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The Albanian Riviera: Viral Dream vs. Brutal Reality · Phil and H Travel - Is It Worth It? Top Travel Destinations Explored!

• 0:00
  OK, stop what you're doing. Stop looking at the Instagram
• 0:02
  reel. Seriously.
• 0:04
  Just for a second. Oh, I know exactly which one
• 0:05
  you're talking about. You do, right?
• 0:07
  Yeah. You're looking at that, that
• 0:09
  hypersaturated neon turquoise water.
• 0:11
  You're seeing the imported white sand.
• 0:13
  The little wooden walkway is stretching out over a perfectly
• 0:16
  calm sea. And the caption.
• 0:19
  The caption is always the same as some variation of the
• 0:22
  Maldives of Europe. The Maldives of Europe for the
• 0:25
  price of a ham sandwich. That's the one.
• 0:27
  It is the viral promise of the year.
• 0:30
  Albania, specifically the Albanian Riviera.
• 0:35
  It is an incredibly seductive pitch, isn't it?
• 0:38
  And it has. I mean, it is absolutely flooded
• 0:40
  our feeds for what, the last 18 months?
• 0:43
  It's almost inescapable at this point.
• 0:44
  It really is. But there is a, let's say, a
• 0:47
  very distinct difference, maybe even a massive chasm, between
• 0:51
  what the algorithm feeds you on a Tuesday morning commute and
• 0:54
  what happens when your rubber actually hits the road in the
• 0:56
  Balkans. Exactly.
• 0:58
  And that's really what we want to dig into today.
• 1:00
  Yeah, that's what we're doing. We're taking a huge stack of
• 1:02
  travel logs, we've got economic breakdowns, even some
• 1:05
  geotechnical surveys, and just a lot of honest to goodness ground
• 1:09
  reports to answer the big question, which is is this the
• 1:11
  last wild tier of the Mediterranean or is it just a
• 1:15
  chaotic, sprawling construction site that's trying to fake it
• 1:18
  till it makes it? I think forensic audit is the
• 1:21
  right term here. We're going to perform a sort of
• 1:24
  forensic audit on the Adriatic and the Ionian coastlines
• 1:28
  because, and this is the core warning, if you book that flight
• 1:31
  to Toronto, right, thinking you've hacked the travel system
• 1:35
  that you're getting five star luxury for hostile prices and
• 1:39
  you know, seamless German style infrastructure.
• 1:42
  Which is the promise, right? That's the implicit promise.
• 1:45
  It is, but if you believe that, you're setting yourself up for a
• 1:49
  very, very complex and I think for many people, a potentially
• 1:52
  frustrating reality check. We've got the data on
• 1:55
  everything. We're going to get into
• 1:56
  something called the sunbed index, which is a fascinating
• 1:59
  economic indicator. It's a great proxy for
• 2:01
  gentrification. It's perfect.
• 2:03
  We're also going to talk about the specific dangers of driving
• 2:06
  a rental car near a herd of goats on a blind mountain
• 2:09
  corner. But first we have to talk about
• 2:12
  timing, because every single source we looked at is screaming
• 2:16
  one thing loud and clear. The.
• 2:17
  Clock is ticking the. Clock is absolutely ticking.
• 2:20
  It's what sociologists or urban planners might call the
• 2:24
  gentrification clock. It's a concept.
• 2:27
  And if you look at the Mediterranean historically, this
• 2:29
  cycle happens everywhere. It's a predictable pattern.
• 2:31
  It's a formula, almost. It is.
• 2:33
  It happened in the South of France back in the 60s.
• 2:35
  It happened in Greece in the 80s and 90s.
• 2:37
  We saw it in Croatia in the early 2000s, even Tulum in
• 2:41
  Mexico in the 20 tens. A place is discovered.
• 2:44
  It's cheap, it's raw, it has it like no rules.
• 2:47
  Then the backpackers come, then the artists, then the
• 2:50
  infrastructure rushes to catch up.
• 2:52
  Big capital moves in, prices spike, and the entire character
• 2:56
  of the place changes fundamentally.
• 2:58
  And Albania is right in that sweet spot, or maybe that danger
• 3:01
  zone, depending on how you look at it.
• 3:03
  It feels like we are at minute 59 on that clock.
• 3:06
  Precisely. And the post Covic bounce really
• 3:09
  accelerated it. Think about it for a second.
• 3:11
  Italy, Greece, Croatia, they all became incredibly, prohibitively
• 3:17
  expensive very, very quickly after the pandemic.
• 3:20
  Prices just shot up. Inflation hit, travel demands
• 3:24
  surged and suddenly a week in Puglia cost of fortune.
• 3:28
  A simple you know, a simple hotel room in Dubrovnik is €300.
• 3:31
  It's unsustainable for most people.
• 3:33
  So Albania created a vacuum. It became the alternative.
• 3:37
  But here's the catch. The sources are now indicating
• 3:39
  that that same inflation has hit the Balkans hard.
• 3:42
  So it's not as cheap as it was even two years ago.
• 3:45
  Not at all. That ham sandwich price point is
• 3:47
  vanishing as we speak. Wow.
• 3:48
  So the urgency is real. If you want to see the wild
• 3:51
  version of this coast, the version everyone was talking
• 3:53
  about a year or two ago, the sources are basically saying you
• 3:55
  have to go this year or next year at the absolute latest.
• 3:59
  Maybe even just this year. It is currently, I think, the
• 4:03
  most exciting beach destination in Europe because of that raw,
• 4:06
  chaotic energy. But that energy is fleeting.
• 4:09
  We're going to break down the infrastructure, collapse the
• 4:12
  concrete jungle that is some of the main cities, but also the
• 4:16
  absolute magic that still exists if you know where to look.
• 4:20
  So let's unpack this. Our mission today is to move
• 4:23
  beyond the influencer reel and find out if the Albanian Riviera
• 4:27
  is actually worth it for you. Because it's definitely not for
• 4:30
  everyone. Is.
• 4:30
  It Oh, absolutely not. It requires a very specific type
• 4:33
  of traveler with a very specific mindset.
• 4:36
  OK, let's start with the basics. Geography, because I think a lot
• 4:39
  of people just see Albania coast on a map and assume it's all one
• 4:42
  homogeneous thing. You land, you go to the beach.
• 4:44
  Simple. It's not simple at all and this
• 4:46
  is genuinely the first mistake people make right at the booking
• 4:49
  stage. We have to clarify the
• 4:50
  terminology because marketing teams, you know, they play fast
• 4:53
  and loose with the word Riviera. OK, so breakdown the map for us.
• 4:57
  What are we looking at? So Albania has two very, very
• 5:00
  distinct coastlines, and they're divided by a massive mountain
• 5:03
  range in the north, starting from the border with Montenegro,
• 5:06
  down past the capital Tirana and the main port city of duress,
• 5:10
  you have the Adriatic Sea. OK, the Adriatic.
• 5:12
  That's the same sea that touches Venice and Croatia.
• 5:15
  I know that sea. Correct, But the Albanian
• 5:17
  Adriatic is oh, it's different. It's Sandy, which sounds nice on
• 5:22
  paper. It does.
