2-Week Balkan Adventure
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We travelled to Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Corfu in April 2026 for an epic 2-week adventure. We’d previously done a 7-day trip to Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia in 2024 and knew it was time to head back to the Balkans to explore what the other countries had to offer. In this guide, we will take you through our itinerary (a flipping good one) as well as everything you need to know before visiting these countries.

Itinerary

Day 1-3: Tirana, Albania

Day 3-5: Prizren, Kosovo

Day 5-7: Skopje, North Macedonia

Day 7-9: Ohrid, North Macedonia

Day 9-10: Permet, Albania

Day 10-13: Ksamil & Saranda, Albania (incl. day trip to Corfu)

Day 13-14: Berat, Albania

We recommend that you start your trip in Tirana, Albania. You can fly to Tirana from most UK airports and with operators like RyanAir, it’s usually a pretty cheap flight. If you find that tickets to Skopje make more sense for you, then just rejig the itinerary to start and end in Skopje. An alternative would be to fly to Corfu, then use the boat to come across to Albania and start your trip in Ksamil and Saranda. Once you’ve landed in Tirana, collect your rental car and set the satnav for Tirana city centre! We used rentfromlocals.al.

SKANDERBEG SQUARE, TIRANA

Days 1-3: Tirana

Tirana is a bustling city that gets you really into Albania - a great place to start! Provided you’ve got a good flight time, you’ve got two full days here to explore what the city has to offer. Our top sights to see:

Skanderbeg Square - this is the main square in Tirana with the iconic statue, Tirana’s rock (the head), Albanian flags, ancient murals, mosques, churches and trendy bars/restaurants. You can pay to go into Mosque which we did and regretted (it was nothing special).
Multicoloured Modern Statues on Bulevardi Deshmoret E Kombit - fun statues that give the city a modern vibe.
Pyramid of Tirana - for great views.
Tirana Castle - brilliant bars and shops inside.
Bunk’Art - an underground museum all about the communist times in Albania and Hoxha (not art).
Mosque of Namazgah - an impressive mosque representing united Albania.
Bovilla Lake - an incredible canyon and hike so close to Tirana - we didn’t get to go due to our car rental company forbidding it (the road isn’t ideal).

MULTICOLOURED STATUES

Day 3-5: Prizren, Kosovo

It’s roughly a 2 hours and 40 minute drive to Prizren - allow extra time to cross the border. The border crossing was incredibly easy and all we had to do was give over our passports and car paperwork (make sure you ask your car rental company where this is in the car).

Prizren is incredibly scenic with some really impressive viewpoints. We recommend that you visit:

Ura E Gurit - the iconic bridge with the mosque in the background.
Prizren Fort - take the hike up to the fort, it’s worth it for the views!
Prizren View Point - take the car up to the view point for views of the whole city.
Visit Restaurant Jasika - a sweet family owns this restaurant and the food is top notch.

URA E GURIT

Day 5-7: Skopje, North Macedonia

Your time in Kosovo has come to an end! There are two routes to Skopje, either through the capital city of Pristina which is well worth stopping off at to truly experience Kosovo - this route takes 2 hours 10 minutes. Or you can drive through the mountains which takes 2 hours 25 minutes. We opted to drive through the mountains and it was an unforgettable experience. We were driving in sunny 18oC weather but as we ascended up the mountain, we came across snow! It was truly a phenomenal surprise.

Skopje has a completely different feel to Tirana and Prizren. For us, it felt really modern and generally a bit wealthier than Albania and Kosovo. Through some research, we learned that Skopje invested a lot of money into statues in 2014 to make the city more aesthetically pleasing and attract tourists. It definitely worked as we thought Skopje was beautiful, ranking it extremely high amongst our list of cities in Europe.

SKOPJE, NORTH MACEDONIA

Day 5: Sightseeing

Things to do/see:

Statue sightsee - there are somewhere between 100-300 new statues in Skopje!
Church of St Clement of Ohrid - a beautifully modern gothic church.
Skopje Fortress - for incredible views of the city.
Monument Philip II of Macedonia - a stunning fountain.
The Bridge of Art
Stone Bridge
Alexander the Great Statue
Mother Theresa Memorial House
Church of Saints Constantine and Helen
Old Bazaar

OLD BAZAAR

Day 6: Matka Canyon

The Matka Canyon is only a 25 minute drive outside of Skopje and is well worth the visit. Wear some suitable walking shoes and spend the day walking the trail and doing a boat trip down the canyon. Truly beautiful!

