Welcome to my Malta travel budget post. I don’t generally talk about money here. I’m British, it’s not done. Besides, the usual subject is “how to make money from travelling and/or blogging!” I don’t know that. I have a 9-5 (well, two days a week it’s 8:30-4:30 which is never confusing to my body clock at all) and I get paid a regular salary, which I then spend on plane tickets & comedy tickets.
But I wanted to talk about my Malta trip back in January because I was surprised how little it cost. I mean, that was the whole point of the trip. I knew I was going to Russia this year, so I knew I didn’t have money to burn on going anywhere exciting every six weeks in the rest of the year.
Since I first published this, I’ve put together a Malta Spending Tracker. I don’t know what exchange rate I used when I wrote this post but I used the Oanda rate as of 12/07/20 for the tracker and it came in 13p different overall so I’ll stick with it.
I had an unexpected day off in January. I don’t work Fridays (long story; involves me leaving my job and being invited back eight months later, ends with me being paid marginally more to work four days than I used to get paid to work five days) and then my London boss came down to see me – on a Friday. So I worked a day I normally don’t and I took the next Thursday off in lieu which gave me a sudden four-day weekend.
I chose Malta from a Skyscanner “everywhere” search because it was the cheapest flight my local airport had. January is not exactly high season in Malta. So my return flights – with Ryanair! – cost £52.97. That’s including two sets of £10 (£20 total; not because you can’t work that out for yourselves but because I need the figure visible so I can bold it) seat reservations because emetophobe can’t conceive of a three-hour flight in a seat randomly allocated when I arrive at the airport. The flights came to £32.97; I thought I could afford to splurge on that little luxury.
Local airport & my parents dropped me off on the way to their Thursday afternoon out, so no transport or parking costs. Yay local airports!
Accommodation. I found a hostel-slash-student hall for three nights for €49.50 total. I wouldn’t like to live there for an academic year but it was adequate for three nights. And it was a private room with (separate, other side of the corridor) private bathroom. And breakfast. And a pool, although it was closed in January. I mean, cell-like the room may have been, but €50 went a long way there.
I needed to get around so I bought a bus pass for €15. That’s all my travel covered for the four days. It’s twelve bus rides for the price of ten. I didn’t actually use all twelve but I made sure I at least covered the ten to get my money’s worth.
On Friday I went to Gozo. Big spending that day. I bought a ferry ticket to go over. €4.65. On the grounds that the local buses covered by my pass were going to to operate on a hub/spoke system from Rabat/Victoria, I bought a Gozo hop-on tour bus ticket. €20. It seemed the cheapest and most efficient way to see as much of Gozo as possible before I had to be back for the ferry. I know it’s touristy but the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus exists for a reason and it’s a really useful thing if you want to see everything quickly and easily.
Back on the big island, I spent a day in Valletta and I took the little ferry over to Sliema for €2.80. Later in the day I did a land train tour of Valletta, which cost another €6. Both great for seeing a lot without using your poor hot tired feet.
On Sunday I did a two-harbour boat trip. That’s the one thing I don’t have an exact price for. I didn’t have a receipt because I bought it from a random seller in the street (I know; probably shouldn’t have done) and when I boarded, they took my ticket off me. I think that would have been around £13.
What about food & drink? I kept my receipts. I went to the supermarket four times for bits and pieces and I spent $24.19 in all. I don’t eat out and I don’t drink alcohol. That’s not a budget thing or a solo traveller thing. That’s a brain disorder/eating disorder thing.
And what did I buy? Some postcards. A sticker. A souvenir coin. I suspect there’s a missing receipt or two because the total I’ve got in my scrapbook is €3.15 on souvenirs. The postcards are all accounted for but I don’t have a receipt for the sticker or coin. For simplicity, let’s call that another €3.15.
And the grand total?
I’ve spent the last six months convinced I did four days in Malta with everything included for under £100. My grand total is £181.13, which for four days including flights, accommodation, travel, adventures, shopping & food, I think isn’t bad. I couldn’t do four interesting days in London for that and Central London is only a little over 100 miles from my house.
If you take out the luxuries – the boat trips, the tourist stuff, the postcards, the seat reservations – I spent £116.66. The luxuries themselves come to £64.47 – I know plenty of people who could drink that in a single evening. It’s not exactly shoestring travel. It’s coming out at nearly the double the price I’ve been fondly imagining. But £180 including flights & accommodation and those seat reservations! That’s not bad! Once I’d actually arrived, I spent just £84 on actually being in Malta.
No. That’s not a bad price for a long weekend under the hot sun when you’re saving for an epic Russian trip. That’s how to do Malta for under £200. Top tip/life hack: Go in the lowest of low seasons on the lowest of low-price low-value airlines.