• 5:23
  I prefer sand. A lot of people do, but the
• 5:25
  water is shallower. It's a bit darker, often silty
• 5:28
  because of river runoff. It's it's fine.
• 5:30
  It's a beach, Yeah, but it is not the place you see in the
• 5:33
  viral photos. So if I book a hotel in duress
• 5:36
  thinking I'm going to see 50 feet down into Crystal
• 5:38
  Clearwater. You will be very disappointed.
• 5:40
  You'll have a perfectly acceptable beach holiday, but
• 5:42
  you will not have the Instagram experience.
• 5:44
  So the viral photos, the neon blue, the dramatic cliffs, the
• 5:48
  little white Pebble coast that is the South, that's the Ionian
• 5:51
  Sea. Correct the Riviera proper.
• 5:54
  What people really mean when when they say the Albanian
• 5:56
  Riviera is that southern stretch along the Ionian coast.
• 6:00
  It starts roughly around the city of Lorry and goes all the
• 6:04
  way down to the Greek border. And this is where the geology
• 6:06
  changes completely. Dramatically, the beaches become
• 6:10
  pebbly rocks, not sand, which is an important detail we'll come
• 6:14
  back to. The water gets incredibly deep,
• 6:17
  very, very close to shore. And the color, the color shifts
• 6:21
  to that electric, almost radioactive blue.
• 6:24
  Why is that? What causes that color?
• 6:26
  It's the geology. It's the limestone of the
• 6:28
  Cerranian mountains, which basically just fall straight
• 6:30
  into the sea. The white rock bottom reflects
• 6:33
  the light in a very particular way, and the depth gives it that
• 6:36
  intense color. OK, so rule #1 is already clear.
• 6:39
  If you're booking a beach holiday near the capital Tirana,
• 6:41
  you're on the Adriatic. If you want the Maldives vibe,
• 6:44
  you have to go South. You have to go South and getting
• 6:47
  South. That is an adventure in and of
• 6:49
  itself. Let's talk about that, the
• 6:50
  logistics of arrival. Starts at the airport.
• 6:54
  The Tirana International Airport experience is often described in
• 6:58
  our sources as well. Spirited is a polite word.
• 7:02
  Chaos and dust. That was a direct quote I saw in
• 7:05
  one of the travel logs. That sets the tone perfectly.
• 7:07
  You land, you walk out of the terminal and you are immediately
• 7:11
  hit by a wall of heat, a cloud of cigarette smoke despite the
• 7:15
  no smoking signs, and a phalanx of taxi drivers all shouting and
• 7:19
  offering you rides. It can be a little overwhelming
• 7:21
  if you're not ready for it. Very.
• 7:23
  And this brings us to the first major logistical hurdle and
• 7:27
  arguably the most important decision of your entire trip,
• 7:30
  the rental car roulette. Oh I love this detail in the
• 7:33
  research. It's so emblematic.
• 7:35
  You have two choices apparently. Two very different paths.
• 7:38
  You can go with the major international chains.
• 7:39
  You're Hertz, you're 6, you're Avis.
• 7:41
  It's safe, it's predictable, but it's expensive.
• 7:44
  Very expensive, sometimes double or triple the local price.
• 7:47
  Or you go with option 2, the local guy on WhatsApp.
• 7:50
  Which is a very, very common Balkan business model.
• 7:53
  It's built on trust and, well, a little bit of hope.
• 7:57
  So how does this work? You don't go to a counter.
• 7:59
  No, there's no counter. There's no shiny office.
• 8:01
  You find a number on a travel forum, or maybe on Google Maps
• 8:04
  with a few reviews. You message a guy.
• 8:07
  Let's call him Drylon for the sake of argument.
• 8:09
  OK, Drillon. You message Dryon, you agree on
• 8:12
  a price, usually around 30 to €40 a day and this is key, it's
• 8:18
  in cash. And then you arrange to meet him
• 8:21
  in the airport parking lot. Just in the parking lot.
• 8:23
  Just in the parking lot, he pulls up in a slightly scratched
• 8:26
  Volkswagen. You hand him a stack of EUR.
• 8:28
  He hands you the keys, you both shake hands.
• 8:30
  And that's the transaction. That sounds absolutely
• 8:33
  terrifying to a standard western traveler.
• 8:35
  Is there a contract? Is there insurance?
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  What happens if I breakdown? Usually there's a piece of
• 8:40
  paper, yes, a very simple contract.
• 8:42
  And the sources say this actually works surprisingly
• 8:45
  well. Most of the time.
• 8:46
  It requires a certain leap of faith.
• 8:48
  But this local guy model is the backbone of the entire tourism
• 8:53
  economy. What's the pro tip here?
• 8:55
  Take photos before you drive off, walk around the car and
• 8:58
  take detailed photos of every single scratch and dent with
• 9:01
  your phone. That way there are no arguments
• 9:04
  when you return it. Good tip and cash.
• 9:06
  Lots of cash upfront but you need the car right?
• 9:10
  The sources are absolutely adamant about this.
• 9:12
  Can't I just take the bus? You can.
• 9:14
  The public transport system exists.
• 9:16
  They're called fergons. These are basically mini buses,
• 9:19
  often with a handwritten placard in the window indicating the
• 9:22
  destination. Some charming.
• 9:24
  It is, in a way, and they're cheap, but they run on their own
• 9:28
  schedule, which is to say whenever the driver feels like
• 9:30
  it. They stop frequently.
• 9:32
  They usually have no air conditioning, which is a real
• 9:35
  factor in August. And crucially, they don't get
• 9:38
  you to the hidden spots. They drop you on the main road
• 9:41
  at the top of a Cliff. If you want to get down to that
• 9:43
  secluded beach, you need your own wheels.
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  Period. Even if the traffic is, as one
• 9:48
  source put it, Darwinian. Aggressive is a polite way to
• 9:52
  put it. The driving culture is
• 9:53
  assertive. It's not malicious, it's just
• 9:56
  confident. What's the main rule of the
• 9:57
  road? The rule is if your car's nose
• 10:01
  is in front, you have the right of way.
• 10:03
  You have to push your nose out into the roundabout or the
• 10:05
  intersection. If you wait for someone to
• 10:08
  politely wave you in, you will be stuck at that intersection
• 10:12
  until your visa expires. You have to claim your space.
• 10:14
  You have to claim your space. It's a metaphor for the country,
• 10:17
  really. OK, so we've got the car from
• 10:20
  Dry Lawn, We have our stack of cash.
• 10:22
  We are driving South from Toronto.
• 10:24
  Let's talk about the drive itself, because there's a very
• 10:27
  specific moment where the trip changes from a standard European
• 10:32
  drive to something epic. The Ugara Pass.
• 10:35
  This is the gateway to the Riviera.
• 10:37
  It's the dividing line. What's the drive like up to that
• 10:40
  point? The highway to Lori is fine,
• 10:42
  it's a modern decent Rd. You're making good time.
• 10:44
  But then just South of Lori, you start to climb and you are
• 10:48
  climbing a massive mountain range.
• 10:50
  And the whole environment changes.
• 10:51
  Completely. It feels like you've been
• 10:53
  teleported to the Swiss Alps. Suddenly it's pine trees, it's
• 10:56
  cool air. You're driving through clouds.
• 10:58
  The temperature drops about 10°C.
