How Much it Cost to Spent (About) One Week in Albania
When we first told people we were going all the way to Europe to go to Albania, we got lots of confused, blank stares and raised eyebrows. Most Americans don’t know what to picture when they think of Albania because they’ve never heard of anyone visiting there at all, let alone for a beach vacation. It really is a gorgeous country, in between Greece and Montenegro but and it’s finally experiencing an economic boom of sorts after finally dissolving its socialist government in 1998. But the real reason we visited is because it’s not only gorgeous, but it’s cheap.
Rental Car:
We used DiscoverCars.com and found the best deals. I personally never go to specific company websites to search for rental cars, especially when looking for cars in Europe. It’s too time consuming and I never know if I’m getting the best deal. Using DiscoverCars.com and using their filters, helped us easily find an affordable, quality car from a company with above an 8.0 Rating. The car we found for the three of us, cost $165 for 5 Days or $32.8 Per Day. That’s hard to beat.
Food:
I have to put a disclaimer here, Sam and I aren’t fancy eaters. We don’t love big elaborate dinners and when there is a cheap good option, we’ll go for it. So these expenses are mostly from grocery snacks/drinks and gyros. The average gyro in our experience was less than $5. Sometimes we’d go crazy and get some fries or something, but our verge dinner or lunch cost us about $18. The total we spent on food was about $200. We put $81.38 on my credit card and spent about $100 in cash that I didn’t track perfectly. Pro Tip: Choose a hotel that includes breakfast so you never have to worry about that expense.
Hotels:
We stayed at one hotel in Ksamil, a beach town, for four nights and then we did one night at a hotel closer to the airport on the last night. Ksamil has a ton of options and there is SO MUCH construction there so there is a ton of competition. The whole area almost had southeast Asia vibes because there was a lot of luxury being constructed, but the construction conditions had it feeling less luxurious than we would have liked. But overall, our hotels were incredibly clean and modern. Our four nights in Ksamil with breakfast cost $210.12 ($52.13/night) and our one night at the airport hotel cost $57.18.
Activities:
All we did while in Albania was go to the local beaches and during a rainy day we drove to an old mountain town that was really cool. We paid for chairs twice at the beaches. This isn’t mandatory as the beaches are public, but for 10 Euros (give or take depending on the season) you can have two chairs and an umbrella. We rented chairs twice. The gas for us to get to the mountain town and drive the four hours each way from Tirana to Ksamil cost us about $120 USD.
Total:
Our final total for this five night vacation was about $774.18 USD. Overall it was a great budget destination. If you want to take advantage of an up and coming place for a good price, Albania is for you. If you don’t love construction dust and want something more established, I’d recommend staying away from Ksamil and checking out other quieter towns. But either way, Albania is both beautiful and affordable.
*This post was sponsored by DiscoverCars.com but as always, all opinions are our own.
