I recently (September 2026) travelled to Albania and Montenegro 4 nights each. Here is my trip report from both.
We went only to Tirana and Durrës.
It was a pretty cheap destination.
The hotel that we stayed at was lovely (in Tiranë)
Food is mostly delicious and very good value. I am from another Balkan country, so it felt similar to what I am used to.
Tiranë was an interesting place with lots of unique places to see (e.g. pyramid and Bunk Art 2).
The country felt like an unique place overall.
Taxis were cheap, but more importantly all the 4 taxis that we took did not try to scam us: I felt that they were fair with us even if some were more expensive than others.
It is a chaotic place. Finding the right place to board the bus at the bus station can be pretty stressful if you are a one time user.
As Tiranë has no tram or metro, the traffic there is horrendous. For example, what I can do 45 minutes on foot takes 30 minutes by taxi. I guess this is less of a problem if you are a tourist on holiday when you naturally have more time, but if I had to live there, that would seriously annoy me.
On that note, getting from one city to another in Albania is pretty slow compared to most of Europe.
Durrës. I am glad I went and saw it, but it wasn't interesting enough for me to want to go back there again. I want to go down to South Albania instead (e.g. Vlorë).
Lovely hotel and lovely food, and cheap too. Good tourist destination though takes long time to get from one place to another.
We stayed at a hotel up the hill from Tivat towards Kotor. We went to Kotor, Blue Caves and Tivat.
Lovely scenery, one of the best (if not the best) natural scenery in Europe: tall mountains, sea with Caves and Fjords.
Kotor and Tivat were very picturesque towns as well as most towns in the bay.
I went hiking around, which was amazing and safe.
The kayak trip was also really good, including diving at the Caves.
Montenegro is more orderly (less chaotic) than Albania.
I don't remember getting stuck in traffic even if driving speed is slow due to the sinuous mountain roads.
Quality of services is overall higher than Albania, but that comes at a catch (see below).
Firstly, Montenegro is roughly 2 to 3 times more expensive than Albania, and I'm my view that the difference in quality does not justify the extra cost. Therefore, worse value for money than Albania.
Unfortunately, we were in a place where we needed taxis to get around.
Taxis are expensive and they try it on: I got quoted 25€ for 5-6km or 15€ for 3-4km. I heard a woman being quoted 250€ from Kotor to Dubrovnik Airport, which is a ridiculous price. Not only that, the taxi drivers try and scam you as much as possible; which has been covered quite a lot on r/travel.
Food was expensive and of medium quality: generic Mediterranean/ Italian food at most places rather than any local cuisine/ produce.
What is the local culture? What is the local cuisine? What is the history of the place? Well, I had no idea when I was out there, as they are more interested in milking as much money out of tourists rather than showing their culture is all about.
If you come here for the outdoor activities and stay in a place where you don't need to rely on taxis, you will have a great time. Overall Montenegro sold its soul to tourism and in some ways it wants to turn itself into a playground for the rich (kind of like Monte Carlo / St Tropez from Temu). It feels like a non-descript "nice" Mediterranean country with nothing particularly unique or distinctive about it.