Albania Car Hire Destination Guide

Car hire is available in Albania from the major car rental companies, mostly focused in and around the capital, Tirana. Albania, once a totalitarian state, is a sunny and largely undiscovered Mediterranean country, undergoing much redevelopment and rejuvenation, largely centred around the vibrant capital, Tirana.

While security in Albania is generally OK, due to poverty, certain parts of the country require a little extra caution. The northeast of the country, which borders Kosovo, is dangerous due to the presence of landmines and armed gangs. It should only be tackled by travellers with local guides. Caution is also advised in the area bordering Macedonia, as security is poor.

Driving in Albania
Albania has a reputation for having the worst drivers in Europe. Up until the late eighties there were only around 500 cars in Albania, a privilege only available to a select few under the regime of former ruler Enver Hoxha. Following his death in 1985 the new regime began to liberalise the country including lifting travel restrictions and a ban on privately owning a car in 1991 which led to an influx of new cars being brought into the country.

The total length of Albania's highways more than doubled in the first three decades after World War II, and by the 1980s almost all of the country's remote mountain areas were connected, at least by dirt roads, with the capital city of Tirana and ports on the Adriatic and Ionian Sea. The country's roads, however, were generally narrow, poorly marked, pocked with holes, and in the early 1990s often crowded with pedestrians and people riding mules, bicycles, and horse-drawn carts.

Even in tiny villages, hundreds of people of all ages gathered daily along main roads waving their arms seeking rides, and gangs of children often blocked rural highways hoping to coax foreign travellers into tossing them candy. Heavy snowfalls cut off some mountain areas for weeks at a time.

Central government funding of local road maintenance effectively ended in 1991, and the breakdown of repair vehicles because of a lack of spare parts threatened to close access to some remote areas. A group of Greek construction companies signed a protocol with the Albanian government in July 1990 to build a 200 kilometre road across the southern part of the country, extending from the Albanian-Greek border to Durrës.

In 1991 the Albanian government lifted the decades-old ban on private-vehicle ownership. The country's roads, once almost devoid of motor traffic, began filling up with recklessly driven cars that had been bought in used-car lots across Europe. Car imports numbered about 1,500 per month, and a black-market car lot began operating just off Tirana's main square. Traffic in the capital remained light, but traffic lights and other control devices were urgently needed to deal with the multiplying number of privately owned cars. Albanian entrepreneurs also imported used Greek buses and started carrying passengers on intercity routes that did not exist or had been poorly serviced during the communist era. Gangs of hijackers and thieves, who preyed on truck and automobile traffic, made road travel hazardous in some regions.

Currently the major cities of the country are linked with first class national roads. There is a four lane highway connecting the city of Durres with Tirana and the city of Durres with the city of Lushnje. Albania is partaking in the construction of what it sees as three major corridors of transportation. The major priority as of present is the construction of the Durres-Priština highway.

Related Links
• Rental Locations : A guide to destinations throughout the world
• Albania : Official tourism web site for Albania