Our costs in Albania

Albania has been the cheapest country we have visited so far. However, we have come up over budget. Want to find out why.

Our costs for the eight days we have been in Albania totalled €591. Our budget for the same period was €567. This means we have been over budget by 4%.

There is no need to panic. We have a good reason for having overspent: Dora is not covered by the insurance in Albania. Blame the EU for it.

Or rather our insurance company! GDR

Other motorhomers have still gone by simply buying a green card at the border. A third party insurance would only cover us for the costs of the damage to other people in case of an accident but not for the damage caused to us. Moreover, we wouldn’t be covered if other nasty things happened like Dora got broken into and our stuff  got stolen. So we didn’t want to risk it so we left her  in a 24 hours car park with constant attendance in Greece, and we went off to Albania for a week.

Living in Dora is the cheapest way of travelling so far. Leaving her behind meant that travel, accommodation and food costs obliviously increased.

We have tried to be cautious on what we have spent: we have travelled by bus, stayed in cheap accommodation and not gone to very expensive restaurants.

However, we don’t mind having spent more. It was good fun travelling by bus with locals, we also got to see more of the countryside of Albania. We loved good Albanian local food, at the end of the day, we don’t dine out that often. We enjoyed the B&B we stayed in. Having long showers, without worrying about running out of water, and sleeping in large beds where we don’t need to compete for space and sheets, were a luxury for us.

We have put together a comparison of how much we have spent on travelling, B&B and food, and how much we would have spent had we taken Dora with us:

The total amount we would have saved if we had travelled with Dora would have been €375, 66% under budget:

1) Accommodation would have been, obviously, free.

2) The costs for parking Dora would have been non-existent.

3) The price of diesel per litre was €1.22. If we had driven the same distance as we did with buses, we would have spent €13 less.

4) The average cost of our meals out per night was €22. We normally eat out one night in each country. So assuming we had followed the same ritual in Albania, we would have saved €153.

One thing that becomes apparent is that we should eat out more as it is such a part of the travel experience, and we have the budget for it. GDR

So, we correct our first statement on this post: Albania has been the cheapest country so far.

Our insurance does not cover other ex-soviets countries we also want to visit, such as Macedonia, Montenegro and Moldova. To get to these countries we are thinking of following the same approach as we have in Albania, as it worked out quite well. It would be interesting to see if we continue to keep relatively close to budget in these countries.

SM.