Gozo is small, hilly and has more dirt tracks than you would expect for an island you can drive across in twenty minutes. Those three things together are why quad biking has become one of the most popular ways to spend a day here.
The roads between villages are narrow and the stretches of coast worth seeing are often at the end of paths that a hire car doesn’t love, which makes something lower and more manoeuvrable a genuinely practical choice rather than just a novelty. There are several ways to do it and they differ enough that picking the wrong one can waste a good chunk of your day, so here is what each option actually involves.
Guided full-day quad bike tour
This is the format most visitors end up booking, and for good reason. You drive your own quad bike (a 570cc ATV, not the underpowered machines you find at beach resorts) in a small convoy behind a local guide who knows the island well enough to take you down tracks that aren’t on any tourist map.
The day runs about seven hours on the island itself, not counting travel time from Malta. If you’re coming from the main island, you get picked up from your accommodation by minibus and driven to Ċirkewwa, where you board a private boat to Gozo rather than the public ferry. At the operator’s garage in Mġarr you get a safety briefing, your helmet, hairnet and rain cover, and then you’re assigned your quad.
Each quad bike seats two people. If you’re a couple, both the driver and the passenger can take turns at the handlebars during the day, provided both of you are 21 or over and hold a valid driving licence. The quads are third-party insured, and fuel, helmets and all safety gear are included.
The standard route covers a lot of ground. Highlights include the Church of St John the Baptist in Xewkija, with its enormous dome—the third-largest unsupported dome in the world—and the dramatic Sanap Cliffs near Munxar.
From there, stops typically include Xlendi Bay and its belvedere, along with the Knights’ Wash Houses at Fontana, where some locals still wash laundry by hand. You’ll also visit Dwejra Bay to see the Inland Sea and Fungus Rock before taking an off-road track to the Wied il-Mielaħ natural arch, with the rough ride being part of the fun.
Other highlights include Wied il-Għasri valley, Marsalforn Bay, and the Xwejni salt pans, where a local family still harvests sea salt by hand between May and September. There’s also Tal-Mixta Cave above Ramla Bay, where the view through the cave toward the red-sand beach and sea makes for one of the best photos you’ll take on the island.
A traditional Gozitan lunch is served during one of the longer stops, usually featuring local bread, cheeses, olives, and seasonal dishes.
On the return to Malta, the boat passes the Comino sea caves and the Blue Lagoon, with a swim stop built in during the summer months.
A full-day guided quad bike tour costs around €110 per person, or approximately €185 for two people sharing one quad. A €25 deposit per person secures the booking, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before the tour. The price includes everything: transport from Malta, the private boat crossing both ways, the guide, lunch, safety gear, insurance and fuel.
Worth knowing: these tours book out regularly in spring and summer, so leaving it until the day before in July usually doesn’t work.
The sunset quad tour
Between mid-April and mid-October, there is a sunset version of the tour that runs on a different schedule and covers the island at a different time of day. Rather than spending the full day on Gozo, the sunset tour typically starts with a boat cruise to Comino and a swim stop at the Blue Lagoon in the afternoon, followed by a shorter quad bike tour of Gozo’s highlights timed so that you’re riding along the west coast as the sun goes down. It finishes with a Mediterranean dinner platter and the option of a cocktail or mocktail.
The route on the island is shorter than the full-day version, but finishing with sunset light over the Ta’ Ċenċ cliffs or the Dwejra coastline is worth the trade-off if the timing works for you. Priced similarly to the standard full-day tour. If the sunset quad tour is sold out on your preferred date, there is also a sunset buggy version that follows a similar route.
Independent quad bike rental
If you’d rather set your own route and go at your own pace, you can rent a quad bike directly from operators on Gozo. This option suits people who are already staying on the island for a few days, who have some idea of where they want to go, and who are comfortable navigating without a guide.
The rental operators are mostly based in or around Xewkija, which is centrally located and easy to reach from Mġarr Harbour. The standard rental quad is a CFMoto 450s, a two-seater with a storage box for personal belongings. You get a GPS-loaded map of Gozo with marked points of interest, beaches and restaurants, plus helmets.
Rental prices start from around €65 for a half day (five hours) and go up to about €80-90 for a full day, depending on the season. There is a security deposit of around €450, refunded if there is no damage. You need to return the quad with a full tank, which costs approximately €7-8.
