Biking Shkoder & Sunset Castle Views | Solo Backpacking Albania 🇦🇱

Come explore the laid-back charm of Shkoder, Albania with me! I spent the day riding bikes all over town, found a hidden swim spot that felt like a secret, and ended the day at Rozafa Castle just in time for an epic sunset over the mountains. From quiet backstreets to sweeping views, this was one of my favorite slow travel days in the Balkans. 🌅🚴‍♀️💦

If you’re planning to backpack through Albania, don’t skip Shkoder — it’s a perfect mix of local life, lake days, and castle magic.

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good morning everybody welcome back to my channel Macpacking i’m McKenzie Nelson and welcome to Albania i am currently located in Barat which is kind of like in the middle of the country it has been a lovely town very like quiet small town i was here for two nights but I am headed to Scot now so I’m just at the bus station like the local bus station in Barat now and I have to get a bus to Tana and then another bus to Scot i think it’s a really easy like transfer but I just wanted to take you guys along because sometimes the buses in Albania could be quite crazy so I just wanted to show you the reality of traveling I guess but I think that both buses should be 500 like each this one to Toronto leaves at 9:00 so just about like 10 minutes so we came here at like perfect timing too um there’s not many people in the bus either so I feel like we could spread out and enjoy ourselves but wish us luck because the drivers here are quite crazy so I got my seasick bands on and I really hope I don’t get car sick i just had the hostile breakfast but I’m really excited to get to Scotto today i no plan really i mean I never really have a plan and I know that I want to like somehow do the hike the Balona hike and you have to go through i don’t know so we’ll figure it out when we get there i also heard that Skod itself is really nice with the lake and the castle and um things like that so we’ll see what we get up to you ready i think we could get on out i’m going to pick this front seat here just cuz I get a little car sick so it’ll be good to see the view and I can stretch out my legs okay we just made it to the bus terminal in Toronto it’s kind of just like a parking lot in the middle of nowhere isn’t it just a ton of buses sitting in a dirty parking lot i’ve never seen this i don’t see to surand a lot of people are hollering out Hamara which I want to go back but I can’t sc yeah actually on the bus like just now I was like looking out the window and I was like “Oh I’m actually really excited to to go hike.” Oh scooter right there perfect easy it’s like 11:15 now and the bus doesn’t leave um until 12:00 so we dropped our big bags off at the bus um and we’re just walking across the street here to find like a coffee shop to find a bathroom we may have to buy a coffee in exchange to use the bathroom but that’s okay i’ll be okay with that okay somehow we got to cross we have to run [Music] it’s important to know that buses in Albania could kind of be unpredictable and so I haven’t booked any of my buses online but I know you can through the website giraffa.com but I just like show up to the bus station and book it with the person in person and just pay them cash because I just like don’t really know what I’m doing and I don’t know what time and if they’re going to be late and all the things so you could go either way really have officially made it from the north of Albania to the south cuz we’re in like the southernmost not southernmost town the southernmost town that or northernmost town we’re in the north that’s what I meant to say um that like I will be going to except for like Valona but that’s also a bit east but yay this is where we’re staying tonight scoldion skodran we ring the bell we made it into the hostel but I felt like I couldn’t speak at all because there was always somebody sleeping in the hostel dorms but the hostel was really nice and we had our own lamp and two outlets in like this cubby with plenty of space and the comfiest hustle bed I’ve ever slept in with a curtain for privacy and it was just a really well put together room it had AC and lockers and then upstairs on the highest level there was a very nice common area with lots of seating and a fully equipped kitchen literally any appliance you could have imagined was in this kitchen and then up these stairs was even an additional rooftop area to hang out which had great views of the whole old town of Schoder we’ve just come to like the bike rental place it’s called a rental scooter rental scooter a rental car agency but they have like cars bikes and bicycles like motorbikes and bicycles but we’re going to rent bikes it’s 5 for the whole day and try to get a deal cuz it’s already 3:30 so I thought I could I thought I thought I could i didn’t i didn’t get a deal so it is €5 for the whole day is this for me great i haven’t quite sorted out the hike and what I’m going to do tomorrow but I’m