Often overshadowed by the popularity of Albania’s Mediterranean coastline, Tirana, the country’s capital city, is well worthy of a place on your city break radar, particularly if you’re travelling on a budget.
When branding destinations as ‘affordable’, we obviously need to take things with a pinch of salt, as somewhere can only really be considered cheap if you’re travelling from somewhere more expensive, and that isn’t the case for all visitors.
But Tirana has made our list thanks to its brilliant value when compared to the rest of Europe generally (a pint costs just €3.45, an Airbnb averages €46 per night), as well as all the top-tier things there are to do in the city.
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‘Tirana is steeped in Communist era history: Bunk’art 1, a Cold War bunker turned museum, and one of the city’s most popular attractions costs just £4 to enter, but lots of traditional buildings have since been given vibrant makeovers in the form of street art,’ reads our list, ‘Then there’s brilliant restaurants (like Mystic 2) and bars (such as Radio Bar), which are rustling up great dishes and cocktails at decent prices.’
If you’re after some more culture, both the National History Museum and the National Gallery of Arts are worthwhile pitstops, but make sure you set aside some time to explore Mt Dajti National Park, which is around 25km east of the city, too.
Sold? Check out all of our favourite Airbnbs on offer right here, but Tirana is just one of the excellent (and affordable) cities to visit in Europe. Elsewhere on the list was the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, the Croatian hub of Zagreb and the Lithuanian city of Kaunas.
Check out Time Out’s roundup of the cheapest cities to visit in Europe in 2025.
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