• 11:01
  You are just winding up and up and up.
• 11:03
  And then you crust the top. And the world drops away.
• 11:07
  It is one of the most dramatic, breathtaking reveals in all of
• 11:11
  European travel. I'm not exaggerating.
• 11:12
  Yeah, you are 1000 meters up and straight down, almost
• 11:17
  vertically, is the Ionian Sea. Wow.
• 11:19
  Look like the edge of the planet.
• 11:21
  You can see the Greek island of Corfu in the distance.
• 11:24
  The water is this impossible shade of blue.
• 11:27
  It's a genuine aha moment. But then you have to get down.
• 11:31
  Yes. Then comes the descent, which is
• 11:34
  an experience. How so?
• 11:35
  Hairpin turns, lots of them, Sometimes in certain spots.
• 11:38
  A distinct lack of guardrails. Oh, lovely.
• 11:41
  You were riding your brakes the entire way down, and as you
• 11:44
  mentioned in the intro, there's a unique local hazard.
• 11:46
  The goats. The goats have the right of way.
• 11:49
  This is the unofficial but most important rule of the road.
• 11:52
  It really is. You will turn a blind corner,
• 11:54
  maybe going 40 kilometers an hour, and find a herd of 200
• 11:57
  goats just standing on the asphalt.
• 11:59
  What are they doing there? Licking the salt off the road
• 12:02
  apparently, and just staring at you with 0 fear in their eyes.
• 12:05
  You stop, You wait, you turn off the engine.
• 12:08
  They are in charge. It's a perfect metaphor for the
• 12:11
  country, you said. I think so.
• 12:13
  You have this sublime world class natural beauty mixed with
• 12:16
  a very rural agricultural reality, all underpinned by a
• 12:21
  slightly dangerous developing infrastructure.
• 12:25
  That's the Albanian Riviera in a nutshell.
• 12:27
  OK, so once you survive the goats and the hairpin turns, you
• 12:30
  finally hit the coast. And this is where we need to
• 12:33
  break down the Tale of Three Towns.
• 12:35
  Because if you're just looking at the map, you might see dots,
• 12:38
  but the vibe, the culture, the price, it changes drastically
• 12:42
  depending on which pin you drop. Massively.
• 12:44
  We've got Dermi, Himari, and the big one, Sarande.
• 12:49
  Let's start with Dermi. Dermi, if you're looking for
• 12:52
  where the Torana elite go for the weekend, where the
• 12:54
  politicians and the pop stars and the, you know, the wealthy
• 12:57
  business people go, it's Dermy. So it's a cool spot, the CNB
• 13:01
  scene spot. It is.
• 13:02
  The visuals here are very specific.
• 13:04
  You'll see luxury SUV's, Range Rovers, Mercedes G wagons parked
• 13:08
  on dusty dirt roads right next to the beach.
• 13:11
  That's quite a contrast. It is.
• 13:13
  You'll find beach clubs playing deep house and techno music at
• 13:17
  2:00 in the afternoon. The infrastructure is very
• 13:21
  sleek, lots of white minimalist architecture.
• 13:24
  It's very polished. This is where you get that water
• 13:26
  clarity that people talk about, the kind that freaks you out.
• 13:28
  The sources call it invisible water.
• 13:31
  Yeah, that's a great way to describe it.
• 13:32
  The water in Dermy and at the nearby Dry Maid's Beach is so
• 13:36
  unbelievably clear that the boats look like they are
• 13:40
  hovering in midair. You can see their shadows on the
• 13:43
  seabed 30 feet below. You can see sea urchins from the
• 13:46
  surface. Easily.
• 13:47
  It's absolutely spectacular from a natural standpoint.
• 13:50
  But there is a downside to the dermy vibe, according to the
• 13:53
  reports. The downside is that it feels
• 13:56
  less Albanian. It feels like a purpose built
• 13:59
  resort town that you could find in Ibiza or Micanos.
• 14:03
  The prices certainly look suspiciously like Italy.
• 14:05
  So it's more expensive. Significantly, and it feels a
• 14:08
  little less authentic. It's a beautiful but somewhat
• 14:11
  sterile bubble. Which brings us to Hamari.
• 14:13
  Now, reading through all the reports and travel logs, Hamari
• 14:17
  seems to be the darling of the experienced travelers.
• 14:21
  It's the Goldilocks zone. That's the perfect term for it.
• 14:24
  It is the balance point of the whole Riviera.
• 14:26
  It has all the tourism infrastructure you need, good
• 14:28
  hotels, great restaurants, Gelato shops, tour operators,
• 14:32
  but. But it still feels like a real
• 14:34
  town. It still feels like a
• 14:36
  functioning community, it has a year round population.
• 14:39
  The key imagery here, thing that makes it feel so different from
• 14:42
  Jeremy, is seeing grandpa's sitting in the cafes drinking
• 14:46
  Rocky, which is the very, very strong local grape Brandy at
• 14:52
  9:00 in the morning. A.
• 14:53
  Local tradition. Right next to kids playing
• 14:55
  soccer in the town square, right next to tourists licking their
• 14:57
  ice cream cones. It's all mixed together.
• 14:59
  It's lived in. It's not just a stage set for
• 15:02
  Instagram. Exactly.
• 15:03
  It works because it balances the influx of foreigners with actual
• 15:06
  tangible local life. You don't feel like you're in a
• 15:08
  segregated tourist zone and the food is incredible because it's
• 15:12
  catering to locals as well as tourists.
• 15:14
  They have to keep the quality high and.
• 15:15
  Then that that we have Surandi. Surande the big one.
• 15:20
  The sources are pretty brutal about Surande.
• 15:23
  One source calls it the Mistake, another called it Benidorm with
• 15:26
  worse plumbing. That's quite an indictment.
• 15:30
  It's the location of what I call the hub fallacy.
• 15:32
  The hub fallacy explain that. A lot of people, especially
• 15:35
  first time visitors, they look at the map, they see Surande is
• 15:39
  the biggest city in the South. It has the ferry port from Corfu
• 15:42
  so it's easy to get to and they think, great, this is the hub.
• 15:46
  I'll book seven nights here and use it as a base to explore all
• 15:49
  the famous beaches. Which sounds logical, so why is
• 15:51
  that a trap? It's a crap because surrounde is
• 15:54
  not a beach escape. It is a dense, loud, chaotic
• 15:58
  port city is a concrete jungle. The sheer density of buildings
• 16:02
  is overwhelming. I saw a description of the
• 16:04
  skyline that stuck with me. It's just cranes.
• 16:06
  Cranes everywhere. It's a perfect visual
• 16:08
  representation of rapid, unchecked and often illegal or
• 16:12
  semi legal development. You have these brand new glass
• 16:15
  fronted Miami style hotels right next to concrete skeletons from
• 16:19
  the 2008 financial crisis that were never finished and are now
• 16:23
  being reclaimed by Ivy in nature.
• 16:25
  So it's loud, it's congested. And it's hot.
• 16:28
  The heat just radiates off all that concrete.
• 16:30
  There's very little green space. And the traffic bottleneck is
• 16:34
  the real killer for the hub strategy.
• 16:36
  This is the practical issue that ruins people's holidays.
