First of all, when going on holiday, a nice hotel or resort is very important. However if you decide to spend the majority of your time exploring and sightseeing around Malta like we did, then you hardly have any time to spend at your hotel due to the sheer amount of things you will do! We had only three full days and made the mistake of booking a hotel which had a lot of things to do, like an indoor and outdoor pool, but we didn’t have enough time to really get to experience it how we wanted. However, I still believe that seeing Malta was the best thing we could’ve done. So first tip, figure out what you want to get out of your holiday. Explore a new culture and a new way of life? Relax and take a break from your every day routine? Or a mix of both?
The next thing I recommend is planning what you want to do each day. When we arrived in Malta we realised we knew absolutely nothing about the best places to see and visit. Luckily, the people at the hotel were able to give us suggestions and we quickly came up with a plan. This was lucky for us because we got to hear from locals. However there are a lot of places that will be extremely busy and not live up to the hype, as any holiday destination will have.
I had heard about the blue lagoon being a great place to visit all over social media before arriving in Malta, and while it was beautiful, I quickly realised that almost every tourist visiting Malta had the exact same idea and it was extremely busy!! It definitely didn’t feel like it looked in the photos I’d seen, as it had noisy music and young people being loud. Of course that may be what you are looking for, but for us, we wanted a calmer and more secluded place with beautiful scenery.
We found it in a little beach called Qawra Point Beach a few minutes walk from our hotel that was just as good or even better than the blue lagoon, and didn’t require a long boat trip.
My next tip is to properly plan and figure out the places you want to go before, so as to not waste any time when you’re there. If you get the chance, ask some locals for their opinions on the best places to visit. For us this led to many unique experiences that we would not have known about otherwise.
Going back to boat rides, my final tip is to do an all day boat trip that you will definitely see advertised around, as in my opinion this was one of the best ways to combine sightseeing with having a relaxing and fun day. There is no chance you won’t see these boat trips being advertised all around Malta as it is a very popular thing to do. However you may find the amount of choice overwhelming, so again I recommend to figure out what you want first.
We wanted a calm, relaxed boat trip without lots of rowdy people, so we chose a smaller boat with less people and it turned out to be amazing! We got to see the blue lagoon, Gozo and Saint Paul’s Bay, which was a truly memorable experience.
My last tip to do a boat trip is a really great way of seeing as much as you can in only a day. Overall, Malta is an amazing place to visit on holiday and I really hope if you get a chance you will visit it one day.
Thank you for reading.
Lyra Hamilton, the young reporters scheme.
