What Should You Know Before Traveling to the Maldives?

Today we're going to talk about everything you need to know before visiting Maldives. All right first up let's talk about the arrival process into Maldives. So they offer a 30-day visa on arrival. You go on to the website and you fill out an arrival form. You let them know where your port of exit is, where you're leaving from, and where you're arriving into when you arrive into Maldives. Most of you will be arriving at the airport called Valdana which is actually in Malé. Once you get there they're going to basically look at your passport for a couple moments, ask you a question or two, and then you're in. It's quite easy to arrive here into Maldives and then once you get there you will see there's either taxis to take you to Malé or most of you will be going to your hotel. You need to ask what hotel booth you need to go to. So there'll be like A or B or C or D booths and you just go up to your booth and then they'll give you information about when the next boat is leaving or a seaplane or how to get there. That's the things you need to know about the arrival. All right now let's talk about the actual weather here. So when's the best time to visit? They say it's from December until March. Well I'm here in January right now and it rains and then it gets sunny a little bit and then it gets rain and if I look at the seven-day forecast it's rain, rain, rain. 95% of rain the next three days. So I was talking to locals about this. They say any time is a good time to visit Maldives. So you don't have to worry about a specific time to actually come visit here because you could get rain or sunshine any time of the year. So don't think of it like, oh I only should go during December to March because that's the best time. Because I was talking to the actual locals, people who've lived here all their life, they'll tell you any time is a good time. But you look around here, rain over here, just depends on the islands and then you've got a little bit more blue skies over in this direction. So we got a little bit of rain over here. If you go towards the west it looks a little bit clearer. It just depends. There's so many different islands here. All right so let's talk about some interesting facts about Maldives. So the population is around 520,000 people. The island of Malé is actually the most densely populated residential area in the world. Maldives gained its independence from the British protectorate in 1965 and that's when it became a country. And also the largest economy here is tourism followed by fishing. And the language that they speak here is Divehi. It's a little bit different than Tamil or Hindi or some of the other languages from India or in the region. So some of the words may translate, come over, like namaste. I've said that to a couple locals. That's really the only word that I've used that's pretty much a universal word in this region of South Asia. Maldives is also the smallest country in South Asia. Now let's talk about the geography of the Maldives. So there is about 1920 different islands. 200 of those are actually inhabited and there's 26 atolls. So if you go around on a map you'll see there's about 26 different areas of islands. Okay and so Maldives is actually one of the flattest countries in the world with an average height of 2.6 meters. That's around like six or seven feet at its highest point. So no matter where you go in the Maldives you're not going to find any sort of hills or mountains. It's all flat. There's actually a lot of man-made artificial islands that are here as well. For example the island that I'm on right now where the hard rock is. This is also partially, mostly artificial island. That means the beaches are as well. But they just built on like a seamount that was there and they just added on top of that. So there's a lot of that here in the Maldives. And now let's talk about the culture and the things you need to understand about this place in terms of the religion. It is a Muslim country that does have Sharia law largely intact. That means no alcohol in residential areas like on Malay. Now there are going to be areas you can drink alcohol like at the resorts that have a but there's also no pork. So because of the cultural and religious reasons that's why they don't have pork or alcohol here. There's also other laws associated with that that you should take into consideration. You can wear bathing suits and bikinis on the beaches at the resorts but you wouldn't want to walk around Malay or someplace wearing too much revealing clothes. Men should have their shirts on. Women shouldn't be walking around in bikinis in Malay. But when you're at your resort on the beach it should be fine. But just being respectful of the customs and the culture. Now let's talk about the currency and transacting what you need to know about that. So the currency is called the Maldivian rupiah with an F not a P. And it's about that equal one U.S. dollar. They also do take U.S. dollars here at some of the places although that's currently changing I've heard. You will want to try and do a currency exchange in U.S. dollars or euros. I tried to bring Singapore dollars and I brought Sri Lankan money and they didn't take that for a currency conversion