The Maldives are known to be an expensive destination, and not solo friendly. Well, that isn’t necessarily the case. There are private island resorts, that can be quite expensive to astronomical. There are also public islands, lots of them, where you can book a hotel at a reasonable price and eat out at restaurants that don’t cost the earth.
The trouble is, there are so many islands, 1,192, of which 187 are inhabited and 90 of then are private resorts. That leaves around 100 public islands, not all with tourism infrastructure. Trying to decide which one to stay on can be mind boggling and take tons and tons of research. My research for solo travellers came up time and time again with the island of Maafushi. It is about 30 minutes by speedboat from the airport on Male, the capital and main island. There are hotels from 5 star down to basic guesthouses, a mixture of restaurants and water sports and day trips galore. Because it is the busiest and largest public island, there were lots of people and it did feel a little crowded. If you want the desert island experience, this isn’t the place for you. But if you like company and not to feel like you are one of only a few tourist, it is a great place for solos. The house reef isn’t all that good, but the day trips take you to some fabulous snorkelling.
I stayed at Arena, which was ok. Nicest hotel on my trip so far, but had limitations, like not enough lifts, not enough storage space, breakfast buffet kept running out of food and was crowded. But it is was in the best location, right next to the bikini beaches with infinity pools over the best views. I would recommend it if you go there.
I did 2 snorkelling trips and the ultimate experience for me was snorkelling with nurse sharks. Literally swimming among them while the local guys take video and photos of you! Awesome. Not to be missed, but a little bit scary!
I know of other people that went to other public islands, and they were much smaller with less facilities and tourism infrastructure. Ukulhas and Fulhadhoo are 2 islands my friend went to. She liked them but they are much quieter. Fulhadhoo she saw sting ray feeding each night which she loved.
I spent 5 days on Maafushi and 5 on a private resorts, Filitheyo. Splashed out on Filitheyo as it was pretty expensive for a solo person, however I booked full board including alcohol. I could have gone half board quite easily as the breakfast was so huge, as was the dinner and lunch not necessary at all!
The house reef was amazing. I walked out of my beach hut, into the water, and swam to the drop off, within about 30 seconds. And in that 30 seconds was surrounded by fish! The come up to your face as if you are another fish, you just want to reach out and touch them! I went snorkelling on the house reef at least twice a day. Up and down between 4 markers. I saw eagle rays, turtle (the same one each time I think) and black tip reef sharks. Every time I saw something different and so so many different fish, in schools, darting around. So hard to explain how great it was.
Went night fishing (included in my package) and a snorkelling trip, which was better coral. I also tried blue light snorkelling. It was ok, seeing the coral illuminated in different colours, but not as good as I thought it would be as there were not many fish.
Getting to and from Filitheyo was also a great experience, flying in a seaplane (my first) over the other islands and seeing the bright blue see and atolls.
I would absolutely recommend going to the Maldives, and sooner rather than later, as global warming and rising seas might swamp most of the islands. It was unexpectedly amazing and an experience I would not have missed, whatever the cost.
