How to Travel the Maldives on a Backpackers Budget?

Our room in a hotel on a local island cost us $57/night ($28 each)

Breakfast and dinner was included in the cost of our room, meaning that the only other additional costs would be daily activities, lunches, transfers to and from the airport and maybe a souvenir if we behaved ourselves. A big bonus was that included in our room price were 2 separate excursions, one of which was snorkeling with turtles and the second was a day on an inhabited island. 

Where as from what we found on Booking.com, a room on a resort island roughly $253/night minimum (normally over $1000 a night for a basic water bungalows, and then it just goes upwards from there) 

When we arrived at our hotel our hosts provided us with a long list of all the activities they offered, and even though we only had 5 days we did our very best to cram as much into that time as possible. A major advantage that we found when staying at a small hotel was that the owner was more than happy to offer discounts for particular activities if other guests were doing them too, that way everyone would get a cheaper price whereas the prices at the resorts are always very fixed.

These are the activities that we did in our 5 day stay:

Snorkelling with turtles: $0pp (included with the room)

Day on an uninhabited island: $0pp (included with the room)

Manta Ray Safari: $75pp (discounted from $95pp)

Sun Island 5 Star Resort Day Trip: $25pp

Sandbank Trip with BBQ Picnic Lunch + Guided Snorkeling Trip:$45pp (discounted from $115pp)

Whale Shark Trip: $80 (discounted from $90pp)

The favourite thing we did had to be the Manta Ray Safari where we must have swam with at least 30 to 40 manta rays. It was such an incredible experience seeing these gentle creatures swim around you and sometimes so closely as well. We both spent the rest of the day grinning ear to ear just thinking about it!

We stayed at Koimala Hotel on Maamigili. We chose this island because the location is really nearby to the Whale Shark Point, Manta Ray Point and loads of other amazing reefs for snorkeling where we saw turtles, reef sharks and basically the whole cast of Finding Nemo.

Because we don’t really have any comparison for other hotels we can't say that it’s the “best budget hotel in the Maldives” but we had an amazing experience staying here and this was mainly down to the amazing hospitality of the people who ran the hotel. The only hiccup during our stay was an issue with the toilet in our room, but after mentioning this to the manager he made a few phone calls and had arranged a room for us at a hotel just down the road at no extra cost so that they could deal with the blockage (possibly caused by Leo). They went above and beyond our expectations and the service felt so genuine and personal it’s clear that they aim to please, and we can whole heartedly recommend this hotel.

Transfers to Maamigili

Getting to the local islands is also far cheaper than the private islands (that the resorts are located on) because you aren’t limited to the insanely expensive sea planes. We took a domestic flight from Male which our hotel organized for us and cost $96 each way per person. This does seem expensive and it is, but compared to $400 per person each way for a sea plane, it feels a little easier to dish out. There’s also a cheaper option where you can take a speed boat for $65 each way which takes 3 hours.

TIP: There are also public ferries to the local islands but they don’t go every day. We didn’t know this before we booked our flight and annoyingly landed on the wrong day, but if you’re reading this and haven’t booked your flights yet then we recommend checking it because it’s as little as $3.50 for a 7 hour journey from Male to Maamigili!

However there are a few things we wish we’d known before jetting off to the Maldives. Firstly, like many popular destinations, what you see online in pictures and articles isn’t always a realistic depiction. This is mostly directed towards the whale shark trip and when we went swimming with turtles.

The whale shark trip which is without doubt an insanely popular thing to do in the Maldives. What started out as an exciting search for the biggest fish on earth very quickly began to feel like a manhunt, where we became part of a herd of 16 boats all crammed full of scuba gear and life vest wearing tourists. As soon as the whale shark was spotted in the water, everyone jumps in and splashes their way to the front of the pack, with little to no concern for either the other people in the water or the whale shark itself. It’s difficult to enjoy an experience we had been looking forward to for so long when you’re getting shoved out of the way for not swimming fast enough or prodded by selfie sticks from all directions. We were lucky enough that when we ended up at the back of the group of tourists and gave up swimming because we were so frustrated, the shark decided to turn almost 180 degrees and swam back towards us. We had a few brief seconds where we were alone with the giant fish until the chaos of 60 tourists washed over us and we were in the middle of a human soup again. But although we did manage to snap a photo of the whale shark, we didn't want to just gloss over the negatives of that experience just to make it seem like the perfect photograph.

What was great about our hotel was that they had their own boat, which meant that rather than being squeezed onboard a boat with 20 or 30 other resort guests (which we could see seemed to be the case at Whale Shark Point) there were only maximum four people on a trip at a time. This meant for trips like swimming with the manta rays and the sand bank tours, it felt like the secluded island holiday we'd always imagined!

The only other part of this trip that we feel needs to be mentioned is that the Maldives are almost 90% ocean. Whilst this is fairly obvious, what we didn’t realise is that when it comes to eating this greatly reduces the amount of vegetarian options. Almost every dish on the menus we found contained fish, and as we stayed on an island in the middle of the ocean it was difficult to find good plant based food. What was more surprising was that even at the 5 Star resort, the options were even less so and when we said we were vegetarian we were just met with blank stares, first a fish soup (that’s vegetarian right?) and eventually a plate of plain tomato pasta.

It didn’t ruin the trip but for vegetarians and vegans or anyone with dietary restrictions, it would be a good idea to contact your hotel in advance to check that they can provide food for you, or just fill up on fruit and coconuts like we did.