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Honest question I find myself asking these days about new places: are you generally safe flashing some wealth in Albania, as a single foreigner? Like for examp

Honest question I find myself asking these days about new places: are you generally safe flashing some wealth in Albania, as a single foreigner? Like for example nice car, camera, phone, mountain bike.. or best to keep a low profile?

ddorian43 5y ago
You'll be fine. It's not a big deal to have $50K+ car.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  True. I think everyone in Albania drives a second-hand luxury BMW, Audi or Mercedes fixer-upper imported from Germany.
  - InCityDreams 5y ago
    "imported from..." made me laugh, especially as I know a couple of 'importers'. BTW and fwiw, I loved being in Albania, also Macedonia. Bulgaria was cool, and Romania is crazy hilarious.
aunty_helen 5y ago
I found Tirana weird given how many flash cars there were. 750i’s and s600’s just driving around like they were doing laps on a Friday night. However, there was also some very nice streets with new bars and restaurants. Like a lot of people had recently been pouring cash into the place which is always a good sign. The people who I met were always super friendly and outgoing too, some of the most friendly I’ve experienced.
oblio 5y ago
I'm not super sure about Albania, but in Romania, where I'm from, you'd generally face 2 possible problems: 1. scams as tourist (should be easy to avoid: a) know the exchange rate and the local purchasing power, i.e. think if a local paid $500 per month would buy the thing, b) don't take almost anything offered "for free" unless it's from already trusted persons) 2. theft; not robbery, theft (your stuff might get stolen when you're not around; robbery or outright violence is rare, maybe even rarer than Western Europe, but you know, poor people, expensive stuff, it's going to be tempting)
- ardit33 5y ago
  Albania doesn’t have either. Scams or thefts are rare. It is a very tourist friendly country as it gets almost 2.5x tourists a year compared to its population. People are very welcoming.
ardit33 5y ago
Albania is the safest country in Europe when it comes to robberies https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/europe-robbery-rate.png https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/europe-r... This is surprising to most americans, but the Western EU countries are the least safe when it comes to mugging, stealing, and general crime. Maybe it is family values, or the fact that many people have immigrated to work in the richer countries, countries in the Balkans are really chill and crime free. The only danger is driving, as the drivers are probably not the best and roads can be tight.
- medo-bear 5y ago
  > The only danger is driving, as the drivers are probably not the best lol! yeah balkans has many schumachers, of all ages and genders too :)
- cure 5y ago
  > This is surprising to most americans, but the Western EU countries are the least safe when it comes to mugging, stealing, and general crime. This map would also be surprising to Europeans. This map was generated based on data from Eurostat, "who bases these number on police reports from each country." (sic, cf. https://landgeist.com/2021/10/12/robbery-rate/ https://landgeist.com/2021/10/12/robbery-rate/). So... the obvious question, then, is how many robberies do not result in a police reports in each country, and how good each country is at reporting all robberies to Eurostat. I suspect that this map is more of a reflection of the rate of reporting for robberies than the actual rate of robberies, which is why the map is so surprising: it's misleading and does not reflect reality.
  - necovek 5y ago
    If you can make up claims without backing them up with anything, so could anyone: I raise you and say that there are more unreported robberies in Western EU countries. FWIW, I cannot imagine anyone in Serbia being robbed without reporting it to police (and since you usually lose your ID document if it's your wallet or purse, you have to go to police to report it stolen/lost and get a new one issued), unless it's something like multiple gangs against each other. What I can imagine not being reported are attempted-but-failed robberies, but that strikes me as something anyone anywhere would not report to avoid the hassle for no gain.

ddorian43 5y ago

You'll be fine. It's not a big deal to have $50K+ car.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
True. I think everyone in Albania drives a second-hand luxury BMW, Audi or Mercedes fixer-upper imported from Germany.
- InCityDreams 5y ago
  "imported from..." made me laugh, especially as I know a couple of 'importers'. BTW and fwiw, I loved being in Albania, also Macedonia. Bulgaria was cool, and Romania is crazy hilarious.

aunty_helen 5y ago

I found Tirana weird given how many flash cars there were. 750i’s and s600’s just driving around like they were doing laps on a Friday night. However, there was also some very nice streets with new bars and restaurants. Like a lot of people had recently been pouring cash into the place which is always a good sign. The people who I met were always super friendly and outgoing too, some of the most friendly I’ve experienced.

oblio 5y ago

I'm not super sure about Albania, but in Romania, where I'm from, you'd generally face 2 possible problems: 1. scams as tourist (should be easy to avoid: a) know the exchange rate and the local purchasing power, i.e. think if a local paid $500 per month would buy the thing, b) don't take almost anything offered "for free" unless it's from already trusted persons) 2. theft; not robbery, theft (your stuff might get stolen when you're not around; robbery or outright violence is rare, maybe even rarer than Western Europe, but you know, poor people, expensive stuff, it's going to be tempting)

ardit33 5y ago
Albania doesn’t have either. Scams or thefts are rare. It is a very tourist friendly country as it gets almost 2.5x tourists a year compared to its population. People are very welcoming.

ardit33 5y ago

Albania is the safest country in Europe when it comes to robberies https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/europe-robbery-rate.png https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/europe-r... This is surprising to most americans, but the Western EU countries are the least safe when it comes to mugging, stealing, and general crime. Maybe it is family values, or the fact that many people have immigrated to work in the richer countries, countries in the Balkans are really chill and crime free. The only danger is driving, as the drivers are probably not the best and roads can be tight.

medo-bear 5y ago
> The only danger is driving, as the drivers are probably not the best lol! yeah balkans has many schumachers, of all ages and genders too :)
cure 5y ago
> This is surprising to most americans, but the Western EU countries are the least safe when it comes to mugging, stealing, and general crime. This map would also be surprising to Europeans. This map was generated based on data from Eurostat, "who bases these number on police reports from each country." (sic, cf. https://landgeist.com/2021/10/12/robbery-rate/ https://landgeist.com/2021/10/12/robbery-rate/). So... the obvious question, then, is how many robberies do not result in a police reports in each country, and how good each country is at reporting all robberies to Eurostat. I suspect that this map is more of a reflection of the rate of reporting for robberies than the actual rate of robberies, which is why the map is so surprising: it's misleading and does not reflect reality.
- necovek 5y ago
  If you can make up claims without backing them up with anything, so could anyone: I raise you and say that there are more unreported robberies in Western EU countries. FWIW, I cannot imagine anyone in Serbia being robbed without reporting it to police (and since you usually lose your ID document if it's your wallet or purse, you have to go to police to report it stolen/lost and get a new one issued), unless it's something like multiple gangs against each other. What I can imagine not being reported are attempted-but-failed robberies, but that strikes me as something anyone anywhere would not report to avoid the hassle for no gain.