IF you want to head to the magical Mediterranean island that’s topping the tourist lists for 2026, you might not even need to splash out much to get there.
My family of five has just returned from Gozo, which topped TravelSupermarket’s trending island destinations for 2026, and we paid just £250 return for flights, ferries and bus connections for all of us during school holidays.
Gorgeous Gozo, set between Sicily and Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, captured our hearts, as it’s everything you’d want fro an island getaway.
With stunning coastline and countryside, incredible heritage around every corner and city streets that offer just the right amount of hustle and bustle without feeling overcrowded.
We loved how chilled out it seemed compared to neighbouring Malta – hardly surprising with a population of just 42,000, compared to 550,000 in Malta and 4.8million in nearby Sicily.
In the capital Victoria, we stumbled across the Il-Ħaġar Heart of Gozo Museum, where you’ll find a fascinating stone column running up through the centre of the museum that highlights the islands’ history, summarising the different civilisations and groups based there throughout the ages.
The beautiful St George’s Basilica is just opposite and is well worth a visit. We all loved visiting the Neolithic Ġgantija, temples made of huge stones still standing after more than 5,500 years.
If you’re eyeing up Gozo for your family trip, there are a few easy swaps you can make when it comes to booking transport that could dramatically reduce how much it costs to reach the island.
My first tip would be to look at regional airports for your flights. We paid £200 for return flights from Birmingham with Ryanair at the tail end of the Christmas holidays and we didn’t have to fly at antisocial hours either.
A quick look at flights in February half-term shows that Norwich is the cheapest route to Valletta currently, with flights costing half of those from London airports.
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Gozo doesn’t have its own airport, so once you’ve landed in Malta, there are a couple of ways to get to your destination.
We took a bus from the airport up to the ferry port at Ċirkewwa. The bus was €3 (£2.59) each for the 100-minute journey and then the return ferry fare was just €16.25 (£14.01) for all five of us, with a crossing time of less than half an hour.
The fast ferry from Maltese capital Valletta to Gozo would have cost us €66 (£56.88) and takes 45 minutes, with the bus between the airport and the ferry terminal taking about half an hour.
The beautiful beaches, charming city streets and historic sites that you find on Gozo are all a short bus ride from one another, so public transport is a great way to get around on the island and the €25 (£21.54) Explore Card gives unlimited travel for a week on both Malta and Gozo.
We used €19 (£16.37) cards that allowed 12 single journeys and found that to be more cost-effective for our family, spending around €90 (£77.56) on public transport over the course of our holiday.
If you’re interested in seeing Gozo using the hop-on hop-off tourist bus, I would recommend waiting until you’re on board the ferry to see if you can bag yourself a bargain.
The list price was €20 (£17.24) per adult and €12 (£10.34) per child aged 14 and below, but the rep selling tickets on the ferry offered to do us a deal of €50 (£43.09) for the five of us, so it’s well worth having a haggle if you’re up for that.
We’ve been to four of the top 10 islands on the TravelSupermarket list and Gozo is definitely a firm favourite for my family.
Searches by holidaymakers are up by 1,703 per cent according to TravelSupermarket, with the increase in interest largely attributed to the release of Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator II, filmed on Malta and showcasing some of the charms of this archipelago.
Zakynthos, Malta and Fuerteventura all make an appearance as trending islands for 2026 and while I’ve enjoyed stays on all of them, I think Gozo really does top the lot when it comes to everything we look for in an island escape.
Whether you love sun, sea or sightseeing, you’ll be spoilt for choice on this Med marvel.
For more on Malta, here’s what one woman thought when she moved there, she wears T-shirts in winter, pays no council tax and vet bills cost £25.
And here’s more on the Mediterranean island with 200 beaches that’s spending £2.1million on more winter flights.