The Ksamil islets
These made the village's name: four small islets a few dozen metres offshore, in shallow turquoise water. You reach them by swimming or on a pedalo for a few euros. The trap is the same as Malta's Blue Lagoon: between eleven and four in July and August the beaches are saturated and sunbeds go at top price. Early morning or after five, it is a different place.
Butrint, the ancient site
Twenty minutes south of Saranda, a Greco-Roman World Heritage site in a wooded lagoon. Ancient theatre, early Christian baptistery, Venetian fortress, all under trees, which makes the visit bearable in high summer. Allow two hours and around ten euros entry. It is the one cultural visit in the region that everyone agrees on, even in a group that came for something else.
The Blue Eye
A karst spring some thirty kilometres from Saranda, where water wells up from a deep blue cavity ringed by green. Swimming is officially forbidden and the water sits at around ten degrees all year, which puts off most candidates. It is an hour's stop, often combined with Gjirokastër on the road to Tirana.
The coves by boat
This is the best and least known option. The El Mar excursion leaves Saranda port at half ten and runs along coves unreachable by road: Turtle Bay, Anchor Bay, Kakome Bay and more than two hours at Kroreza Beach. From forty euros for the day. It returns in the late afternoon, leaving the whole evening, and that is exactly why it works so well on a trip built around nights out.
Gjirokastër, if you have a full day
An hour and a half by road, a grey-stone Ottoman town on the World Heritage list, clinging to a mountainside. It is the absolute opposite of the coast: no beach, no club, cobbled lanes and a fortress. It does not combine with a night out the same evening, but it is the day to plan if the group wants to see something other than the sea.
How to plan it
Distances are short but the roads are slow: allow generously. Taxis are negotiated by the day, often around fifty to eighty euros for the car, which becomes reasonable split four ways. Boat excursions need booking the day before in high season. And the point that matters: all of these outings end in the late afternoon, so none of them stops you going out at night.