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Coverage / Malta

Malta

Southern Europe

A compact Mediterranean archipelago at Europe's southern edge. Malta and Gozo combine English-speaking infrastructure with exceptional clear-water freediving, a rare combination for a European destination, with world-champion instructors based on the island.

6 activities · 7 pairings · 11 verified providers

What you can do in Malta

Freediving

GozoMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctGozo solves a specific problem: world-class freediving instruction in English, within a short European flight, with genuinely clear Mediterranean water. World-champion level coaches operate here, and the underwater terrain, the Blue Dome arch, Cathedral Cave, Reqqa Point wall, is among the most visually dramatic in the Mediterranean. A small island (14km x 7km) where everything is close together makes it easy to train intensively over a short trip. The ferry crossing from Malta adds almost no friction, and English is co-official with Maltese.

Museums & Galleries

VallettaJan Feb Mar Apr May Oct Nov DecValletta is one of the most concentrated historic capitals in Europe, an entire UNESCO-listed city built by the Knights of St John in the decades after the Great Siege of 1565, and its museums sit within a few minutes' walk of each other. The centrepiece is St John's Co-Cathedral, whose austere facade hides an interior of gilded Baroque carving, a marble floor of knights' tombs, and Caravaggio's vast Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, the only painting the artist ever signed. A short walk away, MUZA, the national art museum, traces Maltese and Mediterranean art from the Order's patronage to the present inside a restored 16th-century auberge. Between them the city holds the Grand Master's Palace, the national archaeology museum and the underground war rooms, enough to fill several unhurried days without taking a bus.

Music & Culture Festivals

Isle of MTV MaltaFlorianaJulIsle of MTV turns the Granaries square in Floriana into Europe's largest free open-air concert for one night every July. Staged in Malta since 2007 by MTV in partnership with the national tourism authority, the show has drawn tens of thousands to Il-Fosos, an enormous walled esplanade built over 17th-century grain silos just outside Valletta, with past headliners from Lady Gaga and David Guetta to the 2026 bill led by Katy Perry. Admission is free with advance registration, and the concert opens Malta Music Week, five days of club, beach and boat events across the island. It is a big, pop-driven summer party in one of the most striking outdoor venues in the Mediterranean, and it puts a small country on the map of the touring international music circuit for a night.

Sailing

Rolex Middle Sea RaceVallettaOctThe Rolex Middle Sea Race is the Mediterranean's classic offshore race and one of the great spectacles in the sport, and it begins right under Valletta's ramparts. Every October a fleet of a hundred or more yachts starts inside Malta's Grand Harbour, funnelling out past the bastions in front of crowds lining the walls, then sets off on a 606-nautical-mile anti-clockwise loop around Sicily. The course rounds the smoking volcano of Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands, passes the Egadi Islands, Pantelleria and Lampedusa, and returns past Comino to finish back in Malta. First run in 1968, it draws professional crews and amateur offshore sailors alike, and the harbour start is free to watch from Valletta and the Three Cities. For sailors it is a bucket-list race, and for everyone else it is Malta's most dramatic sporting morning.

Scuba Diving

Witness / Attend

Maltese Village FestaMaltaJun Jul Aug SepThe Maltese festa is the beating heart of village life, and in summer there is one almost every weekend somewhere across Malta and Gozo. Each town spends the year preparing to honour its patron saint, and over a long weekend the streets fill with damask hangings and illuminated facades, brass band clubs march and play, a gilded statue of the saint is carried shoulder-high through the parish, and rival fireworks societies fire deafening ground petards by day and elaborate aerial shows by night. It is run entirely by volunteers, with a friendly, fierce rivalry between neighbouring villages and between the band clubs within them. UNESCO added the Maltese village festa to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2023. There is no ticket and no promoter to book. You follow the crowd, the bands and the church bells into the square.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Freediving
Museums
Music Festivals
Sailing
Scuba Diving
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in Malta