going to do this instead right now we’re going to ride to the river go for a little swim and then I think go up to the castle too for sunset and I think just like stroll around on a bicycle sounds fun thank you [Music] i think it looks quite nice we got a view of the castle over there we’re just going to park our bikes off to the side here yeah wow look at the mountains in the back so beautiful so this is where we’re swimming i’m kidding this is where we’re swimming this actually looks quite nice is it cold yeah okay let’s get in let’s look oh no that’s going to feel so good oh wow no that’s that’s great look at this oh well I don’t know what the smoke is in the back beautiful [Music] [Music] don’t even know if I mentioned but I traveled to Scoder with Penny who is in the last vlog so she found this swim spot i mean she asked a few girls at the the hostel right when we checked in we kind of like put our bags down we asked a few questions and then we went to the bike rental place it was kind of fast it’s not like a formal swim spot but it is really nice very peaceful like lots of birds and insect noises i kind of just trusted her blindly to coming here i was like following you and she brought us here so great job Penny nailed it nailed it we’ve just come back into town and came to Pontana like pizza and I got a small pizza it is so big this is not a small pizza but this is 650 lakh we’ve got like olives green and black olives mushrooms salami pushcido yummy okay we confirmed that this is the small and it’s actually really good so it’s super good value yeah 650 L giant pizza so after the pizza we just ran I quickly sorted out everything i gave my bag my belongings to somebody but she’s off i got to go but I’ll tell you guys all about that in the next vlog um where I hiked but anyways we’re off to the castle now so I got to go cuz she’s on her way [Music] all right thank you thank you very much thank you here all right we just paid 50 cents per bike to park at just this guy’s like little stand just at the bottom of the castle here right right steps right right steps 5 minutes up up up up all right made it to the castle here we go what time was it is it good time for sunset yeah perfect i think like How long did that take us yeah I would say like 15 minutes maybe definitely a lot more cars than riding to the river spot we had to go kind of with the flow of traffic look at all the cats yeah this is scary hi hi oh hello there oh my god there’s more wow okay bring your cash everyone it’s 400 luck i said bring your cash everyone cuz it’s 400 luck penny didn’t bring some cash or a card they don’t take card like anywhere in Albania they did for the pizza today which was quite nice but like nowhere in Albania it’s all cash everything so get your cash so this is called the Rosafa Castle wow this is such a cool view of the city it’s actually a really really big city we’ve only touched a very small fraction of it today on our bicycle [Music] i think that people don’t really like stay in Scotra or Scoter however you want to call it they don’t really stay here because it’s kind of just a base to get to that or B valona to do the big famous like peaks of the Balkan hike and because it is just like a base people don’t people don’t really explore because they are either starting a hike or coming back from a hike and they’re exhausted but of course we had to rent bikes and be as active as we could today no but it was really really nice and honestly it’s great city i liked it i liked what we did with our day it was only like half a day that we had but still really nice but we are going off to do some hiking tomorrow so it’s really exciting and I’ll be in the mountains for a couple weeks so stay tuned [Music] [Music] i think honestly if you’re going to come up to this castle come up for sunset cuz this is like so pretty and it is so quiet here right now only a few people walking around the whole grounds and it’s quite a big castle this is actually my fourth castle in Albania and I think actually my last castle in Albania i’ve been to the Jericho Castle Hammara Barat and now Scoder and they’ve all been so different and super unique in their own way but they’ve all been the best at sunset time i think that’s a common theme here i really went to show you guys this hostel last night but there’s always been people like sleeping and we didn’t really spend much time here honestly but I really like this hostel it was really great and it was only $8 a night or €8 a night with a free breakfast included which I think is like really great value that would be the cheapest hostel I’ve stayed in Albania yet but anyways we’re leaving today to go on the toona hike i’m super super excited i got my bag packed in the back i sent my other bag to Valona to wait for me at the end which I will explain everything in the next vlog so without further ado thank you guys so much for watching please like and subscribe to my channel to help me out and I will see you guys in the next one