Albania

A small Balkan country with an outsized coastline, Albania mixes Ottoman-era stone bridges, communist-era bunkers, and a Riviera that's getting harder to keep a secret.

What most people don't realize about Albania is it's the same stunning coastline as Greece, sandwiched right between Croatia to its north and Greece to its south. It's drenched in turquoise water and sun-kissed coasts, yet less discovered, and therefore makes for a beautiful roadtrip that's unspoiled by too many crowds (yet).

Whenever we spend summers in Croatia, it's a careful dance of making sure we honor the European Union rules of how many days we're allowed inside. One year, we needed to make sure we weren't pushing our limits, so we hit the road and spent a few weeks in Albania, which currently sits just outside the limits.

We based ourselves first in the main city, Tirana, which was surprisingly modern. In the evenings, people filled restaurant squares full of twinkly lights, hearty meals, and their beloved Balkan cigarettes. One little-known fact is that bunkers are to Albania what breweries are to Colorado; Albania built hundreds of thousands of concrete military bunkers during the Cold War, so it averages about 22 bunkers per square mile. They're everywhere, and you're allowed to venture into some of them to see what life was like at various eras. We wandered through a handful of those, as well as the The House of Leaves communist-era surveillance museum, Skanderbeg Square, Et'hem Bey Mosque, and Resurrection Cathedral. One evening, we did a food tour (always one of our favorite ways to explore a city) and then it was time to hit the road south.

We stayed for a few days on the coast at the Yacht Hotel in Vlora, venturing out for day trips to Rozafa Castle, Mesi Bridge, the Venice Art Mask Factory, and Durrës, which had a Roman amphitheatre right in the middle of the city. Both the Vlora beaches and the Venice Art Mask Factory sparked business ideas in us, and we excitedly drove back to the city to spend a few weeks working from a hotel on a few business ideas, seeing if they had any legs.

The ideas: on the beaches, we noticed that everyone pinned beach towels to their beach umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun as it moved throughout the day. We wondered if there was a more elegant solution, mocked up prototypes, and contacted suppliers in China to see if there was a practical way to create it. The Venice Mask Factory, a very impressive hole-in-the-wall shop on a random road in Albania, actually supplies the majority of the masks you see in Venice and world-class films like Eyes Wide Shut. Derek wondered if there was a way to help the shop with an online storefront so they could launch worldwide appeal for masks at costume parties in the U.S. and beyond. In the end, neither of those ideas ended up being ones we would pursue further, but it was a fun few weeks of being creative and exercising our entrepreneurial muscles while we awaited re-entry into the E.U.

While the country does still feel a little less polished than its Grecian or Italian neighbors, that's also part of what makes it special. It still feels a little gritty and undiscovered, and that's part of the fun of, well, discovering it. If we go back, we'd spend longer on the coast and skip a city day or two... but we'll always remember our weeks spent in a hotel in Albania, crafting business ideas and coming up for air (and sustenance) at our favorite restaurant in the city, Oda Garden, with its fërgesë tirane (warm peppers with cheese), byrek (savory meat pies), and tavë kosi (baked lamb with yogurt and rice, Albania's national dish).