September 20-23, 2022. Albania is part of the Balkans. It is on the Adriatic Sea and borders Greece. It’s just starting to get popular with tourists. I’d heard it was similar to Croatia and Montenegro but less touristy. I flew into Tirana and then spent a few nights in Shkodër, but the highlight was hiking between villages in the northern mountains.

The Accursed Mountains in northern Albania are gorgeous. The peaks are 2500m. Instead of just a single mountain, this is a complex range of mountains that has secluded villages and prevented the creation of large roads. As a result, I felt like I was going back in time as I traveled in this region. Horses, donkeys pulling carts, cows and goats roaming free, unpaved roads – these villages had it all. Since the mid 2010s, tourists have started coming to hike between some of the villages. I hiked from Valbona to Theth.

To get to Valbona, my guesthouse in Shkodër organized a minibus to a ferry then another minibus. It took about 7 hours to reach Valbona. I was lucky the ferry was running. Sometimes water levels are too low and the boat can’t make it.

Valbona is a tiny village which is currently experiencing a construction boom thanks to tourism. Multiple large hotels were being built. Currently, there are small family-run guesthouses. I stayed in one with 4 other people. The mother cooked me dinner, and I ate with her young daughter. The grandmother was hanging up laundry. The father drove the other guests and me to the trailhead in the morning. My room was in their main house. The grandmother and children’s rooms were right down the hall. Not much English was spoken which made it even better. I felt like I got the real Albanian mountain village experience. I worry the large tourist developments might take away from that.

The reason I was in Valbona was to hike to Theth, a village in the next valley over. It was supposed to be a 7-hour hike that promised beautiful views and a few mountain huts selling tea and coffee. The trail has historically been used by goatherds but more recently has become popular with tourists.

The hike was amazing and one of the highlights of my trip. After a hearty breakfast from the host mother, we (one Spanish and one French couple plus me) set off. It was about 7:30, and we must have been the first to leave Valbona since we didn’t see anyone on the trail. At the first mountain hut, I stopped for a cup of mountain tea with honey. The man selling it lived there. He had diverted water from a stream to flow over canned drinks to keep them cold. I chatted with him for 15 minutes or so and learned he’d lived in Buffalo, NY. Then, we continued on up the trail. We still hadn’t seen anyone except two extremely fit trail runners who’d come from the other side of the mountain.

At this point, there was a fork in the trail. The Spanish couple was in front of me and since we were going to same way I just glanced at the names Theth and Jerezca. We were going to Theth so that seemed ok. The trail got a lot fainter and we ended up on a boulder field. These are all signs I noticed and thought were weird since it is a very popular trail, but I pushed them aside. We kept seeing the same trail markers so we had to be going the right way. It got steeper and I could see the pass we would cross. It reminded me of trekking in Peru and I was very impressed most tourists considered it a moderate hike. I took a break and checked the map on my phone. I always like to have gps tracking to make sure I’m going the right way. Well as it’s probably obvious to my readers, we were on a different trail. The Spanish man noticed a line of people on the other side of mountain. Oops! We had to backtrack and then found the crowds. Our secluded hike became a steady line of people. It also got a lot easier.

We quickly reached the top. I got the obligatory photos and climbed down to find a quieter place to have lunch. I came upon a meadow with horses grazing freely and took a peaceful break.

The hike was all downhill from there. I passed lots of people climbing up and I was grateful to have started early. The hike ended once I reached the next guesthouse in Theth. The host greeted me warmly and I settled in. This place was a little larger than the previous guesthouse. There were about ten people staying and all got to share the same bathroom 🙂 In addition to the natural beauty, I really enjoyed the camaraderie with the other hikers. That night we had people from Canada, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and me from the USA.

Albania was such a treat. I couldn’t believe I was in Europe in 2022. I’m so grateful to experience it before mass tourism arrives. Fingers-crossed tourism doesn’t destroy its authenticity.