Albania Customized Tours and Trips

Hello everyone and welcome to my profile! My name is Elgerta, and I am the travel expert you are looking for. I grew up in Berat, "the city of a thousand windows", in Albania. I studied in France and now I live and work in Tirana. I absolutely love travel, and I want to share my passion for traveling and the beauty of the Balkan landscape with you. Traveling has given me a different perspective on the world, which is why I left France after my studies to return to my country and promote its beauty, culture, and history to the world. Albania is a small country with great tourist potential, offering fairy-tale journeys through the Alps and the Riviera, as well as rocky beaches and wild nature, and for these reasons, it deserves my full dedication. As a French teacher, I have always wanted to interact with people of different nationalities and cultures and this job has brought me into contact with people from all over the world.

I came to travel via journalism. Before I started Drive Albania, I spent a decade floating around London working on magazines such as GQ, Esquire, Men's Health, Car Magazine and at one point, bizarrely, even Brides Magazine! I ended up writing a fair amount of travel stories, which brought me to Albania in 2012. My mother, who was very left-wing, had visited twice in the 1980s when Albania was supposedly closed to the outside world. In 2012, the Telegraph asked her to go back (with me, the journalist, in tow) to see how it had changed. The answer was "a lot". I was fascinated with the country, and the following year drove down in my Toyota Rav4 to do some more exploring. I quickly discovered that the road network was so bad that even this fairly capable 4x4 was out of its depth. One thing led to another and today I find myself living in Tirana, running a small agency focused on getting visitors to the more remote regions of Albania and Kosovo.

I grew up in Northern Albania in an area which we call the Albanian Alps. This location is part of the reason why I have a deep interest in outdoor activities and adventure tourism. I like to hike and mountain bike in the Alps during the summer, and during the winter I like to snowshoe and ski as well. I have been working in the tourism sector since 2005 when I joined the travel agency company that my father started in 1976. Under my father’s wings I learned the art of this business. I love the challenge that comes with traveling. There is so much to learn and experience. It also helps me get away from the routine and pushes me to be an active explorer. I am a friendly and sincere person with lots of local know-how to help you have the best experience possible in this part of the world!