Gozo Foraging
Taste the island’s bounty. Meet its makers.
3 Days - Gozo Spring 2027
11th - 14th February 2027
Join us for an intimate journey into Gozo’s edible landscape, exploring an island where wild plants, food, healing traditions, and the rhythms of the seasons have been intertwined for generations.
Walk the countryside with expert foragers, discover plants traditionally gathered for both food and medicine, cook with wild ingredients, and meet some of the people transforming what the island produces today.
Along the way, we’ll delve into Gozo’s extraordinary past: from its Neolithic communities to the herbal knowledge and food traditions passed from one generation to the next.
Three nights. One small island. A landscape waiting to be tasted.
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Across three carefully curated days, we’ll explore Gozo from the ground up.
We’ll forage through two contrasting landscapes, discovering how to identify seasonal edible plants and learning about their culinary uses, traditional healing properties and the knowledge and folklore surrounding them. Gozo has a particularly rich tradition of plants crossing the boundaries between food and folk medicine, including borage, mallow, fennel, nettle and wild rue.
What we find in the landscape will lead us into the kitchen for a hands-on wild food experience, while visits to a village bakery and a local winery reveal how cultivated ingredients have shaped Gozitan food traditions too.
But this journey goes deeper than food. At Ġgantija, we’ll step into the world of Gozo’s earliest farming communities; after dark, the Cittadella becomes the setting for legends, curious characters and forgotten food stories.
With a small group and time to walk, taste, cook and connect, this is Gozo beyond the usual visitor experience; told through the plants, people and stories rooted in its landscape.
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A small-group experience, allowing plenty of time to engage with our guides, producers and the people we meet along the way.
The expertise of your KulStoria hosts, weaving together food, history, landscape, culture and the stories connecting each experience.
Three nights’ accommodation in carefully selected accommodation in Gozo. Prices are based on twin sharing; a single supplement is available on request.
All breakfasts throughout your stay.
Welcome drinks and selected meals and wine, as outlined in the itinerary.
Two guided foraging experiences, exploring contrasting Gozitan landscapes and the culinary and traditional medicinal uses of seasonal wild plants.
A hands-on wild food cookery experience, transforming ingredients and inspiration from the landscape into food to share around the table.
A Gozitan wine experience and tasting with a local producer.
A visit to a traditional Gozitan bakery, with an introduction to the island’s enduring bread and wood-fired oven culture.
Guided cultural and heritage experiences, including Ġgantija and a special after-dark exploration of the Cittadella through its legends, characters and food stories.
Entrance to archaeological and heritage sites included in the itinerary.
All transport during the programme. Airport transfers are not included but can be arranged for you.
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Before You Book
Group size
This is an intimate, small-group journey designed to give you time to connect with the people, places and stories you encounter along the way.Arrival & departure
The journey begins with collection from the ferry terminal in Gozo. Your final morning is free for breakfast before departure from Gozo.Please plan your flights so that you can arrive in Gozo in time for the scheduled group transfer on Day 1. We can provide recommended arrival and departure times before you book your flights.
Getting around
Transport between the experiences is included. The itinerary involves travelling between different parts of Gozo, including some walking and exploring on foot.Walking & mobility
This is an active cultural and culinary journey rather than a conventional sightseeing holiday. You should be comfortable walking on uneven surfaces, through historic streets and around archaeological and rural sites. Valletta, Mdina and Birgu include steep streets, steps and uneven paving.Please let us know before booking if you have any mobility requirements so we can discuss whether the itinerary is suitable for you.
Food & drink
Food is at the heart of the experience. You'll enjoy traditional Maltese and Gozitan dishes, local produce, wine, olive oil, cheese, bread and other regional specialities.Please tell us about any dietary requirements or food allergies before booking. We will do our best to accommodate dietary needs, but because many experiences take place with small artisan producers and traditional food makers, we cannot guarantee that every element of the programme can be adapted.
Wine & alcohol
Wine is an important part of the culinary culture explored throughout the journey, and several tastings are included. If you do not drink alcohol, please let us know in advance and we will advise what alternatives can be provided.The pace of the journey
The programme is carefully paced to combine exploration with time to slow down and enjoy the islands. Some days involve several experiences, while others allow time to relax or explore independently.This is a journey for people who are curious about food, culture, history and the people who keep traditions alive. It is less about ticking off sights and more about experiencing Malta and Gozo from the inside.
What to bring
Comfortable footwear is essential. We also recommend bringing sun protection, a hat, a reusable water bottle and clothing suitable for both walking and dining experiences.Weather & seasonal experiences
Some experiences, particularly those involving farming, foraging and the countryside, are dependent on the season and weather. The precise activity may occasionally change to reflect local conditions and what is naturally available at the time of your visit.A note about the itinerary
KulStoria works with independent producers, artisans, historians and specialist guides. This means the experience is intentionally personal and cannot always be delivered in exactly the same way as a conventional packaged tour. Occasionally, an experience may need to be adjusted because of availability, weather or circumstances beyond our control. Where this happens, we will provide an alternative experience of comparable character and value.Questions before booking?
If you are unsure whether the journey is right for you, or have questions about the accommodation, food, walking, accessibility or itinerary, please get in touch before booking. We'd be happy to talk it through with you. -
Booking & payment
A €500 per person deposit secures your place.
The balance must be paid in full 60 days before the retreat.Book and pay in full 90 days or more before departure to receive our €200 per person Early Bird discount.
For bookings made within 60 days of departure, full payment is required at the time of booking.
When to book your travel
Our retreats are deliberately kept small and require a minimum number of guests to go ahead.
