Alba­nia 2017
Report of an off-road trip through a wild coun­try

After I had alre­ady tra­ve­led to Alba­nia seve­ral times pri­va­tely, the desire grew in me to offer such a trip com­mer­ci­ally in the future. In the first place, I was­n’t really inte­res­ted in off-road dri­ving — there are cer­tainly bet­ter desti­na­ti­ons in Europe. Rather, it was the desire to bring this con­tras­ting coun­try, almost on our door­step and yet so com­ple­tely dif­fe­rent, with its diverse and, I think, quite intense con­trasts, to a wider group of peo­ple.

A little off-road and a little more cul­ture. Per­haps more in the sense of an over­lan­der than an off-roa­der. Or just a bit of both.

After the decis­ion was made in 2017 to turn Alba­nia into a salable con­cept, I recei­ved inqui­ries from fri­ends and acquain­tances whe­ther it would not be pos­si­ble to take part in a kind of scout tour in 2017. Some­what sur­pri­sed, this made me think about this type of off-road trip.

Said and done…

The idea quickly became serious and sud­denly I was no lon­ger tra­ve­ling alone in Alba­nia. What can I say … we were a great group. Ten days wel­ded us tog­e­ther, more than anyone expec­ted. We met as casual acquain­tances and retur­ned from the tour as fri­ends.

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Land rich in con­trasts, cul­tu­ral enrich­ment and uni­que­ness of the land­scape — Scout Off­road Tour Alba­nia 2017

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Com­pared to the rest of Europe — to put it cau­tiously — Alba­nia is a partly under­de­ve­lo­ped coun­try, alt­hough mature struc­tures can some­ti­mes be reco­gni­zed. In lar­ger metro­po­li­tan areas, attempts are being made to estab­lish a kind of Euro­pean stan­dard.
For me it is and will remain the most con­tras­ting region in the Bal­kans. This is cer­tainly due to the deca­des of iso­la­tion that this coun­try and its peo­ple expe­ri­en­ced under the dic­ta­tor Enver Hoxha.

At the same time, the Alba­ni­ans are pro­ba­bly the most (hos­pi­ta­ble) fri­endly and hel­pful peo­ple. A cir­cum­s­tance that makes one aware of how little respect and love in return is often shown in the afflu­ent society of Cen­tral Europe.

Not least because of this, an off-road trip to Alba­nia — if you take the time to immerse yours­elf in Alba­nian life, tra­vel with tole­rance and open­ness — is an enrich­ment for the spi­rit and Cen­tral Euro­pean under­stan­ding, as well as the view of things in gene­ral.

Of course, Alba­nia also has a lot to offer in terms of land­scape. In addi­tion to a, unfort­u­na­tely, omni­pre­sent gar­bage pro­blem, Albania’s nature is incre­di­bly mul­ti­face­ted and always har­bors new over­whel­ming sur­pri­ses on every off-road stage.

We were really impres­sed. No val­ley is like ano­ther. In hardly any other coun­try do the land­scape fea­tures alter­nate so cle­arly from val­ley to val­ley. The con­trasts are enorm­ous and so it was never bor­ing for us or my com­pa­n­ions during the ten days of the off-road tour tog­e­ther.

Coo­king tog­e­ther every evening, as well as sit­ting tog­e­ther at the crack­ling camp­fire, roun­ded off every day appro­pria­tely. I don’t think anyone thought of home during this breath­ta­king off-road trip.

The num­e­rous, really uni­que cul­tu­ral high­lights through which I was allo­wed to lead our inte­res­ted tour group should cer­tainly be men­tio­ned.

Come with us to Alba­nia and see for yours­elf!

Nils Lühr­mann

Mana­ging Direc­tor npl-overland.eu & Guide