• 16:39
  If you're staying in Sarande but you want to go to the famous
• 16:41
  beaches like Smil or Pula Barda, you're looking at a what, a 15
• 16:46
  kilometer drive? Sounds easy enough.
• 16:49
  It should be, but because there's only one narrow Rd. in
• 16:52
  and out, that 15 kilometers can take 90 minutes in August each
• 16:56
  way. 90 minutes to go, 15 kilometers.
• 16:59
  Yes, you spend your holiday looking at the bumper of a
• 17:03
  Mercedes from Germany inhaling exhaust fumes, not looking at
• 17:08
  the ocean. So the strategic advice right
• 17:10
  off the bat is pretty clear. Don't base yourself in Surronde
• 17:12
  if you want a relaxing beach trip.
• 17:14
  Precisely, you can visit for the evening.
• 17:16
  It has a lovely evening promenade the 0 where everyone
• 17:19
  comes out to walk at sunset. Go for that.
• 17:21
  Have a nice dinner but sleep elsewhere.
• 17:23
  Sleep in Himari or a smaller village like Caparo.
• 17:26
  OK, let's get to the nitty gritty.
• 17:28
  The part everyone wants to know about the money.
• 17:31
  This is the budget versus value segment.
• 17:34
  The myth is that Albania is cheap.
• 17:36
  So is it? Or is that 2019 news?
• 17:40
  The answer is it depends entirely on who you are as a
• 17:44
  traveler. The economic spectrum is
• 17:46
  widening very, very quickly. It used to be cheap for
• 17:49
  everyone, Now it's tiered. So let's break down that ladder.
• 17:52
  Let's start with accommodation. OK, if you are a backpacker 20
• 17:55
  something on a tight budget, the answer is a resounding deafening
• 17:59
  yes. It is still a paradise.
• 18:01
  How cheap are we talking? Hostiles are still an absolute
• 18:04
  steal. We're talking 15 to €25 a night
• 18:07
  for a dorm bed. And these aren't dingy
• 18:09
  basements. They are often brand new, super
• 18:12
  clean, run by young, enthusiastic locals who want to
• 18:15
  show off their country. And they offer more than just a
• 18:17
  bed. A lot more.
• 18:18
  They organize tours, family style dinners, hiking trips.
• 18:21
  The social scene is incredible. That's unbeatable value in
• 18:24
  Europe right now. You can't find that in Spain or
• 18:26
  Italy for that price. No, absolutely not.
• 18:28
  You'd be lucky to get a coffee and a pastry for that.
• 18:30
  Yeah, but as you move up the ladder, the value proposition
• 18:35
  gets shaky. This is what one source called
• 18:37
  the mid range squeeze. OK, explain the squeeze.
• 18:40
  This is for a standard hotel room, something that would be a
• 18:43
  basic, you know, a three star Ibis or Holiday Inn style place
• 18:47
  in Western Europe that is now costing between 80 and 120 euros
• 18:52
  a night in the high season. And what's the quality like for
• 18:55
  that price? It's inconsistent.
• 18:57
  That's the keyword. You might get a great room with
• 19:00
  a Seaview, or you might get a room where the air conditioning
• 19:03
  drips on the bed, the walls are paper thin, and you can hear
• 19:06
  your neighbors entire conversation.
• 19:08
  It's a gamble. It's a gamble.
• 19:09
  And then you have the top tier, the luxury trap.
• 19:11
  The trap sounds ominous. In places like Dermie or Sawmill
• 19:16
  you can now pay 203 hundred, even €400 a night, for a
• 19:20
  boutique hotel. That's serious money.
• 19:22
  That's Greek island money. It is, but often the service
• 19:26
  culture has not caught up to the price tag.
• 19:29
  You might have a room with a gold faucet and a velvet
• 19:31
  headboard. It looks good in the photos.
• 19:33
  It looks amazing on booking.com, but the water pressure is a
• 19:36
  trickle. The wifey only works if you
• 19:38
  stand in the hallway and the person at the front desk doesn't
• 19:41
  know how to call a taxi for you. So you're paying for the
• 19:43
  aesthetic, not for the operations or the service.
• 19:45
  Exactly, you are paying for how the room looks in a photo, not
• 19:50
  how it functions as a comfortable living space.
• 19:53
  OK, but now for food economics. This seems to be the one area
• 19:56
  where Albania redeems itself completely.
• 19:59
  This is where the cheap myth is still, for the most part, a
• 20:02
  reality. Yes, if you eat local, you meet
• 20:05
  like a king for pennies. It's fantastic.
• 20:07
  Tell me about the Byreck. It's mentioned in every single
• 20:10
  report. The byreck is the fuel of the
• 20:12
  Balkans. It's a glorious, flaky phylodo
• 20:16
  pie. It's usually filled with spinach
• 20:19
  or a salty white cheese, or sometimes mincemeat.
• 20:22
  It's greasy in the absolute best way possible.
• 20:24
  And the Christ. You can get a huge lunch size
• 20:26
  portion for one euro, maybe less in a small town one.
• 20:29
  Euro that's incredible. You grab a Buy Wreck and a very
• 20:33
  traditional, distinctively salty yogurt drink called Dali and you
• 20:38
  have a perfect lunch for under €2.
• 20:40
  What about a proper sit down meal?
• 20:42
  A Greek salad, which they just call salad or village salad, is
• 20:47
  a mountain of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and a giant
• 20:50
  slab of white cheese that'll send you back four or five
• 20:53
  euros. And pasta.
• 20:54
  I hear the Italian influence is strong.
• 20:56
  Very strong. You can get an excellent plate
• 20:58
  of pasta for 6 to 8 euros pretty much anywhere.
• 21:02
  You can eat incredibly, incredibly well for very little
• 21:05
  money. But there's always a But there's
• 21:07
  a trap here too, the infamous fish trap.
• 21:10
  I've heard horror stories about this.
• 21:12
  Yes, the classic market price ambush.
• 21:15
  It happens at seaside restaurants all over the
• 21:17
  Mediterranean, but it's particularly common here.
• 21:19
  Walk me through it, how does it happen?
• 21:21
  It happens like this. You're at a nice seaside
• 21:23
  restaurant, the sun is setting, the waiter is charming, he says.
• 21:26
  We have a wonderful fresh catch today, Sebring sea bass.
• 21:29
  He brings the raw fish out on a silver platter to show you.
• 21:32
  Its eyes are clear, it looks great.
• 21:34
  You're impressed. You feel special.
• 21:36
  You feel like Avip, you know? You say yes.
• 21:38
  That one looks perfect. He smiles, takes it away to be
• 21:41
  grilled. And then the bill comes.
• 21:43
  And the bill comes and it's 4050, maybe even €60.00 for that
• 21:48
  one single fish and your jaw hits the floor.
• 21:53
  Ouch. What?
• 21:53
  Happened. It's sold by weight, usually per
• 21:56
  100 grams, and you didn't ask the price per kilo or more
• 22:00
  importantly, how much of that specific fish weighed.
• 22:04
  It's a classic rookie mistake, but it catches people out
• 22:07
  constantly. So the simple solution is just
• 22:09
  to ask. Always you have to be direct.
• 22:12
  Point to the fish and ask how much is this specific fish.
