We ended our time (for now) in Croatia at a little campground south of Dubrovnik. We were parked under kiwi trees and grape vines and the property was filled with orange trees, clementine trees, and lime trees. It was

probably my favorite campground so far as it had a beautiful property, a beach across the street, free internet, hot showers, and places to plug in our devices. Those last ones are my 3 must-haves when we decide to splurge on a place for a night. While we were there a German man talked us into skipping through Montenegro (for now) and heading right to Albania if we wanted basically the same thing for half the price. Mountains and warm, pristine, turquoise waters with white pebble beaches. That sounded nice to us we we drove right through Montenegro, admiring and taking note of some (jumpable) mountains, and entered into Albania.

We knew before hand Albania was going to be less developed than all the other countries we’ve driven through. We just weren’t sure how underdeveloped. In a nutshell, Albania was cut off from the world during commun

ist rule between the 60’s through the early 90’s. They do not have a railway system and the roads were minimal. Bikes and donkey and cart were the main means of transportation. Infrastructure is definitely a priority.

We were a little sketched out at the beginning, mainly because of all the trash and the unpredictable road situations. Our first night we found an abandoned parking lot by a beach and decided to call it quits for the night. Stray dogs and cats were fighting all night with the occasional yells from people. Trash. Everywhere. The next day we drove to a different beach on a peninsula. The smell. Trash everywhere. No white pebbles. Brown murky waters. And more trash. We didn’t stay long and decided a national park should be a safer bet.

The beach at Divajaka-Karavasta National Park was nicer. Sand. Trashy, but not as much as our first couple of stops. Vacant beach bar stands closed for the seasons were scattered about. We walked into the water here, and while it was definitely warmer than in Croatia, it wasn’t as clear! We parked on the beach and set up camp for the night. Random cars would drive around, but it was a wide open area without anyone around, for the most part. While cooking dinner, we noticed a guy sitting at one of the vacant beach bar stands watching us from about 25 meters away. He’d watch us. Have a smoke. Watch the sunset. Talk on his phone, and just sit. We thought we were being paranoid so we just ignored him. After the sun went down, the police drove by in a giant land rover and shined a light in our van door window. We opened up the door, they looked at us, we waved and said, “Hi!”, they waved and drove away. I guess we were cleared to sleep there for the night! Except, we were still a little uncomfortable from the dude sitting…and watching us? It was hard to tell. He remained there until well after sunset. It was dark, and we convinced ourselves we were not being paranoid and we weren’t going to sleep well if we stayed there not knowing this guy’s motives. We packed up our things and

drove off the beach into the more wooded area of the park, right across the street from the police building in the park. Since they cleared us to be parked on the beach, they probably wouldn’t mind us parking there. We fell asleep with minimal nighttime interruptions – just the occasional stray dog barking or loud motorcycle driving by.

As we headed further south down the coast, it was evident Albania is anxious to join the EU as the EU flag was flying in many places. It was also evident the roads were improving as well as buildings. Restaurants are everywhere, and most of them loo

k beautiful and new. Our favorite place so far has been just north of the city of Dhermi. It has been the nicest road we’ve driven on so far, and it leads to a captivating beach – white pebbles and warm, clear, turquoise waters as well as – pretty much nothing else! Step 1: build roads. If you build it, they will come! After they

built the perfect road, they’ve started on what look to be hotels or condos. We were able to enjoy the beach alone until 2 couples from Austria followed the road down. Regardless, the beach was big enough! 😉 Sadly, there are still mounds of rubbish littered around. I don’t understand – go the the beach, have a picnic, leave all trash behind. That’s basically what it looks like all around.

Today we woke up to some serious winds and rain on the way. For 25 Euro, we found a little hotel called, Augustus Hotel. If we were going to have a rain day, we decided it would be better in a hotel than in a van this time around. This was one of the only hotels open in the area – we’re definitely out of season. We’ve got a stunning view of the Albanian Riviera, a huge bathroom, a balcony, and space to do cartwheels! This is our first hotel in our 93 days of traveling in Europe, and I think we scored big time! We’re also the only guests here at the moment, so they gave us the biggest room! This is a new (small) hotel, opened in 2015, and while it’s not right on the beach, I’m sure they’ll be thriving in the next 3-5 years. I would bet this southern part of Albania will be thriving in the next 5-10 years with tourists from all over the world. Hopefully they’ll start using trashcans and dumpsters.