The flight
From most western European cities a return to Malta lands between eighty and two hundred and fifty euros depending on when you buy and when you go. July and August are the peak. Booking two to three months ahead is usually what separates the bottom of that range from the top. It is the easiest line to save on, and the one people look at last.
Accommodation
Sharing an apartment between four or more, allow twenty to thirty-five euros per person per night in Sliema, and twenty-five to fifty in Paceville for the same thing. Over seven nights that is a hundred and forty to three hundred and fifty euros each. It is the heaviest line after the flight, and the only one where the choice of neighbourhood weighs as much as the level of comfort.
Nights out
Club entry runs fifteen to twenty-five euros, a beer three to five, a cocktail five to twelve. A full night comes to thirty or fifty euros a head. An open-bar boat party is around seventy euros but replaces a whole night, so it folds into the calculation rather than adding to it. Across five nights out in the week, allow a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty euros.
Food
A meal in a decent restaurant runs fifteen to twenty-five euros, a kebab or takeaway pizza around eight. Shopping for breakfasts and a few dinners brings it down sharply. Allow seventy euros a head for the week on the economical route, a hundred and fifty eating out twice a day.
Getting around
The most variable line. On buses alone, a weekly card comes to around twenty euros. Mixing buses by day and Bolt in the evening, allow fifty to eighty euros each across the week, end-of-night taxis included. Staying in Paceville removes a good part of this line, which partly offsets the higher accommodation cost.
The three totals
Tight: eighty euros of flight, a hundred and forty of accommodation, a hundred and fifty of nights out, seventy of food, twenty of transport, so four hundred and sixty euros for the week. Middle: a hundred and fifty, two hundred, two hundred, a hundred and ten, fifty, so seven hundred and ten. Comfortable: two hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty, a hundred and fifty, eighty, so a little over a thousand. The gap between the first and the last comes mostly from accommodation and flights, not from the partying.