at any of the transaction stands in the airport at the exchanges. So I had to go out in town to actually do that and they gave a very low conversion rate. So I would say use the ATMs here and try to get some of the local money. They also do take credit cards. I've used an American Express at the resorts. I've used a Visa MasterCard. So they do take that kind of currency here is those cards and cash. Actually at the resorts you'll probably want to transact cashless more than you will with cash. All right now let's talk about hotels and accommodations. So most of you are coming here because you probably want to go out on one of these overwater bungalow hotel resorts. This one here is the Hard Rock. I'm also staying over at the Curio. Now there's so many different resorts out here and they keep building more and more. So you know it's not hard to find these but these bungalows are going to be more expensive than the villas that have a garden view or a beach view. But obviously this is why most people come here. This is probably what caught their attention. As far as getting out here from the airport it just depends on how far away your hotel is. For example if you're staying at the Waldorf Astoria or maybe the JW Marriott you might actually have to take a seaplane. I don't know exactly about those hotels. I'm just giving you an example. They're further away from Malé. This one here I took a boat and it took around 25 minutes, 20 to 25 minutes to get out here by boat from the airport. A lot of the hotels will offer that just as part of the experience, right? So what you're paying for. But yeah I mean a hotel like this goes for around $400 a night starting out for a regular stay. If you wanted to stay at one of these bungalows it can go up to around $800 a night and that's the bottom level. So the bungalows tend to be quite expensive. It just depends on time of year and availability. Sometimes they'll even give you an upgrade depending on the occasion. But all this stuff you need to inquire depending on where you want to stay. So many resorts out here. I mean IHG, Hilton, there's Marriott, there's Hyatt, there's Jumeirah, there's so many different hotels here. It just depends where you want to stay but I know you guys want that bungalow especially if you're coming here on the honeymoon. So I want to address something as I sit here on this hammock about solo travel. Is Maldives a destination I would recommend for solo travel? And to be honest with you, no I would not. I would say it's a destination for you to share with somebody and that's what makes it amazing. Of course it's beautiful to come here and enjoy the beaches but it's not a destination to go alone. You can of course. I mean it could be a good place for like retreat, for like seriously inner work, meditation but if you're someone who's like living an active lifestyle then no I wouldn't recommend it. I mean Mali maybe you could chill out there and have a sense of community but here it's really all travelers, like honeymooners. It's like vacationers and as a solo traveler do you really want to be on an island where the only thing to do is basically swim. Like okay you can swim, pay you know $500 a night. Do you really want to do that? It's a place to come with families. It's a place to come with your girlfriend, your husband but no I would not recommend it for solo travel. Now let's talk about safety here in Maldives. So generally speaking crime is very low especially against tourists. The only area you would even have possible problems would be on Mali and it's very rare that there's any sort of crime against tourists in that area even but in the resorts it's very safe. But the things you should be aware of rip tides, rip currents on stormy days. If you're going to go out when it's storming very far out there you don't know about the currents. I would say don't even try it especially on a stormy day. Going out there in safe zone areas where the staff recommends that's fine or going out there with a certified guide. Another thing that you should consider is taking the ferries. How safe is that? Generally speaking it's very safe and the boats are efficient. They're equipped. That doesn't mean that things can't happen but you know generally speaking it's safe. Same with seaplanes also relatively safe. Very few incidents that you can find on the internet about any of that stuff you can go online and look if it's really a big thing for you. But between ferries, seaplanes, rip currents those are probably the biggest things that you should take into consideration. Also the sun can be a bit bright out here as you can see wearing sun protection or sunscreen. That could include a hat or long sleeve shirts, shorts and as far as what there is to do and where to go in the Maldives really you're going to be stuck at your resort where there's going to be activities such as diving and snorkeling and maybe bike riding. But really that's what there is to do in Maldives. Maybe some fishing. At the resort they're going to have activities and that's the things to do. Just keep in mind you're going to be on an island resort most of the time. And on that note that's going to conclude this episode of Maldives. We hope to see you on the next one with the best islands in the world.