Tip: Go quite early to guarantee a parking space. The parking is free but get full extremely quickly.

MATKA CANYON

Day 7-9: Ohrid, North Macedonia

Set off quite early from Skopje and drive 3 hours down to Ohrid. Ohrid was the place that Emmy was the most excited for and it did not disappoint.

We stayed here and highly recommend it:

Ohrid must-dos:

Take a boat trip down to the Bay of Bones Museum and St Nuam Monastery. You can find a boat trip on the promenade (€29,99 pp in 2026) and organise your booking for the next day.
Church of Saint John at Kaneo.
Walk along the boardwalk.
Visit the local markets and shops for pearls.
Hike up to the fortress.
Church of Saint Sophia.

CHURCH OF SAINT JOHN AT KANEO

Days 9-10: Permet

It’s a 4-hour drive down to Permet from Ohrid so make sure you’ve packed some snacks! The drive is very scenic and we stopped a few times to take some awesome pictures with the car.

Once you get to Permet, have a wonder around and grab some lunch from a nearby restaurant/cafe. There isn’t a whole lot to see in Permet town other than the town centre and river. We recommend going to the Llixhat e Benjes Thermal Baths. Parking is easy but note that some locals may ask you for 200Lek (€2) to park. We had no idea if this was a scam or not (as detailed on Google Maps) but for €2, we weren’t prepared to argue the toss. It poured it down with rain when we visited the baths and West and I really did not enjoy the experience but our two travel companions thought it was brilliant… brrr!

In Permet, you can do water rafting on the river. We scheduled this through our hotel for Day 10 and were so excited except West began to fall poorly and unfortunately wetsuits, cold water and high fevers don’t mix too well. If you get to go rafting, please let us know how it went! You can contact us here.

We stayed in this hotel and highly recommend it. The owner is a really nice chap.

It doesn't let me add this hotel as an embed code/active link, so copy and paste the name and address into your booking search!

THERMAL BATHS

Days 10-13: Ksamil, Saranda and Corfu

It’s beach time! Visiting Albania is not complete without seeing the Albanian Riviera which is often compared to the Maldives due to it’s bright blue waters and white sandy stone beaches.

Day 10: Stay overnight in Ksamil

Day 11: Stay overnight in Saranda

Day 12: Stay overnight in Saranda and day trip to Corfu

In Ksamil, you’ve got lots of different beach clubs, beaches and places to eat and drink. In the summer months, this place can get absolutely rammed and so we recommend going in the shoulder seasons (May & September). We visited in April and no beach clubs were open so it was a real bummer. We recommend Bora Bora beach and renting a pedalo to the three Ksamil islands. You should also go and get a photo on the iconic Ksamil hand.

HAND OF KSAMIL

BORA BORA BEACH

In Saranda, the beaches aren’t quite as beautiful as Ksamil but still extremely stunning. Here you can explore the town centre, relax on the beach and of course, get the boat to Corfu. The returning day ticket was €70 each for the fast boat (25 minutes) and the slower boat was cheaper (unsure on prices). You need to get to the boat ticket office at least 30 minutes before departure as you’re crossing into the EU and if you can, book in advance. There are two major boat providers Finnikas and Ionian Seaways. They are both the same really with no price differences.

In Corfu, you can explore the old town, the fortress, local beaches and the iconic airport runway. You can stand right underneath the planes landing! Really cool.

BOAT TO CORFU

CORFU OLD TOWN

CORFU RUNWAY

Day 13-14: Berat

It’s the last day… but Berat is a great last city in Albania to explore. Leave Saranda relatively early and drive 3 hours to the city of a hundred windows. Berat is extremely picturesque and a unique place to explore.

Whilst in the city, we recommend you:

Stroll around the town and bridges - you’ll snap some great photos!
Explore Berat castle
Hike up to a cafe/restaurant with a view for lunch
Take a cooking class with an Albanian family who live in the castle - for the class we did, click here. This was definitely the highlight!