Travel to countries that are laid back towards Covid: Albania

I think a lot of nationalities are under the impression that they aren't allowed to go anywhere right now and you couldn't be more wrong. A lot of it depends on what country you are a citizen of, but that was always true anyway. Covid hasn't changed that a great deal outside of places like Australia and New Zealand and personally, I think their total lockout approach is going to bite them in the ass in the long run. That's another story for another day though.

Today, I will focus on a really inexpensive place in Europe that Americans and most other nationalities can get a no nonsense visa for without being vaccinated or even being hassled a great deal.

While I have not been to this country, I know people that are there now in and they said it is like a dream come true as far as the government getting out of your way and letting you live your life and not forcing you to wear masks all the time. They do still have some curfews though, so if you are the type of person that likes to party until 4am you won't be able to do that.

Albania

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Albania is a country that mostly gets overlooking in Europe and gets overshadowed by their much more famous neighbors. It very well could be one of those undiscovered gems though since even before the world grinded to a halt it was extremely cheap compared to the rest of Europe.

At the moment many nationalities are granted 3-month visas for free and Americans can get 1-year visas for free as well. No vaccine is required and you don't even need a negative Covid test to get in. Once in the country there are notices about social distancing and limiting the number of people in a place to 50 or less. But if you are like me you don't really want to be around more than 50 people at at time anyway. I would prefer to be around far less than that actually.

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According to my friends who are there now, the social distancing and mask-wearing is enforced in the airport but they only had to get about a km away from there before they noticed a totally different scene. It all appears to be a "song and dance" for the airport because especially once you get to the beach areas, there doesn't seem to be any enforcement of any sort. There is a nightly curfew from 11pm to 6am but once again, according to my friends this seems to be very loosely enforced in the tourist areas. For me this wouldn't be an issue since I am normally home by then anyway.

It is very easy to find a furnished apartment near the beach for under $500 a month right now and my friends were able to find one for $250. These can be arranged beforehand but just like most things in life, it is probably better to have boots on the ground to do your search. I recommend booking an AirBnB for a week at your beach of choice and then figuring it out on your own by walking around. There are many agents and simply signs in English on establishments.

This could be a wonderful time to have an adventure in this country that seems to be taking advantage of the Covid situation to boost tourism in a country that up until this point, was mostly overlooked by most travelers in lieu of Spain, Greece, France, Portugal, Cypress etc.

I think the only issue that most people will find is that unless you are in Austria or Germany, there aren't very many direct flights into Albania, which I suppose isn't terribly surprising.

Most of these flights don't exist anymore so there is a good chance you are going to have to do a bit of searching to find a flight in and also deal with layovers in France, Germany, or Austria in order to get to Albania at all. I can't find out for certain but I don't believe there ever was direct flights to North America, but there certainly isn't now.

Getting there might be a little bit of a pain and if coming from USA/Canada, will certainly cost you more than $1000 one way. If this is something you are willing to deal with, it seems like an amazing place with super-cheap accommodation and a very laid-back lifestyle.