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Outdoor Albania
We are a specialist travel agency/tour operator, located in Tirana, Albania. We were found in 1992 by travelers who pioneered sustainable tourism (eco travel) in Albania. We love our country and we love to show our guests, who come from all over the world, the wonderful beauty, culture and traditions of this little known corner of the Mediterranean.
We hope you will join us in Albania, we look forward to being your partner as you explore our beautiful country. We guarantee you will have unforgettable experience!
Our experienced tour leaders are licensed professionals at international level, who continuously update our itineraries by bringing what's new and best to do in a country that is changing with fast pace. We consider OA as a company "by travelers, for travelers", and we place particular attention to satisfy the curiosity and the needs of our guests.
Benefits of travelling with Outdoor Albania:
- Specialized operation and knowledge.
- Continual trailblazing and development of new destinations.
- Commitment to total safety.
- A "life-seeing" experience rather than a sight-seeing experience.
- Professional guides.Dedication to fast and effective decisions while on the field.
- Finest accommodations and food according to location.
- Commitment to eco-tourism, respecting the environment and local traditions.
- Commitment to customer service and sensitivity to special needs and requests.
Outdoor Albania is the company that started to bring tourists to village houses in Northern Albania in the early 90s as an alternative to hotels. In a period of years we educated the local guesthouse owners about the importance of environmental commitment in order to preserve the natural beauty and the local biodiversity surrounding them. It may sound naive, but we had to teach almost everybody we work with in the villages to not dump trash in nature. Unfortunately this action was/is considered as routine in Albania, as 'only ones house must be kept clean'.
Apart from our continuous commitment to educate the locals, we have given them access to the international market by creating a websites for every guesthouse we work with.
Outdoor Albania has taken the risk of the investment, by not letting the guesthouses pay for the investment, but by giving them the change to pay Outdoor Albania with an equivalent of the first 5 nights booked.
The environmental impact of our tours is reduced because we use transport only to reach the valleys (often public transport) and than most of the tour develops on foot, accompanied by locals with mules and horses, that due to our tours became cautious to respect and protect their environment and promote the importance of sustainable development to other community members. While hiking can cause erosion and other environmentally harmful impacts we use the strict policy to stay on the trails.
Our guests do not use/generate intensive laundry services because the rucksacks dictate a minimal garderobe. We stimulate the guesthouses to enrich their meals in vegetables, opposing the general habit of enormous quantities of meat dishes. The vegetables usually come fresh from the garden, just as many times the cheese, milk, and sometimes also the meat are home-cultivated.
We also promote and introduce recycling to our local suppliers. It is extremely limited or non-existent in most developing countries and this counts for Albania as well. However, we teach our suppliers to avoid using products with excess packaging and ask them to re-use materials such as plastic bags.
In 1992 Albania opened its gates to the world after a closure that lasted decades. It was at this time that Mr. Ilir Mati, an electronics engineer with an inborn passion for adventure, retired from fixing submarine sonars for the Albanian Navy. He then started organising “Journeys in the Albanian Nature and Culture”.
His old Ford Transit, nicknamed “The Periscope”, allowed trekkers, climbers, skiers, kayakers, river rafters, journalists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists and other explorers to discover virgin images of the “new” old Albania.
In the years that followed, his initiative attracted family members, friends and many other travel enthusiasts who together went through growth, success and difficult times, keeping their travelling spirit always alive.
Today, the OA team is proud to have inherited an admirable legacy of years of travelling experience, all around Albania and further, and is enthusiastic to share their experiences and their hope of a sustainable and developed future.
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