15 Things you need to know before you travel to Albania
People are friendly and it’s generally safe.
Not going to lie to you here before we started on our backpacking adventure, when planning out the route, Albania was the scariest place on our list of countries.
Why did it have that reputation? Well the fact it was a communist country only until 1991, it didn’t scream ice cream and rainbows. On top of this, people slightly older than me can remember hearing about the communist era and even warning us to “be safe” in Albania.
When we arrived I held my camera tighter than ever, the fact I might of left fingerprint marks on the handle.
As soon as I relaxed and took in Albania for myself, I noticed they are the most trusting people I’ve seen. And if they can trust each other. So could we.
We went out at night, we felt safe. There weren’t drunk people running around. Like in many holiday beachfront or city centres
But the reason why is below
Beer is cheaper than soft drinks.
Can you imagine this in the UK? It would be like “Do you want a can of Coke? Nah get me a beer it’s cheaper”
In Albania beer or alcohol wasn’t sold for the locals, we assume not as I didn’t see any locals drinking alcohol. With around 60-80% of Albanians saying they are Muslim this would be one of the reasons.
You might think with no one drinking alcohol there would be very few places to buy alcohol and bars. Well, nearly every supermarket or snack kiosk sold beers next to soft drinks. When it comes to bars they were full because… see below
Bars are Coffee shops too
Bar-Kafe
Up until 8 pm maybe later, you will see no one in any bar drinking anything other than coffee. It was very strange going into the rock bar in Sanranda at 7 pm for an alcoholic drink and everyone around us was drinking a coffee of some kind.
You might think it would be a handful of people doing this but it was full. We struggled to get a table.
The place got quieter after 8 pm, there seemed to be only tourists drinking at this point.
Albanians don’t drink coffee fast. The usual order is an espresso of some sort and a bottle of water. They can make this last hours. It’s not a social drink more of a sit there and take in the world.
Their English is better than you would think
Before you go swearing at any Albanian just know they will probably be able to understand you.
A lot of Albanians especially in Tirana and Saranda have very good English and would be able to hold a good conversation with you.
This is handy as just an English speaker, I didn’t have to take pictures of things to explain or order food like in some parts of Bulgaria.
Buses are the easiest way of travelling from place to place
Want to get a train around Albania? Think again. They were mainly taken away after the end of the communist era.
The best (only logical way) is to travel the country using the buses, coaches and minibuses they have around the country.
The main problem with the bus system in Albania is you don’t know which kind of bus you will be on.
- The standard bus would take you across towns and short journeys.
- Minibuses are used to travel around the country
- Coaches for getting out of the country
Most journeys you need don’t book in advance and just show up and get tickets. You can read all our journey to Tirana from Saranda here
How To Get From Sarandë To Tirana Using Public Transport
All I’m saying is coaches are spacious and comfortable, just minibuses get you there.
The cities are very touristy.
What do you think was busier, the city of Tirana or the country of Iceland?
Well after going on two tours they both quote a similar number of tourists currently at 4 million the difference is that Tirana is planning to get 10 million this year and Iceland is looking at hitting that number in 10 years.
Even if Tirana doesn’t hit 10 million, it’s expecting a massive amount of tourists. It’s building new hotels in the city and is an up-and-coming place to travel to.
If you planning on seeing Tirana do it soon, before it gets too expensive.
Other places have a lot of touristy areas too, with bars and shops. They even have a hotel complex, I was shocked to see it as a massive tourist destination.
The capital can be cheaper than the Sanrandë
I’m not saying everything is cheaper in Tirana than in Sanrandë but with the fact, there is a lot more competition in Tirana there is more choice with makes it cheaper.
Accommodation isn’t cheaper but there is a better range of hostels.
Food and drink are cheaper in some places, I found that coffee and gyros (pitta) is cheaper in the city.
How much do things cost in Albania?
Things are cheaper in Albania no doubt. The coffee you can get for as little as 100lek or 1 Euro.
But like everything the touristy places are where it gets expensive, want to go on a cable car, then you’re going to have to pay. Oh, this beachside resort looks nice. You better be ready to pay.
If you want to get the cheap side of Albania pretend you’re a local. Light meals or takeaways are well priced, Coffees are well priced and supermarkets are brilliant.
Sit-down meals at restaurants you won’t see many locals, and worldwide brands are going to cost you the same as they are back home. I’m talking about stuff like Coca-Cola to Lush shops.
LeK and euros are used.
Got Euros, that’s great you can spend them here. Don’t have either you can go to a cash point and withdraw Lek or Euro (some cash points)
But for some advice, try and buy stuff In Lek (ALL) it is normally cheaper by around 10%. They convert Lek to Euros to around 100lek =1 euro at the time of writing you can get 113lek to one euro.
Cash points charge you to withdraw
Don’t want to be charged to withdraw money in Albania? Then there is one place that is very known in Albania for not charging travellers to withdraw money. Credins bank
All the other banks will try and charge you from 300 leks to 700 leks to withdraw money. That is expensive! Stick to Credins Bank…unless you are Spanish apparently, they don’t like Spanish bank accounts, as they still charge them.
Everything is very much cash.
Cash is king in Albania, you need it to do everything. As soon as you arrive you should head to a Credins bank and get out some cash.
You might find your hotel is payable in cash on arrival, and all coffee shops and bars are cash only. You might find an odd supermarket that lets you pay by card. But it is very rare.
Opening hours are weird.
Want a haircut at 9 pm, ok? Want one at 9 am you might struggle. It’s not like things don’t open in the morning but the fact a lot of places don’t have a set time of opening and closing. This is worst outside the capital.
We went for a couple of drinks in Sarandë at 7 pm and when left at 9 pm we found a barbershop giving a child a haircut.
What I’m trying to say is it is very relaxed and they work when they feel like it. And some shops just don’t open out of season.
Online booking is very rare.
Want to go online and book a bus… Good luck. Even find out some information about the bus… good luck. The best thing the Internet is used for is to find out where to go to buy tickets or find out times.
Things on the Internet are a lot the time out of date. Even if you find you can book online be careful as a lot of the companies don’t use their online bookings which can lead to overbooking.
The one time we used the Internet was to book a coach to Montenegro (the one I’m on now). But we asked the person in charge of the bus terminal and he said we can do that, but make sure we turned up 10 mins before it left… looking back at this now it wasn’t to be punctual but more he would have sold our seats as they have no record of our tickets until we showed the driver we have already paid and don’t need to buy more tickets
It can get extremely hot
Albania can hit highs of over 45 degrees, there isn’t aircon everywhere, fans not air con…
All religion is celebrated (holidays)
Albania is one country that has peace between all regions which we were told on the free walking tour in Tirana.
One of the ways they do this is, all the main religions worshipped in Albania get holidays for all of them
So make sure you do your research before travelling to the area. As some places might not be open due to a religious holiday.
Thank you for reading
If you liked this article, you might want to know What is the easiest way to cross the border into Albania From Greece (or Vice Versa)then check this out.
I’ll See you Soon!