Balkans

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from London to Tirana: Albania’s Open Secret I booked it almost on a dare. A friend had sent a screenshot of a Wizz Air fare — London to Tirana, mid-November, around £42 each way — with the message: “Albania. Go or no?” I went. And standing in Skanderbeg Square two months later, looking up at the Dajti mountain framed against a winter-blue sky and paying 200 lek (about £1.50) for a coffee in the Blloku district, I couldn’t quite believe this was still Europe’s best-kept travel secret. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Albania, in One Sentence We almost didn’t stop. The road over the Llogara Pass spat us out above the Ionian coast in late September, and the first beach we saw, Dhermi, was so empty it looked closed. Then a man waved us into a beach bar, poured two coffees, and told us we’d have paid triple and queued for a sunbed if we’d come six weeks earlier. The water was still 25 C. We swam until dark with maybe ten other people on a kilometre of sand, and I kept thinking the same thing: how is this still a secret? ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Montenegro, in One Sentence The ferry across the Bay of Kotor cut its engine and we drifted for a second in total silence, mountains dropping straight into water so still it doubled the sky. It was late September, the air was 24 C, and the woman selling figs at the dock told us we’d just missed “the madness” by three weeks. She meant August, when the same road we’d had half to ourselves crawls bumper to bumper and the prices double. We’d booked late by accident, and it turned out to be the smartest mistake of the trip. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. You Can Still Travel Europe for 30 Euros a Day On the third night of our week in Albania, my wife totted up what we’d spent and turned the phone screen toward me with a slightly suspicious look: thirty-four euros each, that day. That included a room with a sea view in Himare, two coffees, a long lunch, and a dinner of grilled fish with a fresh salad that had come to under ten euros for both of us. She thought she’d made a mistake in the arithmetic. She hadn’t. I’ll come back to the one thing that almost blew that budget anyway — it’s the mistake nearly everyone makes here. ...