Jóias dos Balcãs (Intensivo); Semi - Tour Privado

Five out of Five tour experience on this tour from Tirana Albania to Montengergo. Our guide Julian was amazing giving us e lot of insight on the Balkans, culture and history. The team was amazing

Total rip off. We took 8 days tour of Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo for about $2,500 each person. Just for the tour no flights. They put us up in crappy hotels which we found out from booking.com charge around $30/night. For may be even $20/night more they could have booked us in decent hotels. Avoid this company.

Let me start by saying that I am a very generous reviewer ( check my other reviews ). However, in order to be beneficial to other travelers, I find myself having to provide a very critical review of my recent tour. We took the Balkan Jewels tour : Montenegro, Albanian, Kosovo & N Macedonia. It sounds like a great tour but it is not really a tour but more of a marathon driving event. Our tour group consisted of 7 travelers. We were transported by a van which had a broken air conditioner. The air conditioner only worked from the front middle and driver side vent so anyone sitting in the back was very hot. The tour company did try to compensate by buying the group dinner. They did not consider replacing the vehicle. In most tours I have experienced, there is a driver and a tour guide. Choose Balkan only has a driver who is also the tour guide. Since driving is somewhat difficult in the Balkans, the “tour guide” doesn’t interact very much while driving with the entire group because they are focused on driving and only the people in the front seat can hear the guide. When we finally reached our destination, the tour guide gave us a brief 10 minute overview of the city. They drop you off and then you have an hour or two to eat something and walk around. In many cities, the guide did not walk with us since they must try to park and watch our baggage in the van. There were many sites on the “will be visited” list that we did not see since we did not know where they were located and had to wander by ourselves. Examples of sites we did not see include “ St. Ivan church in Budva, Small church of St. Mary in Budva, Saint Luke’s church in Kotor, Catholic Cathedral in Shkodra, etc. The tour guide did walk around with us in Berat and Skopje. The guide was nice enough and tried very hard to provide information but given the work conditions, the tour was not what I expected. I consider the tour very expensive for what we received. These tours may seem like they will provide a nice overview of the different countries, but in actuality, you spend the majority of your time driving. The first day we drove for over 10 hours and spent 3 hours walking in two cities. Had I known the driving to walking ratio,I would not have booked this tour. I did map out the route in Google maps but the reality did not match the actual driving time. Given the traffic in the Balkans, every day was spent with the majority of time in the car. We have traveled extensively and I do try to use local guides and tour companies. However, I cannot recommend this tour given our poor experience.

Thanks for the wonderful traditional dinner we enjoyed in Prizren with our guide Ana, as she entertained us with stories of her family’s life and traditions. It helped make up for the 17 hr day the day before.

Overall, this was a brilliant and educational adventure through the Balkans. If you want to just get a brief understanding of each country, it's history, culture and landscape then I can highly recommend this tour. I learnt so much about Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia in the days that we were there. Our tour guide Juli/Julian was great and so friendly, asking any questions we had along the way. I have to say though that I felt sorry for him given just how much driving was involved. The day's were really long often with early starts so it wasn't so much a holiday but instead an 'adventure'. Myself and fellow travellers (we were a small group of 4) agreed that the itinerary was too intense at times and wished that it was spread over a longer period. Often we'd reach a location and before we knew it we were back in the van again. For example we wished we had longer in Lake Ohrid - a chance recuperate from all the walking and trekking around castles, and instead missed out Berat at the end as by that point we (and our driver/guide) were exhausted, plus it made no sense given he had to drive all the way down there to come back up again to Tirana (the end destination). For this reason, my friend and I added 2.5 days on at the end in Tirana which was much needed! I would say is these tweaks were made to this tour it would have been 5/5. The accommodation was mixed - fantastic hotel in Shkodër, not so much in Prizren and Ohrid. Despite this, I found the team at Choose Balkans (shout out to Sirma!) to always be helpful, polite, reliable and very prompt at getting back to any query I had. Still, an enlightening excursion!

This tour was perfect organised, the guide Besa was very knowledgeable. We had an amazing experience, thank you

Our tour whith Besa was excellent, amazing memories and unforgettable experiences, especially the food, thank you Besa

Amazing well organized tour. Sirma and her team handled all the aspects of the tour really well. Would definitely recommend :)

Choose Balkans thank you so much for an amazing experience!This journey was an absolute delight from start to finish.

Amazing trip from start to finish! Sirma was extremely responsive during the planning process, checked in several times during the trip, and followed up after the excursion. My guide Artin was the best. He was extremely knowledgeable, courteous, and funny. Thank you for everything! I left my heart in Albania!