My Budget Trip to The Maldives: Visiting Maafushi Island

I wasn’t originally planning on visiting The Maldives while I was traveling through Southeast Asia, but once I realized that it’s only a one hour fifteen minute flight from Colombo, Sri Lanka, I thought “Hey, why not?”

But then I started looking at prices and WOW. The Maldives is NOT cheap. Even the Holiday Inn wanted $500 per night. (Plus tax!) Plus $200+ for the speedboat to and from the airport. I think we all know that hotel food is not inexpensive so after running the numbers, I figured that a place like the Holiday Inn was easily going to cost me $750 a night unless I packed my own food and I wasn’t sure Colombo was the right place to pick up instant noodles.

Was a budget trip to the Maldives possible? Could I do a Maldives vacation for cheap? I used Booking.com and plugged in my parameter of uh less than $100 a night and within a max 90 minute speedboat ride of the airport. (A seaplane transfer can easily add $600 to your stay.)

I noticed that most hotels that fit my $100 per night/airport proximity criteria were clustered on Maafushi, a small island about an hour away from Maldvies airport.

Interesting.

Digging deeper, it seemed