Discovering Albania behind the scenes means that this kind of visit requires a reliable pick-up truck that can handle Albanian roads, off-road roads, hard-to-reach beaches and bivouacing on sandy beaches when loaded. The winning combination for this venture is a Ford Ranger and a bivouac.
The idea of visiting Albania has been brewing in me for a long time. We wanted to take advantage of the bivouac on the vehicle. The Ford Ranger has been without real competition since 2011, and confidence in it was 100 percent. The route was roughly planned, but I adapted to the current situations during the trip. The first stop was Sarajevo, then via Montenegro or Durmitor to Albania.
The team and I entered Albania at the Božaj border crossing. We exchanged some money in Shkodër and set off on rather bad roads to the Komani Lake ferry. The place Komani has a tunnel through which you exit directly to the loading platform. The dammed river, along which we drove for about 2-3 hours, is a real experience of untouched Albanian landscape. Mountains from the left and right, the means of transport is a donkey. Our goal was to reach the Valbone Valley, which is the extreme point of the high mountain gorge of the Albanian Alps. From here on, the village of Thet can only be reached with good hiking equipment.
We traveled through the north-eastern part of Albania through hill villages and some larger towns: Bajram Curri, Golaj, Kukes and Peskopi. Some routes also led us through Macedonia. In the southeastern part of Albania, we were surprised by the modern town of Korce. The path from Erseka to Leskovik was very narrow and hilly. The south of Albania is very touristic because of its preserved medieval towns. Gjirokaster is one of the towns worth visiting.
The first meeting with the sea was in the tourist town of Serande, which is classically modern. The south of Albania offers a lot of historical sights, and one of them is certainly the former settlement of Butrint.
The continuation of wandering from Seranda to Vlora was just a search for dream beaches, the most beautiful are precisely from Seranda to the Llogara pass itself. I discovered some coves and with the help of a 4 x 4 allowed myself more freedom, intimacy and the most beautiful parts of the beaches. After a week of various beaches, we started our journey home. Via Vlora, Fiera to the city of Berat, known to some as the city of a thousand windows.
Albania has built a lot of new expressways and there weren't many attractive routes in the last part of the trip, but it was fast.
Author of the article: Franci Zakrajšek
We traveled 3,122 km in 27 days. Ford Ranger 2.2 had a combined fuel consumption of 9.7 l/100 km. The team and I slept three times in the camp (private courtyards), otherwise we slept by the lakes, panoramic points or beaches. We felt completely safe, people are friendly and ready to help. All the younger generation speak English.
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