Most of Albania is a day trip from Tirana.
Which of the two Blue Eyes a tour actually drives to. Whether the Koman ferry is worth the four in the morning start. What a Sazan speedboat seat costs in August. Reviewed, priced and ranked.
By base — the town you sleep in
Tirana503 tours
Saranda148 tours
Vlora129 tours
Shkodra44 tours
Durres42 tours
Gjirokastra29 tours
Permet18 tours
Kruja16 tours
Berat11 tours- Every departure town →
By day — what kind of day is it?
The days people come to Albania for.
A spring nobody has found the bottom of, water off Ksamil you can wade into, Berat stacked in white tiers above the Osum, Kruja’s bazaar under its castle, the ridge above Bovilla and the car ferry through the Koman gorge.
Three days in Tirana, and everything is reachable.
All Tirana departures →
Half the country is bookable as a day out of the capital, which is why choosing is the hard part. Below, the busiest departure of each kind; the full list splits the rest by how far you are willing to drive.
Bovilla Lake and the Gamti ridge
A dirt road up to the reservoir, an hour of scrambling along the ridge line, and the whole green lake bending away underneath. Back in the city for a late lunch.
Berat, the castle and the white hillside
Ottoman houses stacked in tiers above the Osum, a castle quarter people still live inside, and on most itineraries a Belsh lake stop on the drive back.
The Koman ferry and the Shala river
A car ferry up a flooded gorge with no road on either side, then a small boat to a river cold enough to stop conversation. The start time is the price of admission.
What a day out in Albania actually costs.
Every priced tour on the site, grouped by what you hand over. The cheap end is not the thin end here — some of the best days are the ones under forty dollars.
Tirana on foot, the Dajti cable car, castle entries, raki and wine tastings, and the half-day hikes above the city.
The standard day out: Berat, Kruja, Gjirokastra, a Ksamil run, a seat on a Sazan speedboat, an afternoon of rafting.
Private drivers, chartered boats, the small-group Koman days and the two- and three-day loops into the northern valleys.
Berat and Gjirokastra are listed for the same reason and look nothing alike.
Berat stacks whitewashed Ottoman houses in tiers above the Osum and families still live inside the castle walls. Gjirokastra is grey slate and lanes steep enough to hurt, under a fortress the size of a village. Most tours take one. The long ones take both.
All 72 Berat day trips →
What everybody else in Albania is booking.
Every review →The busiest booking of each kind of day out, in order, and what each one actually delivers once you are in the van.
1
Bovilla Lake & Gamti Mountain Hiking Day Trip
Guided Bovilla Lake and Gamti Mountain hike from Tirana with panoramic views, photo stops, and round-trip transfers for about $12.
From · $12
Read our review →
2
Kruja Castle, Old Bazaar & Sari Salltik View
from $23
3
Sazan Island, Haxhi Ali Cave, and Karaburun Boat Tour
from $35
4
Saranda, Ksamil, Blue Eye Day Trip
from $57
5
Komani Lake and Shala River Day Trip
from $60
6
2 Hour Guided Hidden Treasures Sightseeing Tour
from $15
7
Lekursi Castle, Blue Eye, Gjirokaster, & More Tour
from $47
8
Haxhi Ali Cave, Karaburun Speedboat Tour & Snorkeling
from $352
Three days you cannot have anywhere else.
Beaches and Ottoman old towns run the length of this coastline. The drowned valley, the two springs and the canyon behind Berat are Albania’s alone.
The Koman Crossing
The Drin was dammed in the 1970s and the valley behind it filled, taking the road with it. What replaced the road is a car ferry that still runs as public transport for villages with no other way out, so the deck carries building materials and shopping alongside the day trippers. Three hours between walls with nothing on either side, then a small boat up the Shala to water the colour of bottle glass.
- 1Komani Lake and Shala River Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,520 reviews
- 2Shala River and Koman Lake Boat Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 409 reviews
- 3Shala river & Komani lake -Day trip departure from Tirana/Shkodra★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 309 reviews
The Blue Eyes
Syri i Kalter near Muzine is the famous one: a karst spring pushing up through a dark blue pupil that divers have not reached the bottom of, sold with Saranda and Gjirokastra on the same ticket. The second sits above Theth in the north, smaller, colder and reached on foot. Both are called the Blue Eye and both are on this site, so read which one a tour means before you pay.
- 1Saranda, Ksamil, Blue Eye Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,584 reviews
- 2Lekursi Castle, Blue Eye, Gjirokaster, & More Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 884 reviews
- 3Blue Eye Spring and Lekursi Castle Sunset Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 798 reviews
The Osum Canyon
Twenty-odd kilometres of limestone gorge behind Berat, in places narrow enough to touch both walls and eighty metres deep. Rafts run it while the snowmelt lasts, roughly April into early June, and by August the same riverbed is a walk between pools. Booking the water means booking the calendar, not the tour.
- 1Çorovoda: Osumi Canyon Rafting/River Tubing Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 438 reviews
- 2Berat Tour Osumi Canyons Exploration Lunch Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 212 reviews
- 3Osumi Canyons and Bogova Waterfall from Berat – Tour by 1001 Albanian Adventures★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 177 reviews
Theth and Valbona are a walk apart, not a drive.
The pass between the two valleys takes six to eight hours on foot and there is no road over it; the alternative is most of the length of the country by car. So the tours build loops instead, usually with the Koman ferry doing one leg and a night in a village guesthouse. Snow closes the pass from roughly November to May.
- 1Day Tour to Theth and Blue Eyefrom $50
- 2Albanian Alps and Theth Village Day Tourfrom $50
- 3Theth & Blue Eye Tour (Smll Grp)from $57
Albania has a short season and a long, better shoulder.
July and August fill the coast, and the Ksamil boats and the prices on this page both climb. May, June and September are the honest months: the sea is warm enough, the rivers still have snowmelt in them and the mountain passes are open. Winter belongs to Tirana, the thermal water at Benja, and long lunches.
What the bunkers in Tirana are, and what they are not.
Albania was a closed one-party state from 1944 until 1991, with sealed borders, internment camps and a secret police force, the Sigurimi, that kept files on the population. Two of the command bunkers built for the leadership in Tirana are now museums, Bunk’Art 1 out under Dajti and Bunk’Art 2 beside the ministries. The House of Leaves, a few streets from Skanderbeg Square, was the Sigurimi’s surveillance headquarters and now documents the equipment, the files and the people they were used against. The tours below go there as history.
All Communist History tours →
Tirana’s Communist Past; Small Group Walking Tour
Read our review →
The loop most first visits to Albania end up doing.
BeratThe newest Albania tour reviews.
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Private Day Tour of Saranda Gjirokaster,Butrint from Tirana
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Vlore Speedboat Tour to Haxhi Ali Cave Karaburun Beach
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Mavrovi Anovi: Guided Full-Day Hike to Golem Korab Peak
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Rafting And Swimming Adventure on the Black Drin River
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Private Transfer: Tirana Airport&City to/from Dhërmi
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From: Tirana and Shkoder: Theth & Blue Eye Full Day Tour.
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Private Tour. Berat UNESCO City, Optional Wine Tasting. Car & Driver included
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