Maldives on a Budget: Staying on local islands…
Maldives has long been considered one of the world’s most luxury destinations, with hundreds of five star resorts located on private islands catering for honeymooners and the wealthy traveller with willing to spend from US$400+ per night upwards. Most people tended to visit Maldives on a package, spending anything from US$5000+ for a weeks vacation at all-inclusive resort…Those rates are for a garden villa of course – for the famous over-the-water villa’s costs start at US$700/night, and average US1000/night+
Of course, for long term travellers on a budget these costs are just not viable for more than maybe two days as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In our case it was Akhona’s birthday, so we splashed out on an over-the-water villa for two days. After that we had to find a more affordable approach to staying in the Maldives for a month. The answer is to stay on the local islands together with ordinary Maldivians, some of whom run guesthouses and small hotels on these islands. To save even more money, try and travel between islands using the local ferry network – a 4 hr trip from Male to Rasdhoo costs around US$5. A private speedboat ride costs US$ 70 -180 for the same trip, albeit in a third of the time, and a seaplane will set you back US$ 320. We used the local ferry to Rasdhoo, and stayed on the island for 3 days before we took a 10min speedboat ride to the Veligundu resort for $50 one way. The cost of accommodation was $65/night including a very poor breakfast. Make no mistake, staying on a local island will be be a major compromise when it comes to most aspects of vacation in the Maldives. While beaches on some local islands are not too bad, they cannot match the absolutely beautiful beaches at many private resorts. That’s not to say that the beaches are all terrible…by island standards many are perfectly good to spend a few days relaxing on.
If you stay on a local island you will have to comply with a quite strict dress code when walking or sitting anywhere were local people are located, which can be quite annoying when you are on a laid-back vacation and it’s very hot. Women especially cannot walk around in swimsuits, and must cover their legs and shoulders as well as their midriff. While of course one needs to respect local customs, this rule does not apply in private island resorts, so it is a major difference in experience. Most local islands with tourist accommodation have public beaches for locals, and a separate ‘bikini’ beach for tourists where swimsuits are permitted, so that does make the situation more bearable.
Another major difference between staying on a local island and in a resort is the complete lack of alcohol on local islands. As we are not big drinkers it made no difference to us, but some foreigners we met did complain about this. It is so bizarre that alcohol flows freely in the private resorts if you are willing to pay the exorbitant day rates to stay there. We did a day trip to a fancy resort we could drink ourselves silly if we wanted to spend ridiculous amount of money on alcohol – like $18 for a cocktail!
The cost of accommodation on local islands as apposed to resort islands is substantially lower and made it possible for us to stay in the Maldives for 4 weeks, as we were paying $65 – $ 110/day including breakfast, and sometimes all meals. We ended up visiting Male, Rasdhoo, Ukulhas and Dharavandhoo in addition to the resort islands of Veligundu and Kihaa.
Male is best avoided other than staying there upon arrival in order to catch the local ferry to one of the local islands the following day, as we did. We took the $5 ferry to Rasdhoo which took around 4 hrs and was an uneventful easy trip on a wooden ferry with hard benches. On board were mainly locals, and a few backpackers who were also doing the Maldives on the cheap like us.
Rasdhoo is a typical Maldivian island and was a good introduction to Maldivian life, which is a far cry from the idyllic fantasy most foreign tourists imagine life to be like on a ‘paradise’ island. It’s a pretty boring island with one decent restaurant and an average tourist beach…Snorkelling was not great during our stay with rough sea and bleached coral, but the main reason for our stay was to be close to the resort island of Veligundu which was a short boat ride away.
Our next local island was a little bit more interesting and had a bit more going on, and friendlier locals. Ukulhas had a great tourist beach and several tourist restaurants with food ranging in quality from excellent to mediocre. We got to know a few locals and gained an inside into life on the island as well as the political challenges facing islanders.
This was also the first time that we saw first-hand the affects of rising sea levels on a Maldivian island, with lots of flooding during high tide around the old harbor area. Bizarrely everyone we spoke to seemed to be in denial about the looming problems linked to the rising sea levels…The government of the day denies it will pose a problem, so that seems to be the line locals follow.
After a few days on Ukhulas we took the ferry back to the main island of Male from where we flew to the distant island of Dharavandhoo in the Baa Atoll. One quickly realizes that traveling around the Maldives is a very complicated business if you really want to see several islands, as the entire Maldives is spread out over such a wide area that it would literally take years to make your way to all of the atolls and their islands. It consists of an archipelago of nearly 1,200 coral islands and sand banks, some 200 of which are inhabited. The chain of islands occupies an area of just 300 sq km, with most islands being very small. Very few atolls are connected to each other by public ferry, and it is not possible to travel through the entire island group by boat…you have to constantly return to Male and take a boat on a different route, and sometimes flying is the only option.
We found Dharavandhoo to be our favorite local island, mainly because of its beautiful tourist beach, great accommodation and its proximity to the famous Hanifaru Bay, the one place on earth where you are most likely to see giant manta rays in large numbers. We stayed on this island for 10 days, spending the first week in the $75/night Biosphere Inn, inclusive of two often mediocre meals per day, after which we moved to LVIS Blancura Hotel right on the tourist beach for $ 110/night inclusive of three delicious meals each day.
During our time on Dharavandhoo we made a few excursions to local sandbanks, the neighboring island to visit the Kihaa Resort, and of course to Hanifaru Bay to swim with up to 30 manta rays for over an hour. We invited a German couple Hand and Monica to join us on our trip to the sandbank, which we had to ourselves for an hour, after wading ashore from our little boat.
Our visit to the Kihaa resort island proved to be a great shooting opportunity, and we spent most of the day taking photo’s at various locations on the island. We spend $ 160 on the return trip, entry to the resort lunch and a few drinks, which was money well spent considering the great images the trip produced…
Of course, the highlight of our stay on Dharavandhoo had to be the two trips we took to Hanifaru Bay. For only $40 per trip/person we got to swim with 16 Manta rays the first time, and 30 manta’s the second time. It was just amazing and a highlight of the trip to Maldives…unforgettable for sure…The mantas swim right underneath you as you snorkel on the surface and literally touch your stomach the get so close. For many visitors it was dream come true. That was certainly the case for us. Staying on local islands in the Maldives made it possible for us to spend an entire month in this beautiful island group on an average budget of $100/day, which while it was a lot more than we spent in Thailand or Philippines, was a lot more affordable than the $ 450 – $ 1000 many spend staying in fancy resorts.
