Filikuri Beach is the kind of beach you dream about visiting when you’re planning a trip to Albania. With vibrant turquoise water and giant stripey cliffs, it’s picture perfect. This is a wild beach without a sunlounger in sight and all the more spectacular for it if you ask us!
It also feels really remote with the majestic cliffs acting like a fortress and giving the impression that it’s only accessible by boat.
The truth is you can hike down to the beach but it’s not without its risks. The easiest way to access Filikuri is by boat and you have so many options when it comes to that; from kayaking over, to taking a water taxi, hiring a dinghy, or hopping on one of the wildly popular boat tours.
Here’s what to expect from a visit to Filikuri Beach.
How to get to Filikuri Beach
The potential risks of reaching the beach on foot
We originally planned to hike down to Filikuri Beach, but after talking to our hotel owner we decided against it. The reason for that is because a girl sadly fell to her death when descending the final steep cliff to the beach in 2025.
A few months later it happened again, but thankfully the girl survived the fall, though she had to be airlifted to hospital.
The majority of the walk is easy and nothing to be worry about, it’s the final descent from the cliff tops down to the beach which is potentially dangerous and now more so than ever due to the lack of rope.
The cliff you have to scale down
Following the accidents, authorities removed the rope that used to be in place in an attempt to discourage people from hiking down. It may be replaced in time, though our visit was more than a year later and the rope was still absent.
We love hiking and that is almost always our preferred option, but in this case with so many alternative options we decided it wasn’t worth the risk. We did go to check out the cliff from below and it looked pretty hairy.
That’s not to say that many people don’t do it without consequence every single day in peak season, but we wanted to share the warnings we were given so you can make an informed decision.
By water taxi
If we didn’t hire our own boat, this is 100% the option we would have taken as we like to visit places independently and spend as long as we want there. As luck would have it the water taxis are relatively inexpensive and the journey time is very quick.
The boat ride takes around 15 minutes, or that’s how long it took us to get across in our boat, it may be slightly quicker as you’d be going with a professional!
You can book a straight forward transfer like this one, or this one offers a five hour experience with snorkelling. Alternatively you can organise it yourself when you arrive in Himare.
By kayak
If you have a calm day then kayaking across is a great way to get there under your own steam. The closest beach to rent the kayak from is Potami Beach and from here, in good conditions, it should only take somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes.
You could also kayak from town which is a bit further. Try and negotiate a half day rate for the kayak as this will be cheaper than paying by the hour.
Hire a motorised dinghy for the day
This is what we did and it was a lot of fun! It’s by far the pricest option but we got to explore so many beaches and sea caves that we would otherwise have had to take a group tour to experience.
The dinghy cost us 150 Euros for the day (9 hours) which included fuel. To get to Filikuri Beach only took around 15 minutes from our hire point on the main promenade in town.
As Filikuri Beach is in the opposite direction to all the other beaches and sea caves we visited, we headed there first. This meant it was exceptionally quiet, with only a handful of people on the beach, but the light had not yet fully hit the beach as the cliffs are so tall.
I think it would be even more beautiful later in the day, but then you will have to share it with many more people.
By boat tour
Taking a boat tour is by far the most popular way to visit Filikuri.
If you want to see all the beaches and caves and you don’t want to fork out for the dinghy, a tour is your only option and they do get very good reviews.
However, you won’t get much time at each spot, so if you have time to spare, you might want to do a tour but if you love Filikuri, head back again another day via water taxi or kayak.
What to expect when you get to Filikuri Beach
Filikuri Beach is breathtaking, the water is turquoise and so clear, while the huge cliff walls provide a truly majestic backdrop. It looks totally cut off as the cliffs simply don’t seem scalable! And much to my delight, there are no sun loungers.
I get it, sun loungers are all the rage in Europe, but I prefer my beaches wild and for me this made Filikuri all the more special.
Swimming here is a dream with calm clear water which gets deep very quickly after you leave the shore. The water is still cool in June but warms up significantly from July onwards.
We did have a particularly stunning day in terms of conditions, so opt for that if you can, but the walls surrounding the bay will offer some shelter from large waves.
Normally when I am planning sea adventures I check the swell, but and this does seem very strange to me, there is no website I can find that provides this information for Albania.
I had to go with the next best thing which was wind speed and it did turn out to be perfect. You want the wind speed to be as low as possible, we had a 2 m/s so something similar should provide superb conditions. You can see the forecast here.
In terms of the beach itself, it’s pebbly, as with all other beaches in Himare and for this reason you might want water shoes with you. I swam to the beach from our boat barefoot and let me tell you walking up and down the beach was a sufferfest!
As there are no loungers there isn’t a lot of shade on the beach unless you visit in the morning or late afternoon.
There was plenty of shade when we visited in the morning, but I think from midday onwards you’d lose it for a while.
There’s quite a lot of room for people to spread out on the beach, but we have heard that despite this it gets very busy in the middle of the day in peak season.
If you are willing to sacrifice the best light you’ll have it almost to yourself in the morning and by the time we left at 10.30am it was still pretty quiet so it doesn’t need to be super early morning.
Keep them wild
Please remember to take all rubbish with you and keep these places wild and pristine - as with anywhere in the outdoors. It’s important to leave them exactly as you found them so they will remain beautiful for generations to come.
Litter tends to breed litter, so if you do spot any and are able to pick it up and dispose of it outside the area, it will go a long way to keeping the beach clean.
Where to stay in Himare
We stayed at Wait and Sea Hotel which was a five minute drive from town, close to Livadhi Beach. We picked it for the sublime views and they didn’t disappoint. It is sparkling blue sea and hundreds of olive trees as far as the eye can see.
You also got to hear plenty of birdlife instead of the city hustle and bustle which made it really relaxing. The room we initially booked was very small, but we were kindly upgraded to a much bigger room which was great as we hadn’t realised how small the original room we booked was.
The bathroom was fab with a great shower that doesn’t flood the room - a very common problem in Albania! The host (and his family) is so lovely and will go out of his way to help you. Brekkie and parking is included. It’s also a few minutes walk from the best restaurant we visited in all of Albania (the Fig and Olive).
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