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Trip Albania to Slovenia??

I have back burner trips that I like to ruminate on. I have done little research beyond playing with google maps.

So lately, I've been thinking, I'd love to do a trip from Albania to Slovenia. We'd probably take a month, spring or fall. It doesn't look like Albania is well connected to Montenegro by public transportation. Car rental would be ideal, though fairly positive going from Albania to Slovenia would incur quite a drop fee, if its even possible. This future trip could be 2-4 years off.

Plitvice, Mostar are a must, we've been to Kotor, Split and Dubrovnik, no need to repeat. I'm thinking we'd spend the most time in Croatia and Slovenia, but, I must go to Mostar. I don't know a lot about Albania but I have been hearing it is lovely.

Not looking for an itinerary, just a very rough sketch of how a trip like this could look. I do have an idea that at some point, I'd like to go back to Greece for just a short time and see a couple of smaller, picturesque islands. Does it make sense to do a trip to Albania/Greece on a separate trip, and then have this trip be Mostar to Slovenia?

I don't expect you all to do a lot of work on this for me, but if this kind of thing is fun for you, please "have at it".

Posted by
5974 posts

Also to ponder--for the Greece part, which islands? If it's Ionian, then pairing Greece and Albania might make sense. Otherwise, I think I'd pair it with the northern countries, but of course it will depend on your ultimate wish list.
If the prospect of one rental is too much of a pain, it should be not too onerous to drop off within country and use bus to get over the border, then rent another one when needed.
Choose time of year carefully based on your interests. For example I love the sea and hiking to beaches, so I'd want to be in Croatia at either early fall or late spring, avoiding the crush of summer, when I'd rather be in cities or mountains. Or think seasonal treats like truffle season in Istria. You know all this, just how I'd frame it--good luck!

Posted by
4940 posts

If you can fly from Athens to Tirana Albania, then definitely combine the two. Maybe fly to Tirana Albania from Athens, rent a car, drive from Montenegro back to Albania and fly back to Athens for your flight back to US. Alternatively, fly from Tirana to Vienna on Austrian Airlines and also spend some time in Vienna.

Posted by
23233 posts

I have done Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) in parts and pieces and on several occasions. Slovenia just hasn't lit my fire yet, but Albania, Montenegro, and BiH are among my favorite places.

From your lists of interests, i can say you have just scratched the surface. So, there is so much more to see and experience.

But right now, I am sitting in a wine bar in Budapest, so I will finish this when I get home ...live about 200m from here.

Posted by
7298 posts

@valadelphia, I've not been to Santorini, not sure I want to go, is there an island(s) like Santorini that is not overrun by people?

@Mr. E, yes, only the surface. There are so many, many places I've been and so many, many more to go!

@Cala, I've been to Vienna, twice. I could go again, but there are many places I haven't been!

Posted by
5974 posts

@valadelphia, I've not been to Santorini, not sure I want to go, is
there an island(s) like Santorini that is not overrun by people?

I did not visit any Greek islands (just the mainland), but it;s been drilled in that the transport is very island-group specific, and can often require a lot of back and forth to Athens so it may make a difference in the overall plan. Check out the Greece forum where there are a few regulars who give excellent advice. They tend to not be pro-Santorini. I figure when there are so many alternatives, why compete? But it does take more time to both figure out and enact the transport.

Posted by
407 posts

The countries are not well covered by trains. We used buses for all travel in and between these countries. Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, was a surprisingly good city to visit.

Posted by
7298 posts

Mr. E, I think you understand my point, but, just to be clear, I wasn't saying that I've been to Kotor so I don't need to go to other places in Montenegro, the opposite, I want to go to places in Montenegro other than Kotor (which I did like)

Posted by
7298 posts

Racquet, did you do a trip report? or would you mind sharing your rough itinerary?

Posted by
478 posts

Depending where in Greece you plan to visit, there is a ferry from Corfu to Sarande that I originally looked into when planning my trip last year when Albania was going to be the focus. Plans changed and I did not use this option, but I believe it is less than a two hour ferry ride.

enter link description here

Posted by
23233 posts

jules m, we're good. A lot are not as prlerceptive as you. Montenegro is my favorite destination, after Budapest and Ukraine.

