The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire.
At Caravan Horse Riding Albania we have been welcoming horse, nature, history and culture lovers since 2011.
As founders, owners and guides (three childhood friends) we succeeded in creating a great life environment for our 42 horses and a harmonious and eco-friendly environment for our guests, as well.
Our stable is situated amidst scenic hills, green valleys, surrounded by high mountains and rural life, few kilometers away from Gjirokastra’s UNESCO protected city in South of Albania. While much has changed since our first year of operation, the motto remains the same: offering real moments in the saddle, which means enjoyable and professional riding holidays for our international guests. Our riding tours aim to keep the harmony among humans, horses and nature.
Our main products “Following Zagoria pathways” and “King Skerdilajd Army Route” are offered as week trails from March to the end of November. Our 12 days Vjosa expedition takes place two times each year and is product dedicated to our traditional and returning riders. We offer a winter trail based each year on a different subject. Recently we are combining this product with arts, ideological art and its effect on people’s life. Our recent “learn to ride” week program is a great opportunity for beginner horse lovers from all over the world to learn the basics of horse riding in harmony with the horse nature, local life and lots of exploration outdoors.
At the same time we have a good experience in tailoring private tours based in guest’s interests. Our one day-trails are offered at weekends all year around.
We are open-minded to keep improving our riding experience, the quality and care of our horses, our saddles and tack and all the necessary logistics. We try to keep up a culture of quality and training of our staff members. An important part of our philosophy is that we strongly embrace diversity and see different cultures and experiences as an asset. Each year the number of our guests is growing and our tours offer an interactive possibility for horse people from around the world. Every year, our riding concept and philosophy is becoming a true reality which is reflected to more and more horse people approaching this special experience.
Caravan Horse Riding Albania is already empowering and inspiring local communities especially in remote mountainous areas not to abandon their traditional life but build up upon their resources for future alternative tourism. We have been advising for years now many host families to protect and preserve their local traditions in order to be able to show the very original part of Albania’s life to their guests. We are trying to protect and better expose what still remained from the daily use objects, as well as elements of architecture, culinary, agriculture, crafts, local techniques, songs and language diversity.
We, at Caravan Horse Riding Albania, are motivated to promote and protect cultural heritage monuments along our itineraries. We and our customers are trying to help with small donations for their maintenance. Hundreds of pictures and videos of monuments such as medieval churches, old stone bridges, antic routes and archaeological ruins are published to show their beauty and their needs. We have also used the media to publish many articles and TV stories covering many aspects related to the trails.
We dream to save the Albanian horse, a unique mountain breed that is suffering nowadays due to the very bad conditions. The local mixture of the archaic Tarpan and medieval Arab for centuries now represents a very great climber, a clear mind and very surefooted horse. In the last 70 years the breed lost more than 70% of all exemplars. Our breeding program aims to also make evident the very peculiar characteristics of these horses and the wide variety of their use. Moreover, a legal protection and care of the breed is needed. We want to lobby for this very indispensable step.
Our trails intend to protect and improve natural habitats. Our horses and riders are friendly towards nature. When possible, try to avoid stepping on the same paths and keep clean our picnic places. The use of recycled food and water, travel equipment is an objective our guests encourage, like and respect.
We want to keep the horse culture close to our community in urban and rural areas as a sport and activity. We aim to bring people closer to nature and raise their esteem and respect for the animals through the “Learn to ride” program. Part of the same program is giving employment chances as guides and stable management service workers to talented and passionate young people from our area.
