#1 choice for Trip Planning and Assistance in Albania:

We tell everyone who needs help in Tirana to contact Elton Çaushi and Gjergji Mihali, the wonderful staff at Albanian Trip.  Elton is that rare thing, a capable idealist, and one of our favorite people in the whole world.  Period.  They can help you with car rentals, getting onto the right minibus (this is NOT easy), escaping Rinas airport, day tours around Tirana or longer tours around Albania (personally planned out of sheer joy for the love they have for all of Albania), accommodation in the charming “Villa with a Star” where he has the single best private museum of Albanophile odds ‘n ends there that we’ve seen anywhere.  Not to mention having the good sense to ask us to make a Valbona Trail Sign for his front door.  Oops.  I did just mention it!

He also has a lot of very very sweet tortoises.

Contact: contact@albaniantrip.com, www.AlbanianTrip.com.  tel: Elton Çaushi 355 (0)68 40 58 529 or Gjergji  355 (0)69 22 63 333

Most Famous for Albanian Agency for Adventure Travel:

The first agency to adopt Valbona as destination, Outdoor Albania specializes in sporting, adventure travel.  If you want to go skiing, kayaking or mountain biking they are definitely the people to arrange your tour.   Their non-profit project (Outdoor Albania Association) was our first sponsor in the world of do-gooding!

Contact: www.outdooralbania.com, tel: +355 (0) 42 227 121

And Before You Even ASK us about Montenegro . . . . 

I will just tell you that I tell everyone to contact Hayley Wright of Black Mountain Tours.  She and her team seem to be pretty much our Montenegrin doppleganger, with the same philosophy to just be as helpful as possible, and trust that the work will follow, so I think it’s okay to contact her with random questions, even if you aren’t necessarily interested in a tour.  Starting in 2015, we have a pretty sweet collaboration, where they handle things on the “Mali i Zi” side, and we handle for them on the Albanian – so I really mean it when I say I trust her to look after you!  On the other hand, she (like us for Albania) is the Montenegrin administrator of ViaDinarica, so you can also look there.

Our Favorite Wacky (but quietly super-lux) Foreign Travel Agency

James and Marion at Untravelled Paths are nuts.  That’s why we love ’em.  They also have made themselves a very cool business lovingly planning charmingly unusual holidays.  From what I hear, most of their guests have given up, and just call them up when they want a holiday, and ask where to go next . . . . I’m not kidding!