• 22:14
  Get them to weigh it in front of you and tell you the final price
• 22:17
  before they put it on the grill. No surprises.
• 22:19
  Good advice. Now I want to talk about this
• 22:21
  sunbed index. I love this concept.
• 22:23
  It seems like a perfect microcosm for what's happening
• 22:25
  to the coast. It is a great proxy for
• 22:27
  gentrification, inflation and the creep of exclusivity.
• 22:31
  It tells you everything you need to know about a particular
• 22:33
  beach. So in Albania, the beaches are
• 22:35
  technically public property, right?
• 22:37
  In theory, yes, but the practice is that private businesses,
• 22:41
  hotels, restaurants, beach clubs lease sections of the sand for
• 22:45
  the municipality and put up their own umbrellas and sunbeds.
• 22:48
  And the prices vary wildly. Wildly, but six Samil, which
• 22:52
  markets itself as the most glamorous VIP destination.
• 22:56
  There at the high end, clubs like Prince of Popes or Pima ET.
• 23:00
  A set of two sunbeds and an umbrella can cost 2030.
• 23:06
  I've seen reports of €50. €50 just to sit on the beach for the
• 23:10
  day, yes. And sometimes that comes with a
• 23:12
  minimum spend on food and drinks on top of that.
• 23:15
  Now compare that to a more local feeling beach like in Hamari or
• 23:18
  Borsch or the village of Caparo. There the same setup will cost
• 23:22
  you 5 to €10 for the entire day. That's a huge difference.
• 23:25
  It tells you who the beach is for.
• 23:26
  Exactly. It's a class signifier.
• 23:28
  And then you have the public patches, the free spots.
• 23:30
  But those free spots are getting smaller and smaller, aren't
• 23:33
  they? They are.
• 23:34
  They're being squeezed out. As the hotels and beach clubs
• 23:37
  build out, they claim more and more of the sand.
• 23:40
  You often have to walk to the far rocky ends of the beach to
• 23:44
  find a place to just throw your towel down for free.
• 23:47
  It's a very contentious issue locally.
• 23:49
  So if we were to wrap this all up into daily budgets, let's try
• 23:53
  and put a concrete number on it for people.
• 23:54
  OK, let's create 3 profiles. First up, we have the Scrapper.
• 23:58
  This is your classic backpacker. What's their daily spend?
• 24:02
  They can comfortably survive and have a great time on €40 a day
• 24:07
  staying in hostels, eating by Rick in supermarket beaches for
• 24:10
  lunch, taking the local buses or even hitchhiking and always
• 24:14
  using the free public beaches. That is incredibly cheap for a
• 24:17
  European beach holiday. You can't do €40 a day in
• 24:20
  France. Impossible.
• 24:21
  You couldn't even rent the sun bed.
• 24:23
  OK, Next up is the smart traveler.
• 24:25
  This is probably a couple in their 30s.
• 24:28
  In their budget. They're spending about €90.00 a
• 24:30
  day per. Person.
• 24:31
  What does that get them? That gets them splitting the
• 24:33
  cost of a rental car, staying in a nice mid range guest house or
• 24:37
  private apartment, eating very well at local tavernas but being
• 24:41
  careful to avoid the fish trap. Which for comparison, €90.00
• 24:45
  buys you absolutely nothing in positano or micanose.
• 24:49
  You'd spend that on lunch and be hungry again by dinner.
• 24:51
  Correct. So relative to the rest of the
• 24:53
  Mediterranean, it is still fantastic value for money.
• 24:56
  But then we have the third profile, the baller.
• 24:59
  The Baller This person is spending €250 a day or more.
• 25:04
  They're staying in the glass fronted boutique hotels,
• 25:07
  ordering the lobster pasta, drinking expensive cocktails at
• 25:10
  the €50 beach clubs. And what's the verdict on that
• 25:13
  experience? The consensus from all our
• 25:15
  sources is that this is the worst value for money on the
• 25:18
  entire coast. That is a fascinating,
• 25:20
  counterintuitive take away. The more you spend, the worse
• 25:23
  the value gets. That's a very succinct and
• 25:25
  accurate way to put it. At 250 a day, you start
• 25:28
  comparing it to what you could get in Spain or Greece or Italy,
• 25:32
  and Albania loses on service, on Polish, on infrastructure.
• 25:35
  At €40 a day you compare it to, well, nowhere really.
• 25:40
  It stands alone as an incredible bargain.
• 25:42
  OK, let's pivot to Segment 4 infrastructure and reality
• 25:45
  checks. We've hinted at this a lot, but
• 25:48
  we need to talk specifically about SAML because if you search
• 25:52
  #Albania on Instagram, 90% of what you see is SAML.
• 25:56
  It's the poster child. The images are of pristine white
• 25:59
  sand, three idyllic little islands you can swim to, and a
• 26:03
  sense of isolation. The Instagram versus reality gap
• 26:05
  in SAML is probably the widest in the country.
• 26:07
  It might be the widest in all of Europe.
• 26:09
  It's a master class in Clipper Photographer.
• 26:11
  So break it down. What is it really like on the
• 26:13
  ground in July or August? The marketing promises isolation
• 26:17
  and natural beauty. The reality is density.
• 26:21
  Extreme suffocating density. And the beaches themselves.
• 26:24
  Those beautiful white sand beaches, many of them are not
• 26:27
  natural. They are man made concrete
• 26:30
  platforms that have been built out over the rocky shore with
• 26:33
  imported white sand poured over the top.
• 26:35
  Really. So it's an artificial
• 26:36
  environment. Largely yes.
• 26:39
  And because space is at a premium, you are packed in like
• 26:42
  sardines. The sun beds are literally
• 26:44
  touching each other. There is no personal space.
• 26:47
  So forget about privacy or a quiet nap.
• 26:50
  Absolutely not. And the vibe?
• 26:52
  It's a theme park. You have loud music from three
• 26:55
  different beach bars all clashing in the air.
• 26:57
  You'll have reggaeton mixing with Serbian turbo soap mixing
• 27:01
  with American pop music. It's a cacophony.
• 27:03
  What about the water? You have jet skis and tour boats
• 27:06
  buzzing back and forth constantly, which means the
• 27:08
  water close to shore often has a visible film of oil and smells
• 27:12
  of gasoline. That doesn't sound very.
• 27:14
  Idyllic. It feels soulless.
• 27:16
  Yeah, it looks fantastic in a tightly cropped photo where you
• 27:18
  cut out the 10,000 other people. But the peripheral vision tells
• 27:22
  a very, very different story. So Casa Mill is a look but don't
• 27:25
  touch situation or maybe a go for an hour, take your photo and
• 27:29
  leave situation. The second one, go for the day,
• 27:32
  see what the fuss is about. Take your photo if you must, but
• 27:35
  do not expect a Zen, relaxing experience.
• 27:39
  And this all connects to the broader theme of infrastructure
• 27:42
  collapse, or maybe infrastructure that was never
• 27:44
  built in the first place. It's the classic problem of a
• 27:47
  developing nation experiencing A tourism boom.
• 27:50
  The development is outpacing the utility.
• 27:53
  They are building hotels far faster than they can build
• 27:56
  sewage systems, water pipes or power grids to support them.
