Malta has a real budget end and it’s concentrated in a few places. Staying cheaply here doesn’t mean staying badly, but it usually means staying north or south rather than central.
Where the cheap beds are
Buġibba and St Paul’s Bay
The biggest concentration of inexpensive hotels and apartments on the islands, well served by buses and handy for the Gozo and Comino boats.
Nobody stays here for charm. You stay here because it’s cheap, it’s near the water and the buses go everywhere from it.
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Hostels
Several have pools, and the social ones are lively, which solves company as well as cost if you’re travelling alone.
Standards are reasonable and they put you in the middle of everything, which the cheap hotels in the north do not.
Travelling alone
The south
Marsaskala, Birżebbuġa and Marsaxlokk cost less again and feel like real towns rather than resorts. You’ll eat better and pay less.
The trade is longer journeys to the north and to Gozo. If you’re here to swim in the north every day, it’s the wrong base.
Markets in the south
Every budget option
The cheap end
- Buġibba, Qawra, St Paul’s Bay
- The largest concentration of inexpensive hotels and apartments, well served by buses, and handy for the Gozo and Comino boats.
- Hostels
- Mostly in St Julian’s and Sliema, several with pools. A reasonable standard. The social ones are lively.
- The south
- Marsaskala, Birżebbuġa and Marsaxlokk are cheaper again and much more Maltese. Longer journeys to the north.
- Gozo out of season
- Farmhouse rates outside summer fall a long way, and winter Gozo is lovely if you have a car.
- Winter long stays
- Monthly rates from about November to March are a fraction of summer. See long stays.
The same room can cost two or three times more in August than in November, which is a bigger saving than any choice of town. The sea is still swimmable well into October, so late September and October give you cheap and warm at once.
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