Boho Dresses in the Breeze on Lake Komani

In which I ponder social media and Albania as a trending travel destination on a boat

As we putter across Lake Komani, a young woman poses for her Instagram feed on the prow. She works the angles, smiling and shifting, as her boyfriend (I assume) works the iPhone. She needs to look as if a helicopter dropped her here, as if she alone floats this water wilderness, the breeze blowing for the sole purpose of tossing her hair.

Note: Behind every Insta story of a beautiful woman experiencing the pristine natural wonders of Albania stands a boyfriend taking a hundred pictures, trying to keep the older man who does not align content with the brand out of the picture.

Motorized boats on Lake Komani didn’t exist when Rose came to Albania in the 1920s. Lake Komani didn’t exist. About as natural as an influencer, the reservoir formed alongside Duran Duran in the 80s when the communist regime built a series of dams on the Drin River for hydropower. When the country opened up, the idea for tourist boats came soon after.

Rose didn’t selfie. No pictures of Rose in Albania exist that I’ve been able to find. Travel writers didn’t take pictures of themselves then, but pictures of the people they met.

To be clear, I’m not judging this change of subject from the other to the self. Objectifying a “quaint people,” of which Rose was certainly guilty as charged, invites its own set of judgments. This subject shift is a product of what the audience wants. Content creators, be they writers of books in the 1920s or Instagram influencers, adapt. If I post a picture of myself or my accomplishments, I get double, triple the likes, even though I’d rather take pictures of food.

I’m trying to up my selfie game, even though my Gen X roots, born of a Greatest Generation who instructed their children to NEVER BRAG, loathe it.

I’m supposed to be enjoying the jewel lake and surrounding Alps. I should search for eagles in this Land of Eagles, but honestly, this woman at work is more entertaining. Is she a real influencer or a wannabe? Either way, I have no doubt the photos will look amazing. She knows how to smile and tilt her head, how to create the traveler fantasy.

Her post will tell nothing of the rest of us, two rows on either side, riding this motorized tourist boat, alongside many other motorized tourist boats. My dad was a sailboat person, an anti-motorboat person. I hear him grumbling as the engine rumbles over the water.

No one on board is an Albanian tourist. Albanians drive the boats and farm. The tourists are mostly Dutch and German, some Italians, and at least one Austrian (my new friend, the blonde woman pictured top left). I’m the only American I’ve met so far.

When I first learned of Rose’s time in Albania in 2006, naturally I raced to look Albania up on the map. I couldn’t help but notice the location—north of Greece and across the Adriatic Sea from Italy.

Mountains. Beach. Mediterranean food. Yes, ma’am. Then I read all of Rose’s rapt descriptions of the purple-shadowed peaks. Granted, Rose could turn rural prairie into a John Keats poem. Still, why would she move to Tirana after Paris?

Albania! I thought. I want to go to there. But how? I had no money. I needed to finish my Ph.D. and get a job. Albania went on the back burner.

Meanwhile, back at the Ottoman castle…

…the Balkans started trending as a travel destination. After Game of Thrones, Croatia went from “hidden gem” to “worst kept secret.” After that abomination of a series finale, the fever cooled. Croatia was no longer the new shiny object that sparkled in the social media sun.

The straw hat people needed someplace new. They opened Gmaps and scrolled down. Soon, photos of young women gazing into the Albanian middle distance proliferated social media.

I belong to this Albanian travel Facebook group where many pics consist of young women in big straw hats in nature. The comment thread consists of men volunteering to help tour guide.

Pretty, isn't it? I thought I took about one million pictures while riding this boat. I took 12. My influencing game needs work. The last pic is of a little island we explored because the water levels were down and we couldn't reach this Instagrammable spot so the captain felt the need to take us around some more.

Over the past decade, the average person’s response to my desire to see Albania has gone from “Albania?! Where’s that?” to “Ooooh! Albania!” People laugh when I explain I’m riding this boat because I’m working on a project about an American journalist.

This must be how people who conduct serious research in Fiji feel like. 

Venice has started requiring an entrance fee. Barcelonans are shooting water guns at tourists. Albania, for now, remains affordable and relatively uncrowded. I have to deal with a certain amount of travel chaos (no trains, no public transportation). In return, I can afford decent hotels and delicious meals with two glasses of wine. Albania retains a sense of adventure long gone from Western Europe.

Unlike the water-gunning Catalans, Albanians are all too happy to build an armada of motorized boats. As a poor country, they need the money, and outside investors seem happy to provide it. Or the money comes from somewhere. Everywhere is under construction. EVERYWHERE.

After lunch, the tour guide of our small group of four wrangles a private boat. He takes us down the less traveled waterway, where a heinous plastic bottle island floats.

“Bad, huh?” he says. “We need to clean that up.”

I don’t go to the prow and take a picture. It feels impolite. The guide has trusted us with the darker side of tourism, and he’s one of many Albanians dependent on tourism for his livelihood. Anyhoo, my flowy boho dress is at the dry cleaners.

I loved how random guys would appear out of the mountains for a lift. Definitely not tourists. This is common in Albania, where someone knows a guy who knows a guy who can get you there. And don't you love how this man on the right wears a suit to drive the boat? The older generation generally speaks Italian and dresses with similar style.

As for the future of Lake Komani?

As we ride I ponder how in more developed countries, lake houses populate and retail for absurd amounts of money. My Dad bought inexpensive property on Lake Tuscaloosa (really, “Reservoir Tuscaloosa”) in 1970. Today, real estate sharks circle his property. And that’s for a piece of brown lake. In the mosquito subtropics of Alabama. If I had any sense, I’d find a way to buy some of this turquoise water access.

Rose had this real estate game figured out in 1925.