Albania family holidays

We know you’ll love our family holidays in Albania, and the reason we know that is that in many cases our travel partners have personally tested them with their own families. They’ve spent their school holidays trying out the activities, getting to know the guides, visiting the guest houses and homestays and journeying from place to place to find likely spots for a swim, a picnic or a photo opportunity.

Albania may not be ‘off the beaten track’ to international travellers anymore, but as a destination for family holidays the country is still quite new on the scene. With our trips, you can have confidence that the menu in the restaurant will be kid-friendly, that the activity instructors will be qualified and experienced, and that everything will be perfectly tailored to families looking for a mix of adventure, culture and relaxation.

Emma and Ben Heywood are the founders of our partner Undiscovered Balkans. Our trips with them focus on mountainous northern Albania rather than the much busier Adriatic coast.

You’ll find plenty of ups and downs in northern Albania; it’s home to the Accursed Alps, which encompass two neighbouring national parks in Theth and Valbona Valley. There are stunning hikes over alpine passes, to waterfalls fed by melting snow, to the summits of sacred mountains past shepherd huts and curious goats. And there are thrilling rafting and canyoning trips down wild rivers, and leaps into lakes lined with limestone cliffs.

“Tourism provides an economic boost for remote and quite poor communities here,” says Emma. “As always there are ups and downs with tourism, but for now visitor numbers in the north are sustainable and Albania continues to amaze – it’s such a fascinating country.”

Our Albania family tours also explore the gorgeous south of the country, and its sun-drenched Adriatic coast. Here you can snorkel in a marine park where Greek, Roman and WWII ships were sunk, poke your heads into a cave once used as a pirate hideout, and wander a mysterious island laced with tunnels and bunkers.

The walk over the pass from Theth to Valbona is one of the most famous in northern Albania. It’s a six hours-plus hike through pine forest and karst rock landscapes, offering spectacular valley views as you cross the plateau. Even kids who aren’t normally given to long walks find themselves motivated when they learn that there will be a mule joining them to carry the bags. Another hike could take you to the ‘Blue Eye’, where those with the nerve can take a chilly dip in a beautiful clear pool formed by melting snow cascading down from the mountains.

Lake Shkodra is a blissful setting for a spot of stand-up paddleboarding. The calm waters are spread with lily pads, and there is a resident colony of endangered Dalmatian pelicans that nest here and have become a popular tourist attraction. Our holidays directly support conservation efforts such as by helping pay for and erect artificial breeding platforms. You can enjoy some wild swimming here, and in the deep-blue waters of the manmade Lake Komani, too.

Albania’s rivers and canyons offer more white-knuckle pursuits. In the Osumi and Gradeci canyons you can paddle rafts over class three rapids and mini waterfalls. By July though, the water levels are too low, and so rafting switches to the Vjosa, which has been dubbed ‘the last wild river in Europe’. It flows, uninterrupted by dams, from Greece to the Adriatic Sea, supporting over 1,000 wildlife species. Albania has 100 percent hydroelectric power, but the dams required for this renewable energy choke rivers. Precious water is also increasingly being siphoned off for the benefit of tourism resorts on the coast.

Most of your time will be spent around mountains, rivers, lakes and coast, but our holidays do occasionally dip into towns and cities. There is Berat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its grand Ottoman architecture, and Kruje, with its cobbled streets and castle, where you shop in the market, or learn how to make a traditional Albanian skullcap with a local weaver. Gjirokaster is the birthplace of the dictator Enver Hoxha, whose paranoid rule kept Albania cut off from the world for decades. Stone houses stretch up the hillside, topped by a castle that affords panoramic views over the surrounding area.

“Albania was once part of the Ottoman Empire, and the food culture is outstanding,” says Emma. “Lots of chefs returned after the fall of Communism and set up incredible restaurants. Expect Albanian twists on Turkish and Greek traditions, and a lot of yoghurt-based cooking such as a popular casserole dish called tave kosi.” Byrek is another popular dish, a pie topped with filo pastry, filled with meat, vegetables or cheese.

A family holiday to Albania can also take in the Adriatic coast. Here you travel by motorboat into the Karaburun-Sazan National Marine Park, where you can snorkel, or swim in caves said to have once been used by pirates. There are ancient Greek ruins here, set amid dusty olive groves. And an island, Sazan, that was for many years a Soviet submarine base closed off to the public, with hundreds of bunkers and secret tunnels still hidden away in the hills.

Albanian culture is threaded throughout our tours. English is not widely spoken, but your guides will make introductions in the communities you visit. That means that you can learn a little about the lives of beekeepers, carpet makers, carp smokers, and people who make their own wine, cheese, olive oil or brandy at home. You can perhaps pick up a few unique souvenirs, and just spending a small amount can make a big difference in remote areas where there is not a great deal of well-paid employment. By doing so you also help to preserve these lovely bits of Albanian heritage.

A typical family getaway in Albania is a week-long affair – a fully escorted small group tour where there will probably be around 16 people in the group, so assume three or four families. Minimum ages vary from seven to 14 depending on how adventurous the activities get, but you’ll always be doing them under the watchful eye of experienced, English-speaking instructors and guides.

One of the most important aspects of any family get-together is the accommodation. Albania does not disappoint in this regard, although given you’ll mostly be in quite isolated areas that don’t see many tourists, you shouldn’t expect all mod cons. Our trips can see you glamping by a lakeside, staying in three-star guest houses, or helping to round up the chickens outside a traditional stone highlander cottage before a homecooked dinner. What they all have in common is that they are owned by local people, and very often they are family-run.

Trips take place between May and October, with July and August seeing the highest prices, and some crowding especially around the coast, and Theth in the north. Where necessary, and to help ease the pressure of overtourism, our partners will arrange early departures for activities and look to less-visited areas and walking trails.