Malta is easy with children in the ways that count. Everything is close together, the swimming is safe, everyone speaks English, and nobody minds a child in a restaurant at ten at night. A few things are harder than you would expect.
What works, roughly by age
Under five
There are sandy bays you can walk into slowly and a large playground at the Ta’ Qali national park. Boat trips finish before anyone runs out of patience.
Leave the temples and the citadels for another trip. There is too much walking and too much sun, and nobody has a good afternoon.
Find a sandy bay
Five to ten
Popeye Village is an old film set turned into a small theme park. It is as strange and as fun as that sounds. The National Aquarium at Qawra and the Playmobil factory near Hal Far both go down well.
Glass-bottom boats at the Blue Lagoon are a good trick if some of the group swim and some do not.
Booking the Blue Lagoon
Ten and up
The saluting battery under the Upper Barrakka fires at noon and again in the afternoon. It never fails with this age group. The war rooms and the forts hold up well once a child can follow a story.
Snorkelling and kayaking open up here. So do the temples, once five thousand years means something.
Museums and fortsBuy attraction tickets
Teenagers
A diving course, watersports or a day in Comino will do more for a teenager than any museum. A course is especially good because it gives them their own thing to do with their own group for a few days.
Paceville is not for them, whatever they may have heard about it.
Diving and snorkellingBook a dive
Most swimming here is off rock rather than sand, so pack water shoes. Pavements are narrow or missing in a lot of towns, which makes a pushchair hard work. And July and August afternoons are too hot for small children outdoors, so plan to be inside in the middle of the day.
For planning the trip itself rather than the days in it, see Malta with kids.
What changes with the season
You get the best walking of the year, and the island is green.
- The countryside is green from February to April and burnt brown by June, so put the walking days early in the trip.
- The sea does not really warm up until May. Treat a beach day as a coast day and you will not be disappointed.
- Holy Week moves every year and changes opening hours across a lot of towns. Check the dates before you fix a day to Valletta.
Everything is open and everything is busy. The heat sets the timetable.
- The midday heat limits you more than the distance does. Start early, stop between one and four, then go out again in the evening.
- The Blue Lagoon needs a slot booked in advance. It is free, but it is not optional.
- Beaches fill from mid-morning, and the northern buses fill with them. A full bus will drive straight past your stop.
The sea is still warm and the crowds have gone. Many people prefer October for that reason.
- The water lags the air by about a month, so swimming is still on the table through October.
- The Valletta harbour ferries switch to their winter timetable on 1 November, and the last crossing comes earlier than people expect.
- Rain returns in November. Keep one flexible day rather than booking every morning.
Swap the beach days for walking days and the itineraries still work.
- The sea is too cold for most people, so every beach day in these routes becomes a coast walk instead.
- Comino boats run to a reduced service or stop altogether, so treat the Blue Lagoon as a summer plan.
- The sites and the museums are almost empty in winter, so this is a good time to walk round them.