This is going to be an article about our full 8-day Malta Itinerary, with a whole bunch of links to other articles and websites to help you plan your own amazing getaway! We went to Malta for our oldest daughter’s high school graduation trip (delayed one year due to COVID). Anna is a geography major at Augustana College, and thought that the capital of Valletta sounded cool, and didn’t want to go anywhere “basic”. I’m kind of going all out for these grad trips, and so we booked business class seats on Lufthansa to get to Malta. We flew from O’Hare with a quick pit stop in Frankfurt. It definitely makes a difference when you can stretch out on the plane. We were not nearly as tired on arrival to Malta as we were when we arrived in Spain flying coach a few months prior.

Malta’s airport is relatively small, but since we rented a car, we had to schlep probably about a half mile to the primary parking garage where all the rental car places were located. We rented through AutoUnion. It was a seamless process and pretty cheap. Our car was not super great though, and even though we saved a lot of money booking through this company, it might’ve been a little better paying a little more for a slightly nicer car that didn’t have weird rattling sounds while driving and a missing hubcap.

We parked at the MCP car park just outside the Valletta City Gate. This is a reasonably priced (10 euro per day), convenient, and safe place to park your car while visiting Valletta. You can’t park your car inside Valletta if you’re not a resident, so this is your best option.

The main areas of Valletta do not allow cars, so we dragged our luggage around the giant Triton fountain and through the city gates. Luckily, our hotel, Domus Zamitello, was just a few blocks into the city and we didn’t have to walk far. We were early for check-in but our room was ready anyway. Click here for my full hotel review. Domus Zamitello was the perfect spot for us with an incredible location, and enough space for the three of us to spread out. Their daily breakfast was also top-notch, and I would highly recommend staying here while in Valletta. The suites are not cheap, but there are smaller rooms that are very affordable.

It was really tough to choose what to do on this trip as Malta is small, but jam packed full of beauty and activities. While I did get a guidebook from Lonely Planet, the Heritage Malta website is an amazing resource to check out what activities are available all over the islands, and also is a great clearinghouse to get tickets in advance for those activities. They offer individual tickets as well as combo tickets, which are typically a better value if you plan on visiting multiple sites.

We spent about 3.5 days not even leaving Valletta including the half day when we arrived. It’s an incredibly compact and lovely capitol city, full of color, and a very upbeat vibe. Be prepared for it being very hilly, though. This actually surprised me, and we definitely climbed up and down plenty of steep hills to get to some of the places we wanted to see. There are cool views from everywhere around the city, but the best are from the Upper Barakka Gardens. From there, you can view the Grand Harbor and the “Three Sisters” Cities across the way.

Some of the other highlights from Valletta itself were St. John’s Co-Cathedral, the Muza Gallery, and all of the restaurants and shops. Unfortunately, the Grand Master’s palace was closed for renovations while we were there, but this is usually a do-not-miss highlight as well. St. John’s Co-Cathedral is incredibly ornate, and houses two Caravaggio paintings, one of which is “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist”, often considered his masterpiece. They are really proud of their Caravaggio paintings here and even have a cool 15 minute movie about his life just prior to and during his time in Malta. Check out all the details of St. John’s and our hunt for Caravaggio paintings!

The Muza Gallery is chock full of art from Maltese artists and others, including a very large room full of paintings by Preti. We were excited to find the disputed Caravaggio painting “St. John the Baptist” here! It’s not a huge museum, but definitely worth your time to check it out while in Valletta.

We also stopped at the National Museum of Archeology which is also packed full of cool architectural finds from around Malta, including the famous “Sleeping Lady” statue – a minuscule, but perfectly preserved statue from the Temple Period, around 4000 BC. This place is a great stop and follow-up once you have gone out and about to visit some of the neolithic sites around Malta.

Did I mention the food? We had an incredible food tour which I booked through Offbeat Malta Food Trails, which took us to a few under-the-radar spots for some typical Maltese food including pastizzi, slow-cooked rabbit (the national food of Malta), ftira, and chocolate. Read my full overview of the food tour here!

Honestly, I don’t think we had a bad meal in Valletta. We collected a few Michelin stars at Under Grain (full review here!) and at Noni, which was our favorite meal in Malta. Check out my review here! We also ate at Aaron’s Kitchen which was sublime (here’s that review), and a few other spots including N’duja Osteria for super yummy Italian food and The Ordnance for pub food when we were craving it. Valletta has great coffee shops all around as well, but my favorite was Lot 61 for single origin amazing coffee and cold brews.