But the whole region, except Croatia, being new to tourism, i think is best done with help. Hidden gems are indeed hidden unless you know someone. I've done 5 trips that have included one or more of the countries mentioned, and I still hire help. There is another recent post describing the pitfalls of public transportation in BiH, with what a private transfer costs, why is an RS lncome person losing half days with bus fiascos?

Posted by
1662 posts

Driving in Albania is fairly straightforward - in 2021, we rented from Sixt starting in Tirana and ending in Saranda and stopped in Berat, Appolonia, Gjirokaster, the Blue Eye, Ksamil and Butrint. Then took the short ferry mentioned above to Corfu (< 1 hour ride).

The reason for this routing was that there were more flight options, for me returning home, from Corfu than Tirana and avoided backtracking. Albania has a lot to offer including nice beaches around Ksamil.

Posted by
102 posts

I haven't been to Albania or Greece, so can't comment on those. Unless things have changed, renting a car in Albania and dropping it in another country would be crazy expensive. You could fly from Albania or Greece to Split or Dubrovnik,rent a car at the airport and drive to Mostar. Mostar is lovely for a few nights. Then drive to Plitvice and wherever else in Croatia and Slovenia. Two years ago, rented a car in Dubrovnik and dropped it off in Zagreb 3 weeks later. The drop-off fee was only $50. Make sure you get a vignette for driving in Slovenia.

Posted by
5441 posts

Hi, jules, I am going to drop my trip reports from 2023 in here. I chose to pair Albania and northern Greece, but I had already been to Athens and islands.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/albania-a-lovely-adventure
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/3-weeks-in-northern-greece

I had some logistics to overcome, as you will. But it all worked out. There’s lots of Albania I didn’t see and I am contemplating a return.

Posted by
29200 posts

I'm having Wi-Fi issues, so I'll post part of this response and then add to it.

I traveled through Albania last year for several weeks without a planned itinerary because I was unsure of how many days I'd want to spend at each destination and how the transportation connections would play out. I will not drive in Europe, but I believe car rental is relatively inexpensive in Albania, and the public transportation situation is really challenging (understatment), so I recommend traveling by rental car to the maximum degree possible. I didn't examine the roads with an eye to driving conditions, but I don't recall problems with road surfaces or traffic congestion between cities. (Driving in Tirana is probably not fun, though).

These are the facts as I observed them:

  • Albania has train tracks but no actual trains.

  • There are buses, and fares are cheap. But:

  • The bus situation was reminiscent of 1990s Morocco--a mishmash of vehicles recognizable as inter-city buses (coaches to the UK folks), minivans running on reasonably fixed schedules and minivans that seemed to depart on the whim of the driver.

  • There are no bus stations, just parking lots full of vehicles. I can't remember whether I ever saw schedules posted at those bus lots--maybe once or twice. The folks at the bus lots were good about pointing clueless foreigners to the correct vehicle, but--probably due to language issues--there's the risk of critical details being overlooked. For example, one bus didn't depart from the specified town but from a highway junction a few miles away. Making the connection required inserting a taxi ride between the two bus trips, and the fare seemed unreasonably high. I dug in my heels and ultimately was able to share a taxi with an Albanian couple.

  • There's no website with even semi-comprehensive schedule information, and such information as is provided may be speculative (no, that bus doesn't start running until next week).

  • Online information usually doesn't specify the location of the bus "station". This is primarily an issue in Tirana, which has several bus lots, each one theoretically serving specific destinations. Departure points are sometimes shifted, and the (incomplete) info found online may be incorrect. (No, buses to City X don't depart from the reported lot, which is a short walk from the hotel you selected due to its proximity to said lot.)

  • Buses tend to fan out from Tirana (partly due to mountainous terrain; there may be a direct road, but neither buses nor taxis may be willing to use it), so the visitor may pass through that city multiple times with the bus transfers involving hops between bus lots. Taxi fares between the various bus lots exceeded US $20, which is rather a lot of money in Albania.

Traveling by rental car would avoid lots of the problems outlined above, but the circuitous routes between major tourist destinations (such as from Berat to Gjirokaster) will be an issue until roads are improved. It's essential to compare suggested routings from Google Maps ajd ViaMichelin to what can be seen on printed and online maps. I think I read that printed maps are often not up to date; I'd suspect the same may be true of online maps. Inquiring locally would be very smart.

