Malta - British Expat Forum

i am a BTEC national diploma travel and tourism mature student looking to relocate to malta from the UK after my AS levels end in 2011. i have a teenage daughter who would be moving out with me. she is worried that she will be on her own and is unsure of the move. is there anywhere for expat kids/teenagers to hang out with other expat kids/teenagers? i think this would make the transition easier for her. she says she really wants to do this but the hardest part of moving to malta will be losing her friends. she is 14 at the moment. any help would be very much appreciated x

From what I've seen in Gozo, expat teenagers very quickly hang out with local teenagers rather than just stick with expats - a common language of English makes the transition much easier than, say, moving to Spain or France, and people tend to be very welcoming to newcomers. There are local youth groups, often linked to the Church.

Hi Tinky,
We are hopefully moving out to Malta in June and have 2 boys, who are 11 and 13yrs at the moment. Both have spent some time in the USA on holidays and I have been quite a few times myself, mostly Washington DC, Ohio and California.

No doubt both my boys will be making new friends too, just wanted to say your daughter is not alone in having some reservations about leaving others behind.

Stay in touch when you do move to Malta and they could maybe meet up sometime.

lucky you, we are thinking of next year when i finish doing my diploma at college. so as soon as thats done and dusted i shall be making all the arrangments to leave the UK. my tutor may help me in finding work over there and that will make life easier. good luck with your move and see you out there next year

We just moved to Malta from 10 years in the US - I'm British, wife is American and kids are dual: 13 yo daughter and 8 yo son. Our daughter was VERY apprehensive about the move for the same obvious reasons, but now she's been here for a few weeks (she started at San Anton school on 4th Jan) she's made some Maltese friends and has already been on her first Paceville trip! So, I echo the sentiments about the local teens being welcoming, at least in our experience...the school paired our daughter up with a classmate to help the transition, not someone picked at random, but someone that wanted to do it and they are now firm friends, so our thanks to the school for that!

Tim