Malta 7-Day Itinerary: One Perfect Week (2026)

A week is where Malta stops being a checklist. The one change that separates seven days from a shorter trip is simple: you stop day-tripping Gozo and stay over instead, which buys a real beach day and a spare day for the weather on top.

Budget roughly €130–170 per person in entry fees, ferries and boat trips across the week, excluding food, hotels and the Gozo stay. A hire car earns its keep here in a way it does not on a short trip – the beach day, the south coast and Gozo itself are all easier with one.

The seven days at a glance

Days 4 and 5 are the fixed points, because both depend on boats and both reward an early start. Everything else moves around the forecast.

What a week actually costs

Seven days is long enough that the entry fees add up to a real number, and it is the one most itineraries leave out.

Budget roughly €130–170 per person for sights, ferries and boats across the week, excluding food, accommodation and a hire car. The Explore card comfortably pays for itself over seven days if you are not driving.

Where to base yourself

The trick for a week is to split the stay. Spend the first stretch – around five nights – on Malta in Sliema, St Julian's or Valletta, all central and well connected to the rest of the island.

Our where to stay in Malta guide compares those areas in full. Any of the three puts you within reach of the Gozo ferry terminal in the north.

Then move across for two nights on Gozo near the end. A farmhouse or small hotel around Victoria, Xlendi or Marsalforn puts you on the slow island in the evenings, once the day-trippers have gone – the where to stay in Gozo guide covers the areas and the farmhouse stays.

Getting there is its own short journey, and Malta airport to Gozo sets out the ferry and transfer options if you would rather start the week on the smaller island.

Day 1: Valletta and the Grand Harbour

Open in the capital while you are fresh. Valletta is about 1 km end to end, so the major sights sit within a few streets of each other and the day is entirely walkable.

St John's Co-Cathedral is the one unmissable interior – a Baroque hall with a marble tombstone floor and Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Entry is €15 with the audioguide, last admission is 16:00, and it closes on Sundays and public holidays.

Add the Grand Master's Palace at €12 for the State Rooms and Armoury, and the Upper Barrakka Gardens for the free harbour terrace – our things to do in Valletta guide has the route.

In the afternoon, cross the harbour by dgħajsa or ferry to the Three Cities for the older, quieter side of the water, then head back to Valletta for the evening.

Day 2: Mdina, Rabat and Mosta

Head inland. Mdina is free to walk, and that silent walled city of medieval streets and bastion viewpoints is most of the appeal – go mid-morning before the coach tours, or late afternoon once they have gone.

St Paul's Cathedral costs €15 on a combined ticket with the Cathedral Museum. Next door in Rabat, St Paul's Catacombs at about €6 are the more distinctive stop – an early-Christian burial complex you walk through, though enclosed and underground.

The Mdina and Rabat day trip guide covers the timings, and the Mosta Rotunda is an easy stop on the way back. This is a deliberately gentle day before the island days.

Day 3: A beach and coast day

Here is the day a shorter trip cannot spare: nothing but the coast. Golden Bay and neighbouring Għajn Tuffieħa are the best sandy beaches on the main island, while Mellieħa Bay is the biggest and the easiest with children.

Our best beaches in Malta guide picks between them. If the wind is up on the north-west side, the sheltered lidos and rock platforms along the Sliema front are the standard fallback.

A slow swim day in the middle of the week is what stops seven days feeling like a march.

Day 4: Comino and the Blue Lagoon

The marquee swim day. Comino's Blue Lagoon holds the brightest water in the islands, and a week gives it a full unhurried day rather than a stop on someone else's route.

Be clear about what it is, though. The Blue Lagoon is an excellent swimming stop and a poor beach – minimal sand, almost no infrastructure, and shoulder-to-shoulder in the middle of a summer day. Bring water, food and shade.

The Blue Lagoon, Crystal Lagoon and sea caves boat tour is the Comino-focused version, 3–4 hours from Ċirkewwa at about €23–25, taking in Santa Maria Bay and the caves as well as the two lagoons. Our Comino guide covers the island on foot.

Take the earliest departure offered, or stay on late. The same bay before 10:00 or after the day-boats leave is barely recognisable as the one in the midday photographs, and the colour deepens again in the late afternoon.

Day 5: Across to Gozo

Mid-week, change islands. The ferry runs Ċirkewwa to Mġarr in about 25 minutes, round the clock, all year. Check into your base, then give the afternoon to Victoria and the hilltop Cittadella, which looks out over the whole island.

End the day out on the Dwejra coast for the sunset, where the Azure Window stood until it collapsed. The Gozo day trip guide maps the sights if you want the full run-down.

Staying over is the difference a week makes. Once the day-trip boats leave, Victoria's squares and the coastal villages belong to the people who live there again.

Day 6: Gozo at its own pace

Give Gozo a slow second day. The red sand of Ramla Bay, the fishing inlet of Xlendi, the chequerboard salt pans near Marsalforn and the Ġgantija temples at €10 are all a short drive apart.

Ġgantija is worth the stop on its own terms: free-standing stone older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, with the Ta' Kola Windmill included in the same ticket.

It opens daily 10:00–18:00 from March to December, then moves to shorter winter hours and closes on Tuesdays in January and February – easy to walk into on a winter week.

This is the day the overnight earns itself. With no ferry to catch back, you can swim, linger over lunch and watch the light change before crossing in the evening or the next morning.

Day 7: The south and Marsaxlokk

Finish back on Malta along the south coast, the least visited quarter of the island. Start at Marsaxlokk among the painted luzzu boats – if your week includes a Sunday, save this day for it and the biggest fish market in Malta.

Then the Blue Grotto sea caves at Wied iż-Żurrieq. The boat is €10–12 in cash, takes about 25 minutes and only runs when the sea is flat – and the colour inside is gone by early afternoon, so go in the morning if you can.

Finish at the Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra temples on the cliffs above, around €10 and among the oldest free-standing buildings on earth. If the week threw you a wet or windy day, this is the one to shuffle.

Getting around for a week

Over seven days a hire car starts to make sense, particularly for the beach day, the south coast and your days on Gozo, where the sights are spread out and buses are sparse.

You can take a hire car across on the Gozo ferry or rent locally once you are there. Our getting around Malta guide weighs the cost against the €25 Explore card.

On public transport alone the plan still works, with more waiting and more planning around timetables on Days 3, 6 and 7. Taxis and ride-hailing fill the gaps where the buses are thinnest.

One catch on the card: the €25 Explore pass does not cover the Tallinja Direct airport express, so the €3 fare each way between the airport and your base is charged separately.

Seven days is the length that lets Malta breathe: the cities and the temples, two islands, and the kind of slow beach day that turns a trip into a holiday.

Tighter on time? The 5-day Malta itinerary covers the same islands with one base and no overnight, and the 3-day itinerary trims it to the essentials for a short break. First trip to the islands? Start with the Malta first-timers guide.