• 28:00
  So you get practical. Problems like power cuts in the
• 28:02
  peak of August? Yes, the grid gets overloaded by
• 28:05
  thousands of air conditioning units all turning on at once and
• 28:08
  it just shuts down for a few hours.
• 28:10
  And waste management. This was a really sad detail in
• 28:13
  the reports. It's one of the most
• 28:15
  heartbreaking aspects of the trip for many people.
• 28:17
  You're driving through these majestic world class mountain
• 28:20
  passes. The scenery is just stunning and
• 28:23
  you look over the guardrail and you see a plastic landslide.
• 28:26
  A landslide of trash. Just thousands of plastic
• 28:28
  bottles, construction waste, old appliances, all just dumped down
• 28:32
  the side of the ravine. That's tough to see.
• 28:34
  It ruins the illusion of pristine nature.
• 28:37
  It does. It's a developing nation
• 28:38
  struggle. The municipal services just
• 28:40
  cannot keep up with the sheer volume of waste being generated
• 28:44
  by the tourism explosion. And then of course, there is the
• 28:47
  plumbing. The Balkan plumbing roll we have
• 28:50
  a public service obligation to. Mention this Do not flush the
• 28:54
  toilet aer. I feel like this needs to be
• 28:56
  rinted on the. Plane ticket in bold red
• 28:58
  letters. It should be the.
• 29:00
  IES are narrow, the systems are old, the water pressure can be
• 29:03
  low, there is a small bin next to every single toilet for a
• 29:08
  reason. Use it.
• 29:09
  What happens if you don't? If you ignore this because
• 29:11
  you're. Western and civilized and you
• 29:13
  think, oh I'm not putting paper in a bin.
• 29:15
  You will be the person who clogs the system for the entire guest
• 29:18
  house. You will be the villain of the
• 29:20
  hotel. Don't be that person.
• 29:22
  Not the legacy you want to. Leave behind.
• 29:24
  OK, let's talk about money and connectivity.
• 29:26
  Practical logistics. Another classic trap, the.
• 29:29
  Credit card assumption You arrive, you see a Visa and
• 29:33
  MasterCard sticker on the door of the restaurant.
• 29:35
  You have a lovely meal and you assume you're good to go.
• 29:38
  But when you go to pay the. Machine is broken.
• 29:41
  The machine is always broken. Magically, or the power is out
• 29:45
  where the Internet is down, or my favorite, the owner just
• 29:49
  looks at you with his deep, profound sadness and slowly
• 29:53
  shakes his head. Because they want cash.
• 29:55
  They want to. Avoid the transaction fees and
• 29:56
  the tax man exactly so you need to internalize.
• 29:59
  This cash is emperor, specifically the Albanian lake,
• 30:02
  the local currency. You can use euros in some
• 30:05
  touristy places, but you will always get a bad exchange rate.
• 30:07
  So withdraw leak from. An ATM.
• 30:10
  Any tips on that? Yes, a very important one.
• 30:12
  Withdraw from a real bank's ATM. Look for creden's bank or OTP
• 30:16
  bank. Avoid the generic stand alone
• 30:18
  blue and yellow ATM machines that are just boxes on the
• 30:21
  street. They charge absolutely massive
• 30:23
  conversion fees and service charges, so stick to the banks.
• 30:27
  And carry wads of cash. You will feel like a drug
• 30:29
  dealer. But it is absolutely necessary.
• 30:31
  And what about for your phone? Roaming.
• 30:34
  Do not roam if. You are not on an EU mobile plan
• 30:37
  and remember Albania is not in the EU so even many EU plans
• 30:41
  don't include it. Roaming will cost you a fortune.
• 30:45
  You'll get a text message when you land saying welcome to
• 30:47
  Albania. Data is now €10 per MB.
• 30:50
  That will bankrupt you in minutes.
• 30:51
  So what's the fix? It's easy and cheap.
• 30:54
  Buy a. Local SIM card.
• 30:55
  Go to a Vodafone or A1 store. They're everywhere.
• 30:58
  For about €15 you can get 20 or 30 gigabytes of data for the
• 31:02
  duration of your trip and coverage is good.
• 31:04
  It's. Surprisingly excellent you'll.
• 31:06
  Have fast 4G even on remote beaches.
• 31:08
  Paradoxically, the 4G is often faster and more reliable than
• 31:12
  the hotel Wi-Fi. OK.
• 31:13
  Let's move to Segment 5. Safety.
• 31:15
  This is a big one because the movie Taken has done a lot of
• 31:18
  damage to Albania's reputation over the years.
• 31:20
  It has Liam Neeson. Has a lot to answer for in the
• 31:23
  Albanian Tourism board offices. A lot of people have this
• 31:26
  Hollywood image of the Albanian mafia lurking in every shadow
• 31:30
  just waiting to kidnap tourists. So let's debunk that right now.
• 31:33
  How safe is it really? Violent crime against tourists.
• 31:36
  Is virtually non existent. It is incredibly rare.
• 31:40
  You are statistically far safer walking down a dark alley in
• 31:44
  surrounde at 2:00 in the morning then you are in London, Paris or
• 31:47
  New York. What's the reason for that?
• 31:49
  There's. A deep cultural code.
• 31:50
  Called Basa, it's a concept of social honor, and a core part of
• 31:54
  it is that guests are to be protected at all costs.
• 31:57
  Harming a guest bring shame on the whole community.
• 32:00
  OK, but what about the mafia? They do exist.
• 32:02
  They exist, of course. But they are interested in high
• 32:05
  level international logistics. They're focused on shipping
• 32:09
  containers in the Port of Rotterdam and major construction
• 32:12
  contracts in Toronto. They do not care about your
• 32:15
  iPhone or your rental Volkswagen.
• 32:17
  You are not part of their business model.
• 32:19
  So the taken narrative. Is a complete myth, but there is
• 32:22
  a real tangible danger that tourists face everyday.
• 32:25
  Rd. Safety This is the.
• 32:27
  Statistic that actually matters. This is a real danger.
• 32:29
  This came up over and over. And over in the notes if you are
• 32:32
  a pedestrian. You need to fundamentally change
• 32:35
  your mindset. You have to understand that
• 32:37
  drivers will not stop for you in Germany or the UKA pedestrian
• 32:42
  crosswalk is like a force field. You step on it and cars stop In
• 32:46
  Albania, in Albania. A crosswalk.
• 32:49
  Is just some paint on the road. It offers no legal or
• 32:52
  psychological protection in the mind of the driver, it's merely
• 32:55
  a suggestion. So how do you cross the street?
• 32:57
  You. Can't just stand there forever,
• 32:59
  You have to assert dominance. This is not a joke.
• 33:02
  You have to step out confidently, make direct eye
• 33:05
  contact with the approaching driver and force them to
• 33:07
  acknowledge your existence and slow down.
• 33:10
  It's a game of chicken. It's a game of confidence.
• 33:12
  If you hesitate, they will accelerate.
• 33:15
  OK, That's a crucial piece of. Advice.
• 33:17
  What about scams? Are they common?
• 33:19
  They exist, but they are. Generally low level and
• 33:22
  opportunistic, Not sinister. You've got the taxi meter scam.