A few things to keep in mind with rentals. You need to get yourself to Gozo first, either by the Ċirkewwa ferry (€4.65 per person return, pay on the way back) or the fast ferry from Valletta or Sliema. You need to sort your own lunch. And you won’t have a guide pointing out the hidden tracks and back roads that guided tour clients get taken to, though the GPS map covers the main highlights well enough.
The other thing rental operators tend not to mention up front is the excess policy. In the event of an accident, the security deposit may not be refunded and there can be an additional excess of several hundred euros before the insurance covers anything. Read the terms before you sign.
Drivers must be between 21 and 71 years old. A valid driving licence is required, original document, not a photo or copy. You also need to wear closed shoes, so leave the flip-flops at the hotel.
UTV and buggy tours
If you like the idea of a guided off-road tour but don’t want to ride a quad bike, there are UTV and buggy options that follow similar routes. These are fully automatic vehicles with seatbelts, a roll cage and seats for a driver and one passenger. They feel more like a small open-top car than a motorbike, which suits people who want the off-road access without needing to balance on two wheels.
Buggy tours cover broadly the same ground as the quad tours: the same coastal tracks, the same stops, the same lunch and Comino cruise on the return. Prices are similar too, around €90-120 per person depending on the operator and season. The same licensing requirements apply: you must be 21 or over with a valid driving licence to drive.
For couples or friends travelling together, a buggy can be a more comfortable option than sharing a quad for seven hours, particularly in the heat of summer. There are also sunset versions of the buggy tours available between mid-April and mid-October.
Why quad biking works on Gozo specifically
Gozo has about 67 square kilometres of terrain, and a surprising amount of the best coastline and landscape is reached by unpaved tracks rather than main roads. The Xwejni salt pans on the north coast are carved into the coastal rock in a chessboard pattern of shallow pools, still harvested by hand between May and September by a local family who sell bags of the salt from a tiny shop nearby for about €2.50 each.
The cliff paths near Ta’ Ċenċ run along some of the highest coastal cliffs on the island with views down to Comino and Malta. The approach to the Wied il-Mielaħ arch, a natural rock arch that most visitors miss because the collapsed Azure Window got all the attention for so long, is down a track that a standard car would not enjoy. Wied il-Għasri is a narrow gorge leading down to a tiny swimming cove that you wouldn’t know existed from the road above. The Inland Sea at Dwejra, a saltwater lagoon connected to the open Mediterranean through a tunnel in the cliff, is reachable by car but the surrounding area has plenty of off-road ground worth exploring on something with lower clearance.
These are places a bus doesn’t go to and a standard hire car doesn’t enjoy reaching.
The traffic on Gozo is also lighter than on Malta, the roads between villages are short, and the terrain is varied enough, coastal cliffs, inland farming tracks, narrow village streets, that the ride between stops is part of the experience rather than just getting from one place to the next. Malta’s main island is too built up and too busy for quad biking to work well. Gozo’s size and rural character are what make it suited to this.
Practical things to know before you book
The minimum driving age is 21, across all operators and all vehicle types. If you’re under 21 you can ride as a passenger but you cannot drive. This catches people out more than anything else.
You need your original driving licence on the day. Not a photograph on your phone, not a photocopy. Provisional licences are not accepted. People do get turned away at the garage for this.
Closed shoes are required. No sandals, no flip-flops. You will be on rough terrain and the operators check.
In summer, the heat is serious. July and August regularly hit 33-35 degrees and you’re on a quad in full sun for most of the day. Sunscreen, a hat for the stops, sunglasses and a water bottle are not optional. Water is available at stops along the guided tour routes.
Wear clothes you don’t care about. The tracks are dusty and by mid-afternoon you will be wearing a fair amount of Gozo.
The best months for quad biking are May, June, September and October. The weather is warm without being punishing, the island is less crowded, and the light on the limestone coastline in the early autumn months is worth seeing.
Which option is right for you
If it’s your first visit to Gozo, you’re on a day trip from Malta, and you want to see as much of the island as possible without dealing with any logistics: the guided full-day quad bike tour.
If you want the guided experience but prefer a later start and a more atmospheric finish: the sunset tour, available mid-April to mid-October.
If you’re staying on Gozo for several days, you’re confident navigating on your own, and you want complete freedom over your route and timing: independent quad rental.
If you like the off-road access but prefer something more car-like and comfortable: a buggy or UTV tour.
The guided tours and the independent rentals are genuinely different experiences, and which one is right depends on what you want from the day rather than one being objectively better than the other. The tours handle everything and take you to places you wouldn’t find alone. The rentals give you freedom but leave the planning to you. Both get you to the parts of Gozo that are worth reaching.
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