After ruling out Malta as a place to retire, I tested out living on its smaller sister island, Gozo

Detailed summary

A few realizations and concerns from my recent trip to the Maltese island of Gozo helped me rule out the idea of wanting to move and retire there.

Although I'm happy living in Ireland, I sometimes long for warmer weather and a slower pace of life. So when I travel, I'm always wondering if my destination could become more than a vacation spot — maybe a place to retire to someday. In 2023, I spent a month seeing if Malta could be a potential forever home. Unfortunately, it wasn't a match for me, but it had so much going for it that I decided to try its charming sister island, Gozo. Gozo lies a few miles northwest of Malta and belongs to the same archipelago. It's just 26 square miles (roughly the size of Manhattan) and home to around 40,000 people. I first visited Gozo in 2012 and have returned a handful of times since then.

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