maldives i'm sure you've heard of the name anytime someone mentions this name
the first thing that comes to your mind is that it's a beautiful country full of luxury resorts
and beaches and islands and that's pretty much it and it's mostly for the rich people wrong
maldives is located south of india in sri lanka and it's made up of
roughly 1200 islands and 26 atolls atolls are not islands but a sort of like a combination
of islands built around a common coral so they're giant structures and one atoll could
have multiple islands they have complicated names in dhivehi which is the local language
but they have like snappy codeword names like ba or ra or ari or malay which is the capital
it's also atoll where do you even start it's a beautiful country so there are tons of resorts but
there are so many local islands as well i'm gonna show you what maldives is all about i'm gonna
help you plan a trip to maldives and i hope you will have an amazing experience just like i did
maldives has one of the most liberal and easiest visa policies in the entire world
no one needs a visa everyone gets it on arrival and it's free so what are you waiting for
moving around in maldives is not easy at all if you're not in the same atoll it's pretty
complicated and most of the time you will have to come back to malay and then get transferred back
to the other atoll especially if you're between local islands so there are four options number one
is dhoni that's a public ferry it's the cheapest one and very very slow so you can check the link
in description and get the details from there it doesn't run every day and on fridays there's no
dhoni so the second option is getting a speedboat this could be private or this could be the public
one that the hotels or the resorts arrange so if you're staying at a local island check with
them about this the third option is domestic flights again quite complicated and i would
not recommend booking them on your own because the locals actually get them about one third of
the price ask your hotel they will arrange it for you and the fourth and the most convenient
option is the seaplane it is ridiculously pretty i mean imagine seeing all the islands
from above but you know why it's convenient right it's expensive so it's like 400 to 700
per person per way so when you're booking your accommodation check with them whether it's a
resort or a local guest house or a hotel and then go with what they recommend you
i would recommend checking rakuda.com or booking.com and then from there you can
book your resort there's a few options when it comes to food so you can get bread and breakfast
in that case your breakfast will be covered but you will buy your lunch and dinner as well
as your drinks half board also includes your dinner full board includes all three meals and
all inclusive means you will get the drinks as well but you need to get the list of drinks that
are actually included email them also check the price of transfers um mostly speed boats or a
combination of domestic flight and speedboat or a seaplane so a seaplane transfer could
cost as much as you know 400 to 700 per person per way that is all when it comes to booking a
resort holiday you're here everything's taken care of i also want to add it's a little tip
i would not recommend staying in a water villa on your whole time especially if you're coming
in off season because if it rains and there's storm it's not a pleasant place to be in honestly
i have basically sat through the storm day before yesterday and yesterday with the proper solid
ceiling it just felt like it was gonna fly off so i would recommend booking a couple of nights
in our water villa and then doing the rest on a beach bungalow it's also a good money saving tip
on local islands the accommodation is fairly simple and straightforward you book a place
which is going to be a hotel or a guest house most of these places are newly built
and are really well serviced which is great the accommodation standard is also quite high
you can easily get a place ranging between 40 to 100
a night and most of these places also operate their own kitchen which is really great because
you get good food since most of the local islands don't have independent resorts
when you arrive in maldives there are a few things you need to do at the airport and these are vital
get a sim card a local sim card there are two companies both have shops one is dirabu the other
one is uridu there's no difference in prices for both the only difference is the duration
for which your plan will last uridu offers it for 30 days dirabu offers it for 14 days
if you want to come for the bioluminescence of the glowing beaches the best time is november december
but it can happen anywhere at any time during this entire october to february stretch if you
just want clear beautiful skies and beautiful sea a good time is to come between october
sort of early april beyond that it gets the monsoon sort of starts to kick in make my
ish onwards is the monsoon season which is also the low season so there will be this one or two
weeks period in the middle but it's gonna rain non-stop that's been happening outside the last
five days but after that it gets quite pleasant and this is also the time when you get to see
the whale sharks and the manta rays depending on what you want you can plan your trip based on that
when it comes to local island tourism i would suggest that you sort of calibrate
your expectations because this is not a country where you just pop in and get something from the
store there are limited supplies limited variety when you go to local islands make sure you have
some backup of your cameras whatever because if you need something you will have to go back
to malay or it will take a bit of time basically when it comes to food the options are also a bit
limited if you like fish seafood you're gonna be good but if you're expecting a lot more you'll be
happy at the resorts but you won't be happy at the local islands i would also recommend
that you order well in advance so what i used to do is just go to the restaurant take their
whatsapp number and then just tell them a little bit in advance usually an hour hour and a half
is the standard and then you won't be disappointed otherwise you'll be sitting there waiting for your
food because they make everything absolutely fresh from scratch which is i mean amazing i love it
maldives is a muslim country you cannot go topless on most of the local islands except for
designated areas and these areas are called bikini beaches you can still wear clothes if you want but
that's the place where women can wear bikinis and men can wear you can go topless if you want
please be respectful of the communal areas and another really good thing i really like about the
local islands is the streets are all sandy so you can just get rid of your shoes and walk bare feet
oh i just love the freedom
maldives is a very safe country crime is almost unheard of and people are really really friendly
and cooperative i lost my go pro on fullerto and someone found it and they actually went from hotel
