Ksamil has no airport, no railway station and no passenger port: you always arrive via Saranda, fifteen kilometres to the north, and finish with a local bus or a taxi. There are three ways to reach Saranda. Flying to Corfu and taking the ferry is the fastest, flying to Tirana and taking the bus is the cheapest and the only one that works the same all year round, and driving your own car onto a ferry from Italy is for those who want to move along the Riviera afterwards. The times and prices below are what the operators' websites said on 21 September 2026: they hold for this season and change every year.
From Corfu by ferry: the fastest way
Corfu has direct flights from most of Europe, many of them seasonal, and the new port is four kilometres from the airport: ten minutes by taxi. Two companies sail from there, Finikas Lines and Ionian Seaways, and they sell the same pooled service: same vessels, same times, same prices, so book with whichever you like. You have two options: the hydrofoil, 25-30 minutes, and the ferry, 50-70 minutes. In 2026 a one-way ticket costs €40 on the hydrofoil and €32 on the ferry from June to late October, €30 in November, port taxes included; children up to 12 pay half and a same-day return booked together gets 10% off.
Frequency depends on the month. From July to September there are thirteen departures a day from Corfu, from 8:30 to 22:30; eight in the second half of October, four in the first ten days of November; from mid-November to early March there is one boat a day, at 9:00 from Corfu and 10:00 from Saranda. Tickets are sold online up to four hours before departure with Finikas and up to the day before with Ionian Seaways, or at the port ticket office an hour before. You need to be at the international terminal 40 minutes before departure with Finikas, an hour with Ionian Seaways and always an hour with a vehicle, because this is an external EU border: there is passport control, and a valid ID or passport is required.
Two details that catch people out. Albania is one hour behind Greece, so the 10:00 hydrofoil arrives at 9:30 local time, and the boards show it that way. And a car rented in Corfu doesn't simply go to Albania: Ionian Seaways does not carry rental cars to Albania at all, and Finikas requires written authorisation from the rental company plus the green card. If you want a car, rent it in Saranda.
In Saranda the bus to Ksamil leaves roughly every hour from 7:30 to 21:30, costs 100-150 lek (€1-1.50) in cash to the conductor, and there is no official fare list: local guides quote different figures. A taxi takes 20-25 minutes. From landing in Corfu to the beach in Ksamil, with the right connections, it's two to three hours.
From Tirana by bus: the cheapest, and the only year-round option
Tirana has direct flights from across Europe in every season, and from there Saranda is 262 kilometres by road. Buses leave from the South and North terminal (Terminali i Autobusëve të Jugut dhe Veriut) at the Kthesa e Kamzës roundabout, next to the Casa Italia shopping centre: it's the same stop as the official airport bus, which costs 400 lek, runs hourly around the clock and takes 30-40 minutes. There are ten departures a day to Saranda, from 5:30 to 22:00, with Tisa Travel and Olgeno; the ticket costs €17 and the journey takes five to six hours, with one stop. Buy online on Gjirafa Travel, which also sells a single ticket from the airport to Saranda with a change at the terminal, from €21, for six to seven hours in total; or in cash at the terminal, arriving half an hour early, because Albanian buses leave when they are full.
The 22:00 bus reaches Saranda at 3 in the morning: you save a night's hotel and lose a night's sleep. A rental car from Tirana cuts the time to four or five hours, but the Albanian rules in the Ksamil dossier apply: headlights on even in daylight (a €20-40 fine at checkpoints, which are frequent for foreign plates) and a blood-alcohol limit of 0.01%, which means not even one glass of raki.
Driving: the ferries to Durrës and Igoumenitsa
If you come with your own car from Italy, there are two ports. The first is Durrës: Ventouris Ferries sails from Bari every night at 22:00, arriving at 8:00, with extra daytime sailings in July and August (12:00-21:00), and from Durrës to Ksamil it's 230 kilometres, four to five hours' drive via Fier, Tepelenë and Gjirokastër. The second is Igoumenitsa, in Greece: Grimaldi Lines sails from Brindisi daily at 13:00 arriving at 22:00, or at 23:00 arriving at 9:00, and from Igoumenitsa to Ksamil it's 53 kilometres through the Qafë Botë border crossing, an hour and a half. Grimaldi's check-in closes two hours before departure.
The Greek route is shorter on the road and longer in the queue: the Qafë Botë crossing clogs up in August. The Albanian route crosses half the country but has no border in between. Ferry prices with a car vary by date, time and cabin and have no fixed list: check the company's website for your own date. Before leaving, make sure your car insurance covers Albania: the AL code on the green card is not always included.
In Ksamil the car then really earns its keep. Without one you depend on infrequent buses and taxis to reach Butrint, the Blue Eye and the more isolated Riviera beaches, whereas to stay on the village's main beach you don't need one at all.
Summer and winter: what changes
In summer all three routes work, and the problem is the opposite one: in mid-August the Albanian diaspora returns en masse on top of the tourists, accommodation and sunbed prices double compared with May or September, and the Corfu ferries need booking. In winter Ksamil shuts down: most restaurants and beach clubs stay shuttered from November to March, seasonal flights to Corfu stop and a single boat a day remains. The Tirana route is the only one that doesn't change. The right months to arrive without crowds and without closed shutters are May and September-October, when the dossier's verified budget drops to €45-70 a day against €70-120 in high season.
In short
The right route depends on when you go and what you want to do once there:
- A week at the beach in summer, no car: fly to Corfu and take the hydrofoil, €40 each way, on the beach within two or three hours
- Lowest budget or off season: fly to Tirana and take the €17 bus, ten departures a day all year round
- A long holiday with Butrint, the Blue Eye and the Riviera: your own car on the Grimaldi ferry from Brindisi to Igoumenitsa, then an hour and a half on the road