Eco Tips For Malta – Conscious Travel

Blue sea, honey coloured stone, bright boats and red phone boxes! 

I recently spent a week in Malta with family. A week full of sightseeing and sunshine! For anyone who hasn’t been – it is beautiful. Every village and town is a new delight. And when it all becomes too much, head to Gozo for some peace and quiet! As with every other place I visit, I wanted to try and live as sustainably as I could to try and lower my impact while I was there. This is a list of my eco tips for Malta which will hopefully be useful if you decide to visit.

Tips For Malta

We stayed at an Airbnb in Valletta for a few nights and the rest of the week further down the coast. Valletta is really easy to walk around – if you can cope with the heat. We spent the day wandering around looking at the sights. For the perfect coffee, try Lot 61 Coffee, it’s a little coffee shop, using beans roasted in Malta.

For breakfast, we ate at the Valletta Food Market, just outside at the front. The food market consists of a supermarket on the bottom floor – which also includes locally made food. And restaurants on the upper floor. It opened this year after being completely regenerated, you can read more about it here.

Malta is well known for silver filigree jewellery and The Silversmith’s Shop was the best I’ve found. The designs are so pretty and the owner creates the jewellery while minding the shop.

After we moved further down the coast in Malta I knew I didn’t want to eat out as much so we took a drive out to Vincents Eco Farm. It’s an organic farm where they grow a lot of their own fruit and veg and also import some too. There is a beautiful outdoor shop with lots of organic fruit and veg and they have a selection of cupboard staples indoors too.

There are also fruit and veg stalls all over the country where you can buy as little or as much as you want. Fruit and veg grow all year round in Malta, ask the vendor what is local for the time of year you are visiting. Malta and Gozo also produce delicious local wine, I have tried it and can attest to its quality! Almonds, carob, prickly pears, oranges, and watermelons are a tiny list of what is grown locally.

Malta is known for having traditional bright coloured fishing boats called luzzus. They have little eyes painted on the front. There are still quite a few of them in use, check Marsaxlokk harbour if you want to see them. Fish on the island tends to be fresh and varied, I’m vegetarian so didn’t try it but it looked fresh!

We wanted to travel around the country quite a bit so we hired a car. Unfortunately, there is a lot of traffic on the roads in Malta, there are a few initiatives to push people towards buying electric but it still seems to be in the early stages. We hired a seven-seater car as there was six of us and it would have been difficult to use the bus every day. And at least that way, everyone could fit in the same car. The bus links are actually good but our apartments were out just too out of the way. Hopefully there will be the option of hiring electric cars in the near future.

For the nature lovers, the best thing to do is get out into the countryside or the sea. We took a trip to Gozo and did an 8km hike which was probably one of the best parts of the trip. The hike was partly marked so we really needed a phone with the information already or a hiking book or map. Otherwise, we would have got very lost! We used this guide to walk from Marsalforn Bay to Ramla Bay. We took a bus back to the car afterwards, but not before a spot of sunbathing on Ramla beach.

Malta is a great place for watersports. We went snorkeling at The Blue Lagoon and were able to hire a snorkel and mask – but not the flippers. Although The Blue Lagoon is beautiful, it does get very overcrowded. We took the first boat out in the morning and it was still very crowded at that point. Obviously, people take their own transport too! Next time I would try looking or asking for a less overcrowded spot and I think it would be more enjoyable.

Mdina is worth a visit for the pretty streets and has lots of shops with local glass and jewellery made in Malta. However, I also liked the neighbouring Rabat, it is just across the street. It was so much quieter and I enjoyed walking through the streets a lot more. Stop off at Ta’ Doni for lunch, they do simple local food that tastes amazing. We ate outside and I think they open the restaurant up for evening meals where you can sit inside.

In Rabat, we also came across a workshop called WoodeYe with lovely wooden pots, letter openers and keyrings. Made from local wood, some of which are olive, pomegranate and olive. The wood is collected from stubs and branches of pruned trees and turned into beautiful works of art. Find out more here.

A point to note – the water is drinkable in Malta. However it doesn’t taste the best, and it comes out the tap very warm! I’m an avid fan of my reusable water bottle so persevered with it and did start to get used to it over the week.

Single-use plastic is also used a lot, as with everywhere else these days. Plastic bags are still being used in the grocery shops for example. I refused where I could and the locals didn’t bat an eyelid. I noticed quite a lot of recycling points around the islands too. Also, street bins were often segregated for recycling. I did see a few bits of trash lying around the towns and cities on the ground. The harbours and beaches were clean though.

To conclude

There are lots of small ways to be more sustainably aware while visiting Malta. It is a beautiful island with a rich history. In some ways, it can feel quiet while wandering through little villages and towns, in other ways it can seem overcrowded and overwhelming. Maybe the best way to enjoy the country is to look off the beaten track a little. It can feel like you’re missing out if you don’t do the top ten ‘musts’ from every holiday round up article. But my ‘best bits’ were hidden areas that I found while exploring. And for a such a small country, there is a lot of exploring to be done!

For an ethical souvenirs guide, check here.

Sign up for The Green Edition monthly newsletter and receive 100 free Zero Waste Fashion Tips.