apparently, soda.

Go before everyone else does. Base yourself in Tirana, let the tour buses be your car, and don’t build your week around Berat.

The next morning we flew to Sofia, Bulgaria, because it is the one city in the world with my name on it and I was not going to be within a two-hour flight and skip it. That’s its own post. If you want it in your inbox when it’s ready, along with the things I don’t post anywhere else, drop your email below. Think of it as the coffee continuing.