Pre-arranged, hired drivers might well be affordable. I just grabbed taxis off the street when there was no practical bus, and I probably paid quite a premium as a foreigner. For folks with fixed itineraries who don't want to drive everywhere, pre-arranged drivers could well be affordable. However, in my experience, spur-of-the-moment taxi transfers can be arranged. Not much communication is required, and the driver is likely to have some key English words in his vocabulary. Albanian is not a Germanic, Romance or Slavic language, so I had to depend on the limited linguistic skills of the drivers. (Hotel and restaurant staff are likely to have more English or Italian.)

Posted by
7298 posts

Wow, Ann, you have a lot of patience!

I wonder if a car could be rented in Albania and used also in Montenegro and Bos/H and then returned in Albania

Posted by
29200 posts

Possibly. Sounds like a question for AutoEurope. If no joy there, I'd ask on TripAdvisor. Albania is becoming very popular, especially with the sunshine-and-beaches crowd. Those aren't my interests, so I only passed briefly through the tourist enclaves on the coast. Still, I encountered foreign visitors (I think primarily English, Dutch and German) at some of the tourist spots. They weren't traveling in tour-group packs, so I assume some of them were driving.

Other Albanian quirks:

  • Albania is in many respects still a cash economy. I don't think any of my taxi drivers took credit cards. B&B sorts of places sometimes wanted cash, as did some restaurants, especially outside Tirana.

  • The dependence on cash is unfortunate, given the high fees charged at most (all?) ATMs. I once checked on the fee for a withdrawal of about $300. It was 3.5%. For about $100 the fee was 6.5% - 7%. There are money-changing booths that charge as little as 1% for converting euro currency. The fee for dollars is likely to be a bit more, but at the best places it will be a much better deal than an ATM (unless things have changed in the last year). I'd go to Trip Advisor for the latest scoop.

At the time of my trip the lek was valued at almost exactly 100 to the euro. It has gained a bit in the meantime and is now about 98 to the euro. In spring 2024 it wasn't uncommon for restaurants to accept euro notes at 1 per 100 lek. A pizza-by-the-slice place had its slices priced at 1 euro or 100 lek. I don't know whether that still happens (at the current exchange rate) now that a calculation is involved.

But whether you find providers who accept euro currency outright or utilize exchange booths, there's the issue of protecting the extra cash until you've used it all. There's a limit to how much cash I'm willing to carry around in order to avoid painful ATM fees. In the end, I mainly needed cash for all those taxis. Other expenditures mostly could be covered by credit card or were small. I don't know whether a Wise or Revolut account would be useful.

My usual pattern when designing an itinerary is to research the heck out of local attractions and conservatively estimate the time required in the major cities. Then I end up adding one or more days midway through my stay. (This is why I can't set out with a locked-down itinerary.) Tirana was the first major-city destination to which I initially allotted too much time (6 nights). It's a worthwhile stop--it's interesting in a quirky way. But there were two problems: it wasn't until I was on the ground in Albania that I realized I'd have to pass through Tirana more than once because of the terrain issues and bus schedules, and it turned out three of the country's very top museums were closed. Check on the status of the National Historical Museum, the National Gallery and the National Archaeological Museum before deciding how much time you'll want to spend in Tirana. The Archaeological Museum is in Durres, an easy side trip from Tirana, and its closure made the day trip to that city not worth the time for me since I wasn't interested in beaches.

Something else to know is that Albania reportedly has a lot of magnificent Roman mosaics, but it hasn't had the money (seemingly) to build protective covers for them, so the're mostly under layers of sand and thus invisible. I was glad I at least knew about that before my trip.

If time permits, I recommend adding Ohrid to your itinerary. It's in (North) Macedonia but not far from the Albanian border.

You should easily be able to get a taxi or some other private transportation over the Albania/Montenegro border from Shkoder to either UIcinj (more interesting) or Podgorica (probably with more rental-car options). There's a bus to one or both of the Montenegrin cities if you want to have a typical Albanian experience.

Posted by
5441 posts

I wonder if a car could be rented in Albania and used also in Montenegro and Bos/H and then returned in Albania

I don’t know specifically about Montenegro and Bosnia, but in April, my daughter and a friend rented in Tirana, driving to North Macedonia and Kosovo before returning the car back in Tirana. So probably possible.