The biggest mistakes we made planning our trip to Albania

No trip comes out perfect the first time, and ours through Albania was no exception, not by a long shot. With the route now fully organized in the itinerary we sell today, here are the mistakes we made back then that, knowing what we know now, we'd never repeat.

Almost paying for car insurance twice. At the rental company's counter they pushed us, pretty insistently, to buy "full coverage" we already had from the online booking. We nearly fell for the upsell, and only got saved by having the paperwork printed out.

Not carrying enough cash the first few days. We went in assuming everything would be paid by card, like in any modern European destination, and ran into beach clubs and small stalls that only took cash — we had to go back to the hotel mid-afternoon just to withdraw money.

Underestimating the drive time to Sarande. We calculated 3 hours by GPS and it was a real 4, between Llogara's curves (which demand going slow — there's no way around that) and a photo stop we hadn't planned at all but couldn't skip.

Not booking a sunbed in Ksamil in the middle of August. We got to one of the most popular beach clubs in the area a bit late and had to change plans on the fly, settling for a worse spot than we wanted.

None of these mistakes ruined the trip, not by a long shot. But they're exactly the kind of thing that, if you know about them ahead of time, save you time and a bit of pointless hassle.

Not booking the boat excursion in advance. We got lucky and found a spot that same morning, but in peak season you don't always get that lucky, and if we'd known better we'd have booked it without thinking twice.