Hop-On Hop-Off on Malta: Take the South Route, Ride the Normal Bus North

There are two sightseeing loops on Malta, they cost the same, and almost every visitor picks the wrong one. Not because the north route is bad – because the north route competes with a bus network that already does the job for a fraction of the price, and the south route competes with almost nothing.

Here is what each one actually covers, taken from the operator’s own stop lists.

The two loops, side by side

South Malta Route (Red) – Valletta, Hypogeum, Vittoriosa Waterfront, Żejtun Church, Marsaxlokk Fishing Village, Għar Dalam Cave & Museum, Blue Grotto, Ħaġar Qim & Mnajdra Temples, The Limestone Heritage, Sliema.

North Malta Route (Blue) – Valletta, San Anton Gardens, The Crafts Village, Aviation Museum, Mosta Church, Mdina, Rabat, Mġarr Church, Golden Bay, Buġibba Square, Splash and Fun Water Park, St George’s Bay, Spinola Bay.

Now look at them as transport rather than as sightseeing. The north list is a tour of places the ordinary bus reaches comfortably and often: Mdina and Rabat are among the best-served destinations on the island, Buġibba and St Julian’s are dense with routes, Golden Bay has its own service. A single fare is €2.50 in summer and €2.00 in winter, valid two hours with free transfers.

The south list is the opposite. Ħaġar Qim, Għar Dalam, the Blue Grotto and Marsaxlokk sit on separate spokes of a network that runs in and out of Valletta, which means stringing three of them together on public buses costs you the middle of the day in connections. We went through exactly that problem for two of these stops in Blue Grotto and Marsaxlokk: the direct routes to each one start from Valletta and head out in different directions.

That is what the red loop is really selling. Not the top deck – the fact that it is the only vehicle on the island that visits the southern sites in one sensible order.

The departure times matter more than the frequency

From the operator’s listing, buses leave Sliema Ferries at:

Route	Departures
North (Blue)	09:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00
South (Red)	09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00

The 15:00 departure on both routes runs Monday to Saturday only. On Sunday the last bus out is 14:00.

Two consequences, and the second one is the one that costs people their day.

First, a ticket sold as a hop-on hop-off ticket is only a hop-on hop-off ticket in the morning. With the last departure at 15:00, every stop you get off at in the afternoon is a stop you have to leave under your own steam or not leave at all. Plan the hopping off before lunch and treat the later part of the loop as a sightseeing ride.

Second, the Marsaxlokk fish market is on Sunday, and it is on the red route – so the day you most want the south loop is the day it has one fewer departure and finishes an hour earlier. If the market is the point of the trip, take the 09:30 and accept that you are committing to the early half of the day.

What €25 buys, and what else €25 buys

The ticket in our stock is €25 for a one-day pass with 2,385 reviews at 4.0 stars – the lowest star average among the twenty most reviewed offers on the island, which is worth knowing before you book. A variant that adds an optional boat cruise runs €28. The listing states the price covers the bus ticket, headphones and entrance tickets, though it does not spell out which entrances, so check that on the offer page rather than assuming.

Do not assume the Hypogeum, in particular. Heritage Malta’s own page prices adult admission to Ħal Saflieni at €35.00 – more than the whole bus ticket – with youths 12–17 and seniors 60+ at €20.00, children 6–11 at €15.00, and a last-minute ticket at €50.00. It also states that only 10 people are allowed in at any one time, that a single person may buy a maximum of four tickets, families excepted, and that infants aged 1–5 are not admitted at any price. This is a separate, early booking, not a stop you wander into off a bus.

The audio commentary comes in 16 languages, Maltese and Polish among them – which is more than most guided tours here manage and a genuine reason to prefer it if English commentary is hard work.

Now the comparison nobody selling the ticket will make for you. Malta Public Transport’s Explore Adult card costs €25 for seven days of unlimited buses on the day and night routes – the tallinja Direct services are the one thing it does not cover. The same money. One buys a day of commentary on a fixed loop; the other buys a week of going wherever you like.

That is not an argument against the sightseeing bus. It is the argument for buying exactly one day of it, on the red route, and putting the Explore card underneath the rest of the week.

Who should skip it entirely

If you have a week and no interest in the far south. The north loop’s stops are all reachable on the €25 weekly card, and Mdina deserves longer than a loop allows – see Mdina and Rabat with the catacombs.

If you are in Valletta for one day. The city is walkable end to end in about twenty minutes and the sightseeing bus starts in Sliema. A walking tour of Valletta gets you inside the buildings, which is where the city actually is.

If it is raining. An open-top deck in a Maltese winter shower is the worst seat on the island, and the ticket is valid for one day, not for the next dry one.

There is also a separate sightseeing loop on Gozo with 1,285 reviews, which is a different proposition: Gozo has a thinner bus network than Malta, so there the tourist bus is filling a real gap. It pairs with a day trip rather than replacing one – see Gozo in one day.

For the guided alternatives that cover the same southern ground with a person instead of a headset, things to do on Malta starts at €2.50, and the temple-focused days sit under Malta’s temples and history tours from €5.