We will confirm your retreat no later than 90 days before departure.
We strongly recommend waiting for our written confirmation before booking flights or other non-refundable travel arrangements.If we have to cancel the retreat, you will receive a full refund, or, if alternative dates are offered, you can choose to transfer your payments to the new dates.
If your plans change
You can transfer your place to another person at any time, or transfer your booking to another retreat up to 30 days before departure. Cancellations must be made by email.For cancellations, the following refund terms apply:
90+ days before departure: full refund
60–89 days: refund less a €250 administration fee
30–59 days: deposit is non-refundable
Less than 30 days: payments are non-refundable.
Full Terms & Conditions
Please read our full Booking Terms & Conditions before booking.
Spring 2027 - Early bird discount
Finalise your booking by 11/12/2026
Itinerary
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Day 1 – Welcome to Wild Gozo
From Luqa Airport, make your way to the northern tip of Malta for the short ferry crossing to Gozo — a smaller, greener island where food traditions remain closely tied to the land and seasons.
Settle into your accommodation, with time to unwind and acclimatise to the slower rhythm of island life.
As evening approaches, join your hosts and fellow guests for welcome drinks and the beginning of our journey into Wild Gozo.
Over a relaxed aperitif, we’ll introduce the island’s remarkable edible and medicinal landscape and some of the plants we’ll encounter over the coming days. For generations, knowledge of the countryside meant knowing not only what could be eaten, but what could flavour food, soothe an ailment or be prepared as a household remedy. Gozo has a particularly rich tradition of this knowledge, associated with local farmers and celebrated figures such as Frenċ tal-Għarb.
Even the welcome table offers clues to what lies ahead. Some of the flavours you taste tonight — perhaps wild samphire gathered from Gozo’s coast — will reappear over the next few days, this time growing in the landscape around you.
Then settle around the table for our first meal together and the warmth of Gozitan hospitality.
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After breakfast, we head into the countryside for our first proper encounter with Gozo’s wild pantry.
Led by an experienced forager, we’ll learn how to identify some of the edible and medicinal plants growing around us and explore the traditional knowledge associated with them.
This is a sensory experience: smelling, touching, observing and, where appropriate, tasting our way through the landscape. We’ll discover how plants were traditionally used both in the kitchen and for healing, and explore an older understanding of nature based around the qualities of hot, cold, dry and moist.
Depending on what the season provides, we might encounter borage, mallow, nettles, fennel and other wild plants associated with traditional Gozitan food and remedies.
From Wild to Table
What we discover outdoors then follows us into the kitchen.
During a hands-on wild-food cookery workshop, we’ll explore ways of transforming seasonal and foraged ingredients into food before sitting down together to enjoy what we have prepared.
Later in the afternoon, we turn from wild plants to another crop deeply rooted in Mediterranean life: the grape. At a local winery, we’ll meet one of Gozo’s contemporary producers and taste wines shaped by the island’s limestone soils, sunshine and distinctive microclimate.
Gozo After Dark
As daylight fades, we head to the Cittadella.
Away from the daytime bustle, we’ll wander through the narrow streets of Gozo’s ancient fortified city, uncovering legends, curious characters and food stories hidden behind its walls.
Among them is Canon Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, the 18th-century Gozitan linguist, historian and cleric renowned for entertaining visiting intellectuals at his Cittadella home. Accounts of his hospitality and writings about food provide a tantalising window onto dining and intellectual life in 18th-century Gozo.
It’s a very different way to encounter the Cittadella — through the people who lived, ate and told stories within its walls.
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We begin the morning by travelling back more than five thousand years at the extraordinary Ġgantija Neolithic Complex.
During a guided visit, we’ll encounter the monumental world created by Gozo’s earliest farming communities and consider a question that runs throughout our retreat: how have generations of islanders learned to live from this small patch of Mediterranean land?
From one ancient Gozitan tradition, we move to another: bread.
We’ll call at a traditional village bakery to see the enduring culture of Gozo’s wood-fired ovens and collect freshly baked Gozitan ftajjar for a picnic lunch.
Simple, rustic and made to be eaten outdoors, our picnic becomes another way of tasting the island as we continue our journey west.
Through Western Gozo
The afternoon is less about formal sightseeing and more about learning to read the landscape.
Our route takes us through Għarb and the countryside surrounding Ta’ Pinu, where food, plants, faith and healing provide different windows onto rural Gozitan life.
In Għarb, we return to the story of Frenċ tal-Għarb, remembered for his knowledge of traditional healing and the use of herbs — part of a much wider body of plant knowledge handed down through generations.
From here we continue through Gozo’s western landscape and towards its coast and historic salt pans.
There is no second formal forage today. Instead, we’ll stop, look and notice what grows around us. Depending on the season, familiar plants and flavours from the previous days may suddenly appear in their natural habitat.
And that samphire you tasted when you first arrived?
Now you know where it comes from.
Afterwards, we return to our accommodation with time to relax before our final evening together.
From Landscape to Table
Tonight, Gozo’s landscape returns to the plate.
At Peppina in Xewkija, two brothers are reimagining their Gozitan culinary roots through a contemporary, vegetable-focused approach to food.
Their philosophy begins with the land. Seasonality, provenance and local produce guide an evolving menu drawing on their own fields and the farmers and artisan producers around them.
After three days spent discovering what grows wild, what has been cultivated, gathered, baked and transformed across generations, Peppina brings our journey full circle — a new generation finding its own way to express the island through food.
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Enjoy one final breakfast before saying goodbye to Gozo.