Bargain or Hype? How Much Does Albania Cost for a Family Per Day?

It felt like we should have paid more for our meal. Rice balls that crunch on the outside and stay hot in the middle. Meatballs you want to drag through the side of tzatziki you ordered. Then pork tigania, a beer, a glass of red wine, and the walnut cake the boys would later call the best thing they ate in Albania. You do a double-take once the bill arrives, at Odaja in Gjirokastër, and everywhere else you eat in Albania. Our Albania family trip cost is listed below. Every single line. You be the judge. Is Albania the bargain people say it is?

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What’s in this post

• What Our Albania Family Trip Cost Per Day: The Short Answer
• Getting Around: Car Rental
• Where We Stayed: Four Hotels, Four Price Points
• Where We Ate: Albanian Restaurant Prices
• Activities: Where Albania Surprises You Most
• Getting There: Flights
• What We’d Do Differently
• Bargain or Hype? Is Albania Affordable for Families?
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Our Albania Family Trip Cost Per Day: The Short Answer

That’s everything we spent once we landed: hotels, the rental car, fuel, every meal, every entrance fee, and two souvenirs.

If you add the Wizz Air round trip, the all-in number comes to €2,483.06 ($2,911.11), or €62.08 per person per day.

One thing to know before you go is that Albanians like euros. They often give you a 100 LEK to 1 euro exchange rate. Sometimes this works in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t, but usually it’s negligible once you consider ATM fees and if you need euros for another country.

Every conversion uses the late-December 2025 rates, €1 = 96 LEK and $1 = €0.85, line by line, so a total can differ from the sum of its lines, or from its per-person split, by a cent. LEK for anything we paid in euros or dollars converts at the same rate.

No Marriott Points? The Cash Version

Not everyone has 48,000 Marriott points to spend. Here’s the same trip with cash for the first Marriott stay, at the price of the two rooms we booked (not the suite we got).

Cash price: €828 for two Deluxe King rooms, two nights, at the rate for our dates in our Tirana Marriott review, plus the same €28 in taxes and fees. It replaces the 48,000 points.

Getting Around: Car Rental

Albania isn’t known for having the most robust public transit, so a rental car is all but required. We rented our car through Alamo via Amex for about €12 a day for the family. That covered the full circuit: Tirana, the Durrës coast, Fier, Gjirokastër, the Blue Eye, Butrint, and back to Tirana. To compare rates for your dates, AutoEurope lists the major rental companies side by side.

One candid note: our car threw warning lights from pickup, and the most annoying one was a slow tire leak. Our host at Stitch & Stone sent her “guy,” who took us to a shop where they found a bent rim and hammered it back into shape on the spot. Cost: €2. Albanian hospitality is not a cliché.

We only had to fill up with gas once, and we only had to pay for parking twice: three hours in Durrës and once at the Blue Eye. Going in December meant that several roads were closed due to the weather, and several sites had free parking because it was the low season.

Where We Stayed: Four Hotels, Four Price Points

Marriott Tirana, Stay 1

December for two nights in two rooms. We booked two Deluxe King rooms and checked into a Premier Suite with a connecting M Club twin room, courtesy of Titanium Elite status. The upgrade added about €1,914 in cash value on top of an already strong points redemption. Lounge access covered breakfast and dinner both nights. The full cost, points, and room breakdown is in our Tirana Marriott review.

Mövenpick Hotel Lalez, Durrës Coast

December 24–27 for three nights in one Triple Family Room: a king room plus a second room with a twin bed, breakfast included. A 25% off promotion brought the room rate down, and the total with breakfast and taxes came to €490.95.

The downside is that the hotel is 40 minutes from Durrës. On the plus side, it has gorgeous white sand beaches, a calm sea, and an indoor pool. In winter, plan to eat every meal at the hotel or drive 40 minutes each way to Durrës, because nothing nearby is open.

Stitch & Stone Suites, Gjirokastër

December for three nights in one Deluxe Triple: one queen, one TwinXL, and one twin. The boys took turns in the one lofted bed. Breakfast came included down the street at Café Furra, and the heated bathroom floors were necessary in December. Stitch & Stone was an excellent value for this trip.

An important note: we booked through Chase Travel, which uses Expedia. Expedia confirmed the booking, but the host never received our personal details. For any small-town property in Albania, book through Booking.com or Airbnb, so the host can reach you before arrival with check-in and parking instructions.

Marriott Tirana, Stay 2

December for one night and two rooms, again. While checking in, my kids politely asked if we could have the same rooms as last time. The host was so sweet, smiled, and said, “Only because you two are so cute.” We received the same upgraded Premier Suite and connecting twin club room. The lounge covered dinner that night and breakfast the morning of our flight.

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Where We Ate: Albanian Restaurant Prices

This is where Albania earns its reputation. Our food total for 10 days, every meal not covered by a hotel rate: 50,671 LEK (€527.82 / $620.97). That’s $15.52 per person per day!