The shopping in Malta is also super good. There are plenty of tchotchke shops for your cheesy souvy needs, but there are also more high-end stores for browsing and buying. We loved Cekcik for their chill vibe and cool souvenirs, and I got a pair of pretty silver filigree earrings at J. Azzopardi . There is an outpost of Mdina glass in Valletta, so if you can’t make out to Mdina, definitely check this place out for very cool blown glass objects.

Valletta is a great home base due to the variety of activities there, and everywhere you want to go away from Valletta is pretty easily accessible by car, bus, rideshare or even ferry. We took the ferry over to Sliema to walk around and check out that area and have dinner at the Chophouse which was excellent. We took a rideshare over to St. Julian’s to eat dinner at Kuya which was amazing asian food. Seriously do not miss the shrimp dumplings and bang bang spring rolls at Kuya, they are killer.

To get everywhere else we wanted to go, as I mentioned, we rented a car. Let me tell you, it takes a while to get used to driving in Malta. I feel like maybe by the last day of the trip I was feeling pretty solid on the roads. The reason is because you are driving on the left side of the road and there are about a billion roundabouts in Malta. The GPS directions are never super great and it’s just not easy. Plus, I was driving manual, which I know how to do, but am not completely used to, so it just added to the stress. My tip is just to take your time, and take the GPS directions with a grain of salt. Sometimes you are better off just following the signs towards whatever city you are going to.

We did some incredible excursions. Malta is extremely beautiful and surrounded by turquoise blue water and white cliffs. We chartered a sailboat through Sailing Charters Malta for an entire day from 9am-6pm. It was very chill and a great way to see a lot of the island, including the areas surrounding Comino island. Check out my review of our sailing day here.

We also spent an entire day on Gozo island. There is a ton to do here, and our main goal was to hang out by a beach and catch a few rays. We loved Ramla Bay Beach for the calm water and beautiful surroundings. Other Gozo highlights were the Ggantija temples (read about those here), the weird caves underneath totally populated towns, and the Cittadella. We also had an incredible dinner at Tmun to finish off the day, which you can read about here. I would highly recommend staying in Gozo at least overnight as there is just so much to do, and it is simply impossible to do it all in one day. Plus, if you do have dinner here, you’ll want to chill and take your time, rather than rushing back to get to the ferry. Its about a 40 minute drive to the ferry (which itself takes about 20 minutes to cross) from Valletta, so you need to factor that time in as well. Read about our full Gozo itinerary here.

One day we spent driving around southern Malta. We headed to St. Peter’s pool to check out the cool cliffs and views before heading over to Marsaxlokk to check out the gorgeous harbor and have some lunch. After that, we headed to the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, a neolithic underground necropolis which is a Unesco Heritage Site and super cool. Definitely check out my article on the Hypogeum here, because there is a lot to know about this place and you 100% have to get your tickets in advance – like months in advance.

Our last day of excursions took us to the Blue Grotto and Mdina. The Blue Grotto is incredibly stunning and you should absolutely not miss coming here. Driving here from Valletta is super easy, and it’s literally one of the most beautiful places you will see in the world. Read my tips about coming to the Blue Grotto here!

Mdina is about 20 minutes drive from the Blue Grotto, and about 20 minutes from Valletta as well. While our main purpose for coming here was to check out some Game of Thrones filming sites, this is a very cool fortified city with lots of history and museums as well as shops and cafes to check out as well. As I mention in my article about Mdina here, we were suffering from tourist burn-out at this point, our last day on the trip, and so I would suggest you come here more towards the beginning of your trip so you are more motivated to check out some of the other cool things this town, and the neighboring town of Rabat have to offer.

A lot of Europeans come here, and there are a ton of cruise ships that stop at Valletta (though it doesn’t get nearly as crowded as, say, Venice), but Malta remains a pretty under-the-radar place for tourism, especially for Americans. This gorgeous cluster of islands, though, is packed full of history, including neolithic history and modern history, as well as incredible scenery, culture and foodways. There are red sand beaches and rock slab beaches. There are fortified cities and relaxing countrysides. There are Michelin Stars and cheap and delicious local specialties. There are incredibly welcoming people who are extremely proud of their heritage and culture. I am so thrilled that Anna chose Malta for her graduation trip, and we made some really lasting memories in this unique and geographically diverse country.