• 33:25
  Always negotiate the price upfront or insist they tune the
• 33:29
  meter on because they will often forget we've talked about the
• 33:32
  fresh fish. Switch right and the gas
• 33:34
  station. Scam.
• 33:35
  Just make sure the attendant starts the pump at 0.
• 33:37
  Sometimes they'll try to start pumping from where the previous
• 33:40
  sale left off. It's standard travel savvy
• 33:42
  stuff. Nothing to be paranoid then a
• 33:43
  couple of quick health and comfort.
• 33:45
  Notes Don't drink the tap water. It's not.
• 33:46
  Necessarily poison, but the mineral and bacterial content is
• 33:50
  very different from what your gut is used to.
• 33:52
  It will likely upset your stomach.
• 33:54
  Stick to bottled water is cheap and the sun.
• 33:56
  The sun is brutal and there is very little natural shade on
• 34:00
  many of these Pebble beaches. Heat stroke is a real and very
• 34:03
  unpleasant way to ruin your trip.
• 34:05
  Hydrate constantly. OK, we've covered the chaos.
• 34:08
  We've covered the trash, the traffic, the dodgy plumbing, the
• 34:11
  cash economy. Sounds a little stressful now.
• 34:14
  I want the soul. Because despite all of this,
• 34:17
  people fall deeply in love with this place.
• 34:20
  I read reports of people extending their trips by weeks.
• 34:23
  What are the hidden gems? What's the payoff?
• 34:25
  This is it. This is.
• 34:27
  Where the effort pays off. If you are willing to walk a
• 34:29
  little, to drive the bad roads, to push past the chaos, you find
• 34:34
  actual paradise. Let's talk about Judea Bay
• 34:37
  Canyon and beach G jape this. Sounds like the anti Cay mill.
• 34:41
  It is the perfect anti Cay. Cay.
• 34:44
  It is geographically isolated. You can't drive your car down to
• 34:47
  the beach unless you have a serious 4 by 4 and a lot of
• 34:50
  courage. So how do you get there for
• 34:52
  most? People, you have to park.
• 34:53
  At the top of the Cliff and hike for about 25 minutes down a
• 34:56
  beautiful red rock Canyon. Or you can take a small boat
• 34:59
  from the nearby town of Hamari. That barrier to entry, that
• 35:03
  little bit of effort, it filters out 90% of the tourists.
• 35:07
  And the reward for that hike? There's a perfect magic moment.
• 35:10
  Described in one of the travel logs.
• 35:12
  You hike down the heat. You're sweating, you're dusty.
• 35:14
  You finally hit the bottom. The Canyon opens up onto the
• 35:17
  stunning beach. You rent a kayak for €5.
• 35:21
  You paddle for 10 minutes around a small headland away from the
• 35:24
  main beach where the other hikers are, and you find a tiny
• 35:27
  hidden cave beach. White pebbles, water that the
• 35:31
  source described as Gatorade blue, that electric fake looking
• 35:35
  blue. And there's no one else there,
• 35:38
  Just you, the sea and the cliffs.
• 35:41
  That feeling of discovery. That's the prize, exactly that.
• 35:45
  Is what Albania still offers that you can no longer find in
• 35:49
  Italy or France. In Italy, that beach would have
• 35:52
  a ticket booth, a velvet rope and a 300 year old price tag.
• 35:57
  In Albania, for a bit of sweat, it's yours.
• 36:00
  And then there's the human element.
• 36:01
  The hospitality. We talked about the village of
• 36:03
  Caparo, Upper Caparo specifically.
• 36:06
  So there's the modern beach village down on the coast, and
• 36:09
  then perched up on the mountain is the old original Stone
• 36:11
  village. It's half abandoned, half
• 36:13
  restored. It's incredibly beautiful.
• 36:15
  Cobblestone paths, ancient olive trees, views for miles.
• 36:20
  And what happened there? The source.
• 36:21
  Describes just. Walking through the quiet
• 36:23
  village and being beckoned into a courtyard by an elderly woman,
• 36:26
  a grandmother, just a random local person.
• 36:28
  A total stranger, she spoke. No English, they spoke, no
• 36:31
  Albanian, but she gestured for them to sit down.
• 36:34
  She disappeared into her house and came back out with Gleco,
• 36:37
  this very traditional candied walnut preserve.
• 36:39
  Incredibly sweet and two glasses of cold water from her well.
• 36:42
  And she didn't want any money. Absolutely not.
• 36:44
  She refused it. She.
• 36:45
  Just wanted to host. She just wanted to share
• 36:47
  something just because. Just because.
• 36:49
  That. Is the old Albania that is the
• 36:52
  soul of the country. That hospitality is deep in the
• 36:55
  culture. It's getting harder to find in
• 36:57
  the loud beach clubs of Sarande, but it is absolutely still
• 37:00
  there, in the hills, in the small villages.
• 37:03
  That connection is the real highlight for many people.
• 37:06
  That's beautiful. That's the travel.
• 37:07
  Goal that we're all really searching for.
• 37:10
  But let's play devil's advocate. Let's say I'm listening to this
• 37:13
  and thinking, you know what? The traffic and the plumbing and
• 37:16
  the game of chicken on the crosswalk.
• 37:18
  It all sounds like a bit too much stress for my holiday.
• 37:21
  I want the Balkans, but I don't want the chaos.
• 37:24
  What are the alternatives? The escape hatches?
• 37:28
  We have a few. Excellent escape.
• 37:29
  Hatches first. You can just go north to
• 37:31
  Montenegro, which one source called the finished.
• 37:33
  Option. Yes, that's a good way to.
• 37:35
  Put it just north of the Albanian border.
• 37:37
  You have the Bay of Kotor, which is stunning.
• 37:39
  Look at the Scandinavian fewer dropped into the Balkans.
• 37:42
  It's more expensive than Albania for sure, but the roads work,
• 37:45
  the tunnels are lit, the infrastructure is organized.
• 37:47
  It's an easier, more polished trip.
• 37:49
  It's Europe light. OK, so that's option one.
• 37:51
  What's? Option two Option 2 is to go E
• 37:53
  to Bulgaria. The black seacoast.
• 37:56
  Who is this for? This is.
• 37:58
  If you are strictly. On a budget and your main
• 38:00
  priorities are cheap beer, sandy beaches and a party atmosphere?
• 38:05
  Go to sunny beach or so as a pole.
• 38:08
  The water isn't as pretty. It's the Black Sea, so it's
• 38:10
  darker. It's less dramatic than the
• 38:12
  Ionian, but it's incredibly cheap, it's organized and it's
• 38:15
  easy. And the third option is my
• 38:17
  favorite. This feels like a real pro level
• 38:19
  travel move. The Corfu hack.
• 38:22
  This is a brilliant strategy. For the hesitant or time poor
• 38:24
  traveler, you fly into Corfu in Greece.
• 38:28
  Often the flights are cheaper and more plentiful than flying
• 38:30
  into Toronto because Corfu is a major European holiday hub.
• 38:34
  So you start in Greece, you start.
• 38:35
  In the ease and. Comfort of the European Union.
• 38:38
  You spend a few days in Corfu, eat the feta, use the good
• 38:41
  roads, enjoy the reliable plumbing.
