About Us
Welcome to Tirana! Meet your local connection in Tirana, Laura, Gent, Zhujeta and Edion of Outdoor Albania. We are happy to assist you on your travels to Tirana and are pleased to give you any helpful information on your travels to this wonderful city!
We are proud to be part of whl.travel and are working hard to implement sustainable tourism in our city and country. Our tours bring direct economic benefits to even the most remote areas of Albania and we work in close contact with the local communities, doing our best to promote our environmental concerns and values. We want to acquaint visitors not only to the incredible scenery of Albania, but also to the exceptionally hospitable people and culture.
Tirana is an easy and safe place to travel and we are pleased to offer any advice about where to go, what to see and where to eat! Some of our favourite places include the bar and restaurant district of Blloku and the beautiful Kavaja Street, with its integration of churches and mosques together. We can also advise you on where to go in and around Tirana, including the Mountain Daeity that is only 15 minutes up by cable car and a great place for hiking.
Meet the team
The entire team of outdoor Albania is adventurous and experienced. Meet Laura Payne from Holland, who has truly done it all - a ski instructor in Canada and the French Alps, a guide on horse across the savanna in Namibia, and now giving snowshoeing treks in mountains of Albania! She truly loves the outdoors with some of her favorite activities including snowboarding, skiing, kayaking, kite surfing, biking and roller skating, basically anything where she can be active and in the open-air. She is also active in preserving the natural environment around her and advocates fair trade and sustainable tourism.
Zhujeta joined the Outdoor Adventure team in 2008 and loves travelling and languages. When she isn't travelling or volunteering, she is in the OA office, assisting you with any questions that you might have. Apart from Albanian, she speaks German, Spanish, Italian and English. She is happy to communicate with all OA's partner hotels in order to explain them the importance of sustainable tourism.
Edion is one of OA's tour leaders and considers Albania his home country, wanting to take part in its development. When he is not on tour he is busy meeting with hotels with Zhujeta to join the WHL network for Albania, and gives them information about any developments in sustainable tourism and also to keep them updated about any information in the travel business, as many of these hotels do not have internet.
Gent Mati is another world traveller, having worked as a guide in the Alps, Ecuador, Patagonia and Africa. He has significant experience as a raft guide and kayaker, as well as trekking and climbing. He wants his participants on his tours to get the best optimal experience - to do as much as possible for a once and a lifetime adventure!
We offer many tours that are "off the beaten track" and offer once in a lifetime experiences to places that are difficultly accessed by car. Our mission is to introduce travellers to important monuments that are not visited easily because of their isolation and remoteness. With our eco-friendly tours, we want to promote the protection of the natural habitats of Albania while also supporting the small local communities economically. We try to involve as many actors as possible in our business, using drivers, guides, craft makers, mule/horse porters, winemakers, etc., on our tours. We also are working hard to improve the environment of the city, having started initiatives in order to develop recycling and having each hotel that we work with collect and sort metal cans in special containers, and hoping to expand this to glass and paper as well.
We love our city and our country and want to show travellers the true side of Albania and to get to see and do as much as possible! Please, don't hesitate to ask us any questions or for any advice on your journey to Tirana!
