Albania

We took a bus from Kotor, Montenegro to Tirana, Albania. The journey was about 6 hours (including rest stops and the border crossings).

They did things a little differently compared to our previous border crossings by bus. At the first stop, the bus driver collected everyone's passport and he gave them to the officials. Then he gave the passports back to us. We moved to the next stop and we all got off the bus to individually present to the agents.

We try to look at other travelers' social media posts and website posts for travel tips. One thing we read before we arrived in Albania was to beware of taxis (there is no Uber or Bolt in Albania at this time). People have mentioned that taxi drivers may overcharge you. The first taxi driver we saw, we asked if they could tell us a price to get us to our address. He said he could not tell us what the meter would read until we arrived. So we didn't go with him and decided to use the app "Speed Taxi Albania" to request a taxi. This app works like Uber and Bolt except they only accept cash (but you know what your fare will be before getting in). It looks like they are working on card payment but at the time we used it (May 2026), it was cash only - they did accept Euros. And since we'd just arrived, we did not yet have Albanian lek yet, this was another benefit. Of course, there are ATM machines at the bus station if needed. We did see some other taxi companies could be reached via WhatsApp, but we stuck with Speed Taxi Albania for the other rides we needed while in Albania and had only good experiences and what seemed like very fair prices.

Speaking of Albania lek: You will need to get cash in Albania. Many places do not accept card payment. As I mentioned, some may accept Euros but you definitely cannot count on that.

We only had 2 nights in Tirana and I was feeling under the weather in Tirana so I didn't leave the room but what I saw was a lively city definitely worth visiting!

From Tirana we took a bus to Saranda. This was tough, I will say. We arrived at the bus station which is really more of a parking lot full of buses and individual ticket stands. We had pre-booked a bus scheduled to leave at 10:00 AM. When we arrived, there were only a few others on the bus so they waited until they could round up more passengers. It took almost an hour to fill up the bus. You don't need to wait on the bus but there is no station, so your options are limited. Fortunately for us, it was early May so not too hot inside the bus. The last hour or so of the drive is winding mountain roads near the coast - absolutely stunning views and we saw a few small beach towns that we might want to consider in the future.

Saranda was amazing. I am so glad we stayed for a full week. There were a lot of food options and modestly priced. Sometimes we try to save money by avoiding too many dinners out, but no need for that here. Our apartment was located next to a public beach but we asked one of the resorts if we could pay to use their beach access (umbrella and loungers). They said we were welcome to use theirs as long as we were purchasing food/drink! We loved this and spent a few days doing this!

We didn't think we needed another small boat tour as we'd just done one in Dubrovnik, but this was also priced so low (less than $25 U.S. each - not including tip), we had to! We did not regret this - gorgeous caves and rock formations and then a couple of hours at a beach that can only be reached by boat.

We truly hope to visit Saranda again in the future. However, instead of going by bus, we would go to Corfu, Greece first and take the ferry (less than 1 hour).

If someone tells you Albania is Europe’s best kept secret destination, this may be very well be true!!