The dishes our family loved:

• Shëndetli: the walnut cake (250 LEK at Odaja)
• Qifqi: rice balls crispy on the outside and hot in the middle, a Gjirokastër specialty
• Qofte: meatballs that we dipped in tzatziki, the best pairing of the trip
• Trahana: a hearty winter dish made of all sorts of dairy poured over bread and ham (450 LEK at Café Furra for breakfast)

The Low End

The cost of food in Albania is not steep (if you can’t already tell). But if you’re looking for low-cost eats, byrek is the way to go. The Albanian street food staple is a flaky savory pastry, and a piece cost us 30 to 100 LEK. Piceri Liti in Gjirokastër makes a quick, hot lunch. Opa in Tirana, forgettable Greek fast food, cost the most of the low-end stops; the byrek shops beat it on price and taste.

The Mid Range

Odaja got two of our three dinners in Gjirokastër, and both times we ordered more than we needed. Taverna Kuka served good food and takes cards, but Odaja was better.

In Tirana, zgaras are traditional grill houses, and the city has rows of them; pick the busiest one. At Zgara Kernace, my kids ate their weight in meat, and it cost us about $8 per person (talk about a steal). In Fier, we ordered gyros and pizza. Sadly, they appear to be out of business less than a year later.

The High End

Mullixhiu in Tirana is on the World’s 50 Best “to watch” list. The adults had the Metamorfoza tasting menu and the boys ordered off the menu. The menu was a food tour of the country without the drive. Book ahead.

Where the Wheels Came Off

The Mövenpick restaurant fed us three meals running, because nothing else nearby opened in winter. Fine food, but expensive by Albanian standards. Eat in town whenever town is within reach.

Activities: Where Albania Surprises You Most

Every entrance fee runs lower than you expect, and most of the big sites let kids under 12 in free.

That’s 5,700 LEK (€59.38) for every significant cultural site on a 10-day family trip. That number is not a typo.

Getting There: Flights

In most family trip costs, flights are the biggest single item.

For us: Barcelona to Tirana on Wizz Air, round trip for four, €508.84 ($598.64), or €127.21 per person.

If you’re based in Europe, there is no shortage of low-cost carriers that fly into Tirana from cities all across Europe. Routes change by season, though, so availability may differ at your closest airport depending on the time of year. If you dread low-cost carriers, read our post on how to survive budget airlines before you book.

Not based in Europe? Albania makes more sense as a Balkans add-on than a standalone trip. Fly into Tirana through a European connection, or cross from Corfu to Sarandë by ferry. The in-country costs hold up, but the flight adds a fixed overhead that changes the per-person math.

What We’d Do Differently

Ten days, four hotels, one bent rim. Here’s what we’d change next time.

• Rent a bigger car. Something with more power for the winter mountain roads, maybe a 4×4, but still small enough for two-way streets only one car wide.
• Go in spring or fall. The road to Berat is closed in the winter, and the beaches might be warm enough to enjoy.
• Head north to Shkodër. It was on the list for a quick day trip, but there was enough to see in Tirana to keep our attention.
• Try the Bilaj thermal baths. Benje was outdoors and free in winter. Bilaj, about 25 km from Tirana, is an indoor complex, and we want to see the difference.

Bargain or Hype? Is Albania Affordable for Families?

Bargain, with one caveat.

Next to the rest of Europe, Albania comes out a little cheaper overall, and the places you save the most are at the table and the ticket booth. Most of the meals we’d pay more for elsewhere in Europe or in the States. Over 10 days in Albania, we spent under $70 for all 4 of us on attractions total (5,700 LEK). Lodging: we haven’t found anything like the Stitch & Stone triple room, at that price for a family of four, in France, Spain, or Italy.

The one caveat came from eating at the Mövenpick three meals running, because everything else around it was closed for winter. That was a winter-planning problem, not an Albania problem. Stay somewhere with restaurants in walking distance, or budget for hotel meals up front.

Using points to book the Marriott changed the overall cost the most. Two nights that would have cost €828 in cash only cost us 48,000 points plus €28. And that’s not including the free upgrade.

Seasons change the costs too. Ksamil and Sarandë cost far more in summer than in December. The beach spots in winter are underpriced and mostly empty (and some are straight up closed). For when to go and what each season changes, see our Albania in winter with kids guide.

So what do you think? Is Albania a bargain, or is it all hype? We thought it was a bargain, but we went off-season.

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More From Albania

Planning the full trip? Our Albania in winter guide covers what’s open, what to skip, the complete southern route and how to add Albania to a Balkans trip.

The points stay deserves its own breakdown. The Tirana Marriott review covers the upgrade, the M Club lounge math and whether it’s worth booking with or without status.

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Frequently Asked Questions