to hotel to check actually who lost the go pro they are so friendly and amazing here i didn't
feel the need to lock my room throughout my stay on four different islands that says a lot actually
in terms of the people they're really friendly and sweet actually there's two types one who are
really friendly and nice and sweet the other ones are a bit reserved and keep
things to themselves but when it comes to being helpful maldivians are amazing i don't think
anyone's as great as them when it comes to helping you planning your trip doing things they want you
to see the best part of the country in the best light possible i'm really thoroughly impressed
are they racist though i hear you ask i don't think so but there is a general concept that
white people generally have more money so it just plays a little bit of a part
in the whole but other than that i mean everyone is just so nice and friendly to
the guests they just want you to have the best time so i don't think it's a racist country
this is the money of maldives it is actually pretty colorful and really nice looking but this is
dangerous why because it's a non-convertible currency what that means is that you cannot
exchange it outside maltdives when you withdraw the money at the airport from the atm check the link
in description for who doesn't charge transaction fees at the airport by the way or if you exchange
it at a currency exchange make sure you keep the receipt and on the way back you can exchange it
at the airport if you leave with this there's no way you can get your money back except for
you know if you're coming back tomorrow if you're going to a resort you don't need to withdraw any
money if you're going to local islands you will definitely need some because the shops etc some
places just don't take cards not every place takes dollars especially local islands you will again
need this but most other places diving centers snorkeling blah blah blah guest houses they
all accept money and money in dollars so that's quite convenient but there are some places that
will charge you up to four to five percent uh transaction cost per transaction so it's
good to keep a bit of cash and not every local island has a cash machine or an atm machine on it
how expensive is small leads you already know the answer to that it is really expensive but
if you do a few things it doesn't have to be you mix a few excursions together like going to sand
bank mixed with going for you know snorkeling and you know snorkeling with the turtle or going for
sharks etc and that's actually going to give you some discount and you can cover more things in a
single day i would recommend that you break your trip into at least one local island and a resort
if you have limited time and that's also going to bring your costs down an average is roughly 100 to
120 dollars a day in maldives on a local island you know what it is on a resort so that's quite easy
so the main language here is which actually started as a code writing
or a cryptic language but it turned into the official language of maldives but
english is very common and pretty much everyone speaks some level of english
don't arrive on friday nothing works here on fridays the public transport dhoni's most of the
places are just closed on fridays so friday is not a good day to do anything you cannot bring in any
pork any alcohol any idols any religious printed material than islam but you can get alcohol in
the resorts one other thing i would recommend is being very careful around the sea because when you
a lot of people drown every year because it's very easy to see that it's a very nice calm beautiful
day but it could be pretty strong currents and a lot of people drown every year because of that
the best way to get in touch with people guest houses diving centers pretty much anyone in
maldives is not google it is instagram just search the name and you'll be there like a bullet
honestly it works amazingly fast i've never made such good use of instagram in my entire life if
you're coming to maldives to snorkel to meet some beautiful animals marine life there's one rule you
must stick to please please please do not touch anything underwater it's really fragile do not
touch any mantas any whale sharks anything sharks dolphins anything do not touch them
remember you cannot take any sand any corals or any shells out of maldives it is illegal and it
could get you into serious trouble another quite interesting thing is there could be
more than one island with the same name and i'm gonna give you the example of vaadhoo
which is in three different atolls so always check the atoll name with the island name
and then you'll be sure you're getting to the right place it's quite important
so you want to know what to do in maldives there's tons to do the best is obviously to go in the sea
for a country that's like 96 97 percent ocean obviously a lot of it is around the
water and the sea so that pretty much every island has a diving center and water sports so you can
jet ski you can snorkel on that note if you don't want to book through your hotels just get your own
snorkeling gear when you're coming but if you're booking excursions they usually provide it to you
pretty much all islands have their own reefs as well they're called the house reefs so you can
go snorkel in those and find some interesting things you will get to meet some stingrays some
nurse sharks you can swim with the nurse sharks which i did it was a little scary at first but it
wasn't too bad you can swim with like hundreds of dolphins honestly hundreds and it's it's amazing
i've never been so close and had a chance to to swim so close to them you obviously have to go to
a sand bank and most islands have one nearby you can also arrange a lunch um on the sandbank as
well but they're great to spend time in it's like a little island all to yourself and if you want
they usually just leave you there and then they come pick you up there are shipwrecks you can go
have fun with those but they're not that common obviously don't forget to bring some insect
repellent because the mosquitoes can be pretty brutal and don't forget to bring tons and tons
of sunscreen but please use a sunscreen that is reef friendly because otherwise the chemicals sit
on the reef and they destroy it so you want to be friendly right one other piece of advice when it
comes to doing things in maldives do not use the underwater you know the scooters where you hold on
and it just kind of drags you around because i saw some people using those the marine life they just
run away like that the dolphins the moment they hear that noise they just get so scared they're
like gone all four 500 of them gone within seconds please even if you get the option don't use those
this is brown boy travels let me know what you think of the video in the comment section if
i've missed something please let me know also give me some suggestions about your country
i will see you in the next video until then you have an amazing day ahead