Did you know Albania has gorgeous beaches?! The entire southern coast of Albania is often called the Albanian Riviera. One of the coolest things is that it’s not only beach after beach, but there are entire parts of the coastline filled with countless HIDDEN beaches accessible only by boat or sometimes hiking! Albania shares water with Greece and Italy and the beaches are just as beautiful and significantly cheaper! We could even see the Greek island of Corfu across the water in the distance from the beautiful Livadhi Beach.

We took a bus from Tirana in the morning, and the views were incredible from Vlore going Southbound especially as we drove over the Llogara Pass. It was about a 5 hour bus ride counting stopping time for snacks, coffee, smoke breaks (did I mention smoking is still very popular in Albania), and bathroom breaks. All in all, it went smoothly with one little catch. Usually (at least in our couple days of experience) on an Albanian bus, there are 2 important people: the driver and the helper. I’m sure there’s a better name for him/her, but we’ll go with Helper. After you board the bus, the Helper eventually comes around, asks where you’re taking the bus to, and takes your payment depending on how far you’re going. If the Helper is good, which most of them seemed to be, they do a great job of keeping track of where passengers need to get off. So the Helper will announce the upcoming town alerting you if you’re planning to get out there, and if he remembers that it’s where you’re going, he’ll even find you and point it out. Especially around Himare, there are a lot of tourists, so this is extremely helpful for people who don’t know the area well or have good phone service to follow on a GPS app. The other thing is that in Albania bus stations and stops are not obvious at all. In fact, one small town might have a number of places where you can wait for an intercity bus. Locals usually know where to wait based on which direction they’re going and which bus they’re trying to take, but there’s absolutely no way to know without asking someone. We also noticed that buses will literally stop almost anywhere if you request it – it doesn’t have a be a proper stop. (You can also get a bus to stop for you literally anywhere along the road if you flag them down quickly enough). That being said, if your bus is going to X city and you’ve never been there before, you pretty much have zero idea exactly where the bus is going to stop.

About an hour before our stop, 2 English-speaking girls boarded our bus who seemed to be clueless tourists like ourselves, and I heard them mention they were getting off at the same stop as us. But before long, they had some kind of weird spat with the Helper of the bus. I was in and out of napping since we had gotten practically no sleep the night before, so I’m not entirely sure what happened. But I caught the tail end of them having horrible attitudes and speaking super rudely to the Helper (and also coughing up a storm, which prompted Kurt and I to mask up). When I saw the GPS nearing Himare, I waited, alert, for the Helper to announce the stop, but the bus drove on. As I watched the blue dot get to the center of town and then pass the center of town and then continue, at first I doubted myself. Perhaps this was one of those far off bus stops. No, no, my gut said that wasn’t right, and my gut should usually be trusted. Before I could speak up, one of the girls said, “Himare?”

“Himare? Ohhhhh, yeah, it’s here,” said the Helper getting his small revenge on the rude girls with a mischevious smirk on his face while instructing the bus driver to stop now as we were clearly already past the stop for Himare.

“Himare?” we also asked to confirm. The Helper looked shocked and slightly embarrassed. “You’re going to Borsh Beach,” (a bit down the road). “No, Himare.” He had forgotten we were supposed to get off there and hadn’t intended for us to get caught in his revenge plan of “forgetting” to announce the Himare stop. Thankfully his revenge just involved walking more or less an extra mile, and frankly I couldn’t blame him for trying to stick it to those girls. There were a bunch of older guys on the bus towards the front, and when it was clear we needed to get off here too, the men chuckled and pointed jovially and helpfully said “Oh! Himare! Sit down! Sit down! (meaning get off the bus here),” and sort of pushed us forward to “help” us not miss our stop any further. It was comical.

Eventually we made it to the main bus stop of Himare and flagged down a taxi to Livadhi Beach (a bit more of a drive down to the shore). Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to get down to any of the hidden beaches (because we were on a tight schedule but also because we accidentally took a 4 hour nap in the middle of our only day there… oops…), but next time!

During the day, you can find people lounging all along the beach. Pretty much everyone rents one of the many umbrellas or lounge shelters along the beach, and they’re super cheap! In the evening, stroll along the beach to find somewhere to eat. We found a delicious little Greek restaurant with the best baked feta and honey I’ve ever eaten and some equally delicious fish. The sunset was phenomenal, and after dark, we strolled along some more to check out the different beach bars. We even passed by a place that put up a movie screen and was showing an old movie on the beach! Our Albanian friends told us that Livadhi Beach has a nice chill quieter vibe, and for a hopping nightlife, all the young people go to the nearby Dhermi Beach. While we would have loved to experience Dhermi nightlife, we were thankful for a quiet evening. After dinner and sunset, we stopped for a drink at one of the beach bars. It caught our eye with its beachy, hippy vibe with unique lamps, rugs, pillows, bean bags, seats, tables, couches, armchairs, and a variety of other seating options including a giant teddy bear. It was fairly empty since it was still early, a Tuesday, and the lesser of the party beaches. An Albanian couple was finishing a drink and a smoke with their GORGEOUS saint bernard puppy next to them. As we walked past them to find the bartender, they tried anxiously to keep the dog in his “down” position so he wouldn’t jump all over us. The dog did great, and we greeted them with an understanding smile (been there… wait, STILL there with our 5 year old dog haha) and welcomed his adorable puppy energy and naturally became fast friends before they left. The bar tender offered to mix us up some kind of local specialties. No idea what they were, but one had basil and the other had pomegrante something or other and both were amazing! We lounged around drinking our beachy delicious drinks. Soon after that, a German family with 2 cute kids came in and sat nearby. We cheered while the kids stacked pillows and took turns doing a running jump over the piles, adding a pillow each time they cleared it.

We eventually walked back to our small bungalow for the evening enjoying the view of the stars as the water lapped against the white pebbled shore. The beach has a range of lodging options for everyone. There are super cheap tent-camping options on one end of the beach to high-end options scattered about (which still costs less than $200 a night) to lots of middle range hotels, guest-houses, etc. We managed to find a place that has small private bungalows with an ocean view and private bathroom for only about $40 per night.