Albania's beaches - 14 beautiful beaches in Albania

Albania's beaches! Today we present five beautiful beaches in Albania, including our own favourite Bunec Beach. Albania's coastline is incredibly beautiful, with crystal clear waters and pretty little islands. There are bustling tourist resorts, and there are also beautiful beaches in Albania where you can almost be completely alone.

How do you decide which beaches are the best?

How you feel about a beach is of course personal and depends on a thousand different factors. What was the weather like when you were there? What time of year were you there? Who were you there with? We can only start from ourselves and write personally about the beaches we have visited. But what influences our perception of a beach? Here are some examples:

Albania's beaches

• You had a crush on the trip and you'll never forget the magical beach, even if it was really quite ordinary. "The beach was amazing"
• You understand no point in being without a bar within 100 metres. Once you've found your bartender and your umbrella drink, you're happy, regardless of what the beach actually looks like. "Totally ok beach, hick"
• You want to have the pulse of the big city nearby and become enamoured with the stream of shopping, nightclubs, tourists and vendors. "Damn nice beach"
• You hope Get away from the stress of everyday life and retreat to the less hectic part of the beach. The most important thing is that you get to relax for a few days. "A nice beach"

Albania's beaches

By the time we reached the beaches of Albania in our camper van, we had been travelling along the coast of Europe for eight months. We'd seen hundreds of beaches, and perhaps started looking for the ones that stood out. Here are our tips for beautiful beaches in Albania.

1st Radhima Beach

Radhima Beach in the region of Vlora is a real tourist destination with parasols and hotels. Here you will find restaurants with Italian food and you have a great view of the sea and the mountains on the other side.

The houses are low-built, which gives a cosy impression and removes the feeling of too much tourism. The ferry between Bari in Italy and Vlore here in Albania, means that Italians who want to get more out of their money on holiday, dominate the scene. Radhima Beach on the Albanian coast.

2nd Livadhi Beach

Livadhi Beach is located in Himara, in the region of Vlora. We made our way over the high mountain pass of Llogora and meandered down to Livadhi Beach, which is more influenced by Greek than Italian. Here it is more chill and a quieter beach with nice taverns along the promenade.

Life here at Livadhi beach is calm and so far tourism is relatively small-scale. We hope they can maintain this feeling in the future as Albania grows. There are also several other beautiful beaches nearby.

3. Bunec Beach is our favourite beach in Albania.

Bunec Beach is located in Piqeras in southern Albania, about 17 kilometres north of Saranda and is the "magic beach" for us. Almost completely untouched with a two kilometre gravel road down to the beach, where most locals seem to find it. When we got down to Bunec Beach we just said "WOW"!

The beach is very long and there are some small beach bars playing some music, a secluded hotel and the green-clad mountain range in the background. No hordes of people, no beach balls and no pedal boats - welcome to Bunec Beach Riviera!

Here the water is truly crystal clear and in two places pure cold mountain water flows straight into Bunec Beach. All these factors make the beach with the sea outside magical, and there can't be many places like this left in Europe. We swam in the 30-degree water and suddenly we were met by a cold water stream in the summer heat from the cold mountain water.

4th Saranda Beach

Saranda Beach located in the tourist centre Saranda. Here we have the beach and the crowd for those who want everything at once, with many foreign tourists. It is perfectly fine as a beach and extends around the seafront with restaurants along the coast. There is cheap shopping and lots of tourists from the North with nightclubs and discos. Saranda is also a good starting point for excursions and various interesting sights.

Saranda has influences from both Greece and Italy, with the Romans dominating and building amphitheatres here. Boat services from Italy run like trains in the summer and Greece is their neighbour. There are plenty of hotels and apartments to rent, and if you're flying in from the North, you might land in Corfu and take the 20-minute boat crossing to Albania. Welcome to Saranda!

5. Ksamil Beach

Ksamil Beach located just south of Saranda, is one of the most popular of all the beaches in Albania. Ksamil is a tourist paradise with small islands outside, and you can see Corfu right next to it. It has everything for the charter traveller with sun umbrellas, pedal boats, vendors, jet skis and everything you can imagine. The beach in the bay is shallow, and the white beach with turquoise water. It is not white sand but more fine-grained gravel.

In addition to Ksamil the green-clad mountains rise up, providing a beautiful contrast to the white beach and crystal clear sea. There are lovely restaurants Here we tried, and if you walk along the seafront you will find nightclubs and bars. If you are not afraid of crowds, Ksamil is very nice and charming.

More about Albania beaches

More beaches: Are there any other places that can compete for the title of Albania's most beautiful beaches? Yes, there might be! We haven't visited them all. Here are 9 beaches we haven't visited that are also supposed to be beautiful. Good luck!

6. Dhermi Beach

Beautiful beach with clear water and city life

7. Borsh beach is the longest of Albania's beaches

7 km long beautiful beach north of Saranda

8. Drymades

Beautiful beach with crystal clear water and few tourists

9. Durrës beach

10 km long sandy beach but lots of tourists

10. Albania's beaches: Vlora beach

Tourist town with turquoise Adriatic Sea outside

11. dhrale beach

Belongs to the green coast below the Llogara mountains and national park.

12. Jali beach

Located between Dhërmi and Livhadi on the Riviera

13. Gjipe beach

Located south of Dhërmi on the west coast

14. Albania's beaches: Shëngjin beach

60 km north-west of Tirana, this gem is located

More on Albania

If you want to know more about Albania, we've got plenty of tips after a month's road trip.