• 38:43
  Then when you're ready for an adventure, you go to the port
• 38:46
  and take the hydrofoil ferry across the surrounde.
• 38:49
  How long is that trip? It looks.
• 38:50
  Close on the map it takes 30 minutes.
• 38:53
  You can see the houses and buildings of Sarande from the
• 38:55
  coast of Corfu. They're that close, so you can
• 38:57
  just pop over you pop. Over you dip your.
• 39:00
  Toe in Albania, you rent a car for three days.
• 39:03
  You drive up to Juke shape. You experience the chaos.
• 39:06
  You see the breathtaking beauty. If it gets too much, or if the
• 39:10
  power goes out one too many times, you just retreat back to
• 39:13
  the comfort of Corfu for your flight home.
• 39:15
  It's a brilliant, low risk way to experience the best of both
• 39:19
  worlds. I love that a perfect.
• 39:21
  Strategy. OK, it's judgement time.
• 39:23
  We've gone through the geography, the money, the
• 39:25
  infrastructure, the dangers, and the hidden gems.
• 39:28
  Let's get to the final verdict. Let's look at the verdict
• 39:32
  matrix. Who should actually book a
• 39:33
  flight and go to the Albanian Riviera right now?
• 39:37
  Let's break it down by Traveler. Profile.
• 39:38
  First up, the backpacker, the solo traveler, the adventurer.
• 39:43
  And the verdict is absolutely. Yes, go.
• 39:46
  Now go immediately book the flight while you're listening to
• 39:48
  this. Why such a strong?
• 39:49
  Recommendation because your money goes.
• 39:51
  Incredibly far. The social scene in the hostels
• 39:54
  is booming. You will meet fascinating people
• 39:56
  from all over the world. The adventurous, slightly
• 39:59
  chaotic spirit of the country perfectly matches your travel
• 40:02
  style. The lack of luxury doesn't
• 40:04
  bother you, in fact, it adds to the story.
• 40:06
  Hitchhiking still works. The chaos is part of the fun for
• 40:09
  you. OK.
• 40:11
  Next Profile The mid range couple may be in their 30s or
• 40:15
  40s looking for a romantic getaway.
• 40:17
  For them it is. Yes, but with conditions.
• 40:20
  Big conditions 3. Very.
• 40:21
  Important conditions rule. One, you must avoid August.
• 40:25
  It is too hot, too crowded and too expensive.
• 40:27
  You will be miserable in traffic.
• 40:29
  Go in June or September when it's still beautiful but much
• 40:32
  calmer. Rule 2.
• 40:33
  You must rent a car. Do not try to do this on public
• 40:36
  transport. And Rule 3, you must avoid
• 40:39
  staying in surrounding. Base yourself in Hamari or a
• 40:42
  smaller village like Caparo or Borscht.
• 40:45
  If you follow those 3 rules, it'll be a stunning, romantic,
• 40:48
  adventurous trip. If you break those rules, you
• 40:51
  will fight a lot. I believe it.
• 40:53
  OK, Next up, the family with young kids, I'm talking
• 40:56
  toddlers, 5 year olds. For them it is a probably.
• 40:58
  No, that's a hard pass. I would.
• 41:00
  Say so unless. You are a very specific, very
• 41:04
  adventurous family who is used to roughing it.
• 41:06
  But for the average family, no. There are virtually no sidewalks
• 41:10
  in the coastal town, so strollers are useless.
• 41:12
  You will be pushing them in the road with the traffic.
• 41:14
  That sounds stressful. Very.
• 41:17
  The. Beaches are pebbles, which are
• 41:18
  hard and hot on little feet. The water gets deep instantly.
• 41:22
  One step and it's over a toddler's head.
• 41:24
  And frankly, the medical facilities in the South are very
• 41:27
  basic. If your kid gets a bad ear
• 41:29
  infection or cuts their foot on a rock, it's going to be a
• 41:31
  stressful and difficult situation.
• 41:33
  Go to a family friendly resort in Turkey or Mallorca instead.
• 41:37
  And finally, the luxury. Traveler.
• 41:39
  The person who is used to The Four Seasons, who values
• 41:42
  seamless service above all else. A no.
• 41:45
  Just a flat no. An emphatic no, Not even a
• 41:47
  little bit Not. Even a little bit.
• 41:49
  You will be frustrated every single minute of every single
• 41:52
  day. You will pay high prices and get
• 41:55
  inconsistent, often the different service.
• 41:57
  The waiter will forget your wine.
• 41:59
  The power will go out during your shower.
• 42:01
  The trash on the side of the beautiful mountain roads will
• 42:03
  annoy you. The traffic will make you
• 42:05
  furious. If you want luxury, go to
• 42:07
  Puglia, go to the French Riviera.
• 42:09
  Albania isn't ready for you yet, and you aren't ready for
• 42:12
  Albania. You will just end up writing
• 42:14
  angry one star TripAdvisor reviews.
• 42:16
  So when we boil it all. Down What does this all mean?
• 42:19
  What is the spirit of this place?
• 42:21
  It means Albania is vibrant. It's raw.
• 42:23
  It's breathtakingly beautiful, but it is an adventure.
• 42:26
  It is not a relaxation retreat. It demands something from you.
• 42:29
  It requires patience, a sense of humor, and a willingness to
• 42:32
  embrace the chaos. You have to work for the reward.
• 42:35
  You absolutely do. It's type 2.
• 42:36
  Fun sometimes the kind of fun that's more fun to talk about
• 42:38
  afterwards. But the reward, that electric
• 42:42
  blue water, the towering mountains, the gleeco in the
• 42:44
  quiet village, the feeling that you are somewhere real and
• 42:47
  untamed is unique in Europe right now.
• 42:50
  So a final summary of the. Action plan If you're going face
• 42:54
  yourself in Hamari, rent the 4x4 from Dry Lawn on WhatsApp, bring
• 42:59
  water shoes for the Pebble beaches and bring cash.
• 43:02
  Lots and lots of cash. I want to leave our listener
• 43:04
  with one. Final thought We started this
• 43:06
  whole deep dive with the concept of the gentrification clock.
• 43:09
  Yes, ticking away. If this is the wild.
• 43:12
  Frontier right now, in this moment, what does it look like
• 43:15
  in five years? That's the great and.
• 43:18
  Slightly tragic paradox, isn't it?
• 43:20
  Yeah, we all want the roads to be fixed, we want the trash to
• 43:22
  be cleaned up, we want reliable electricity and proper sewage
• 43:25
  treatment. But the moment that happens, the
• 43:28
  moment that happens, the prices will.
• 43:30
  Double the local guy on WhatsApp will be replaced by a corporate
• 43:33
  Hertz office. And the chaos, the very thing
• 43:36
  that makes it feel so alive, will be paved over and
• 43:39
  sanitized. So is the charm and the chaos.
• 43:41
  I think it might be Will. Fixing the infrastructure.
• 43:44
  Inadvertently destroy the very soul that makes Albania so
• 43:48
  special right now. Will it just become another
• 43:50
  predictable, interchangeable strip of the Mediterranean?
• 43:53
  There's only one way to find out for.
• 43:54
  Yourself, you have to go now before that clock strikes 12.
• 43:59
  Thanks for. Listening to the.
• 44:00
  Deep dive.