TIRANA, May 14 – With the 2018 season already underway, British and Canadian media have recommended Albania as an up-and-coming and budget summer destination that has much to offer and discover after shrugging off its communist past and isolation in the early 1990s.
The UK’s Daily Mail has rated Albania as one best up-and-coming travel destinations that most holidaymakers don’t know about and compares Albania’s southern Riviera to Italy’s famous Amalfi Coast.
“Once the poorest nation in all of Europe, Albania has shrugged-off its socialist past,” World Nomads travel expert Isaac Entry is quoted as saying.
“Amalfi Coast is seen throughout Instagram feeds and is on everyone’s bucket list because of the captivating scenery. The downside of its popularity is that you will have to battle with other visitors if you want the perfect photo, so travel expert Isaac Entry suggests people instead head to the Albanian Riviera,” writes the Daily Mail on its portal.
“With Greece to the south and Italy’s ‘heel’ cross the Adriatic, there’s an endless supply of pretty coastal villages along the Albanian Riviera – and almost NO-ONE on them! Albanian wine is pretty good too,” says Isaac Entry.
Meanwhile, the UK’s Telegraph rates Albania eighth among the world’s 15 most underrated destinations.
“Considering it has superb Roman ruins, good food, glorious scenery, ridiculously low prices, and 380 miles of Mediterranean coastline, you’d imagine Albania would attract more than 80,000 British travellers each year – out of a total of four million,” the Telegraph says on its online version.
Another British portal, the Standard.uk, rates Albania as the number one destination among 12 countries that one needs to keep on their travel radar.
“Albania rose eight places on the latest report meaning it’s an exciting up-and-coming travel destination. While there, make sure you check out the Albanian Riviera and wander through Gjirokastra, the ‘city of stone,’” says the London Evening Standard on its online version.
Earlier this year, Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air launched direct Tirana-London flights, offering a new cheaper opportunity to British tourists and a community of more than 13,000 Albanian residents in the UK.
Albania has been placed on the list of safe countries for Britons to visit for 2018 at a time when major destinations face severe to likely terror threats, according to the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice.
Data published by the country’s state statistical institute, INSTAT, shows some 127,000 British citizens visited Albania in 2017, a 24 percent hike compared to the same period last year. The number of Albanian citizens visiting the UK is considerably lower as Albanian citizens need visas to visit Britain.
Canada’s Troy Media has also recommended Albania as one of the cheapest European destinations for a budget traveler.
“Albania is another destination perfect for everything from a city break to a week spent lazing on the beach. The city of Tirana offers visitors a new take on a city break, with just enough familiarity to include everything you love about them!” says the Troy Media portal.
“The pristine stretches of coastline are practically untouched due to the lack of tourism here, but that lack of tourism also accounts for the much lower prices! There are no tourist traps to fall into here, so you can sit back and relax with a low budget of just €20-€30 a day at most,” it adds.
Earlier this year, the National Geographic also rated Albania among the 2018 places one needs to visit, especially for adventurer travelers and divers.
“Sunken aqueducts, shipwrecks, and rarely visited caves are a few of the relatively untouched treasures awaiting divers in Albania. Decades of isolation under communist leader Enver Hoxha limited development and inadvertently preserved underwater cultural heritage, particularly off the southern coast,” says the National Geographic, featuring a picture of a diver exploring a cargo of amphoras from a Roman-era shipwreck.
The fun fact about Albania is that late dictator Hoxha famously banned scuba diving to prevent Albanians from escaping, adds the National Geographic.
The Irish Times has also rated Albania as one of the top two budget destination for 2018, sandwiched between the Spanish Costas and Turkey.
“Not the first place a family might think of, nor the easiest to get to – you’d have to travel via Manchester – but it has novelty factor and is much cheaper than Italy or Croatia. The beaches are beautiful, the villages quaint – look towards the medieval town of Kruja, Apollonia’s ruins and Berat, the Unesco World Heritage site famous(ish) for Byzantine churches and Ottoman architecture,” says the Irish Times.
“Car hire is less than €10 a day and restaurants and accommodation are as cheap. And the sun will shine,” it adds.
Closed to tourists for about five decades until the early 1990s, Albania offers a miscellaneous picture of coastal and mountain tourism and has been attracting more and more foreign tourists in the past decade being nicknamed “A new Mediterranean love” and “Europe’s last secret.”
