Malta 🇲🇹

Written By Dolly Oyebadejo

August 2026.

  • Malta is an island country (or actually an archipelago — collection of small islands) in the Mediterranean Sea. It is truly beautiful. It’s also cheaper than other Mediterranean coastal destinations, such as the Amalfi Coast.

  • I initially planned to do this trip solo, but my good girl friend ended up joining me. But still would recommend for a black solo female traveler. We never felt unsafe. We didn’t do a whole bunch of activities on this trip, we both wanted to relax mostly. I’ll include all we did and some other attractions/activities.

  • Weather: Malta is known to have warm and rather good weather year round. But ooooweeee, it is HOT in Malta in August. We randomly chose August because I saw a great flight deal. And we still had a fantastic time, but I think it would have been even better in milder weather.

  • Transportation: Getting around was easy, a lot of places are walkable. And they have rideshare options with Uber and Bolt, so renting a care is not a must. We found Bolt to be cheaper and have more drivers available than Uber. While on Gozo island, you may want to a car or buggy — I’ll say more on this later.

  • Also, if you love luxury shopping in Europe, Malta does not have the popular luxury designer stores. So, we did a day trip to Rome to meet our shopping desires.

Attractions

  • Explore capital city of Valletta

    • Walk the riverfront

    • Upper Barrakka Gardens — public garden with a panoramic view of the Grand Harbor, a beautiful viewpoint.

    • Republic Street — lined with small souvenir shops, restaurants, gelaterias, and street vendors.

    • St. John’s Co-Cathedral — beautiful Baroque art interior

view from Upper Barrakka Garden

Upper Barrakka Garden

streets of Valletta

  • Explore Mdina

    • Fortified hilltop city, rich in Medieval architecture. Also, fun fact, Game of Thrones season 1 was filmed in Mdina.

  • Explore the Three Cities

    • Can get there by ferry. The three cities (Birgu, Senglea, and Cospicua) have beautiful waterfront promenades and are less busy than Valletta.

  • St. Paul’s Bay

    • Largest seaside town in Malta, but beaches are rocky.

    • Popular beach clubs: Kora and Cafe Del Mar

  • Explore St. Julian’s

    • Walk around Spinola Bay

      • Beautiful bay with lined with restaurants. It is especially beautiful at sunset. Locals even swim in the bay.

St. Julian’s

Spinola Bay

Spinola Bay

Spinola Bay

  • Beaches/Swimming

    • Golden Bay beach: Sandy beach, with lounge chairs available for renting.

    • Saint Peter’s Pool — small bay, popular for swimming and cliff-jumping

  • Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum — 4000 BC underground burial complex (tickets sell out in advance)

  • Dingli cliffs — highest point in Malta, amazing sunset views

  • Gozo Island

    • Highly recommend visiting and spending a day on the island.

    • Get there from Valletta or North Malta by ferry. Recommend booking the highspeed ferry from Valletta to Gozo in advance.

    • Also recommend renting a car or buggy/quad bike if you’re feeling more adventurous to be able to explore the island independently.

      • Can book a buggy with companies near the port. We booked our buggy in advance with Gozo Quad Hire (€70 for 3.5 hrs)

    • Top places to visit on the island

      • Cittadella (The Citadel), the walled city

      • Salt pans — 350 year old limestone basins, used to naturally harvest sea salt

      • Tal-mixta cave — if nowhere else, visit here. It is so stunningly breathtaking.

      • Blue hole viewpoint

Tal-mixta cave

us and our buggy rental

salt pans

  • Blue Lagoon + Comino boat tour

    • This is definitely a must do. Some of the most beautiful blue water.

    • I recommend doing a private boat tour, the price is very affordable for a private boat on the Mediterranean Sea.

      • This is the private boat tour we did, which I highly recommend. We booked directly with the company instead of TripAdvisor for a cheaper price. It was (€199/$220) for the 2 hour tour.

        • It includes two stops for snorkeling/swimming. You can connect the the boat speaker to play your own music. And can bring your own food and drinks.

        • Can pick up/drop off in Gozo or North Malta. We added it on to the end of our day in Gozo.

Food

I had a few restaurants on my list as options, but we ended up going with the flow and eating at random restaurants we stumbled across for most of our meals. But here are the ones I had on my list.

  • St. Julian’s

    • Zest: Japanese-Peruvian fusion, Michelin guide

    • NAAR Restobar: Mediterranean, dinner with a view

    • Blue Elephant: Thai

    • Radio Rooftop — ME by Melia rooftop Asian-inspired restaurant with outdoor seating options with a beautiful panoramic view of St. Julian’s.

  • Valletta

    • San Paolo Naufrago — Maltese + Italian cuisine, known for their lasagna

  • Gozo

    • Terrazzo — has nice view overlooking the water

    • Pasta Republic — popular for their homemade pasta

  • St. Paul’s Bay

    • Cafe Del Mar — dinner/beach club

    • Loa — South American cuisine

Zest

Zest

NAAR

NAAR

Radio Rooftop

Radio Rooftop

Accommodation

We chose to stay in St. Julian’s Bay, which is a very lively (and also party) area. We are not partiers, and did not visit a single club. But we loved how walkable to area was and the high density of restaurants. There aren’t a lot of attractions in St. Julian’s Bay, but great for a home base. Valletta is also a very common home-base for people to stay.

We stayed at the beautiful 5-star hotel, ME by Melia Malta. The hotel definitely lives up to the 5-stars — beautifully designed, pristinely clean, wonderful staff, modern decor, multiple restaurants on sites, and 2 pools lined with free first-come-first-serve cabanas. We chose to also to add the breakfast buffet to our booking. The only small con I would mention about the hotel is their breakfast buffet selection was on the smaller size.

reception area

our room

hotel’s pool

hotel breakfast

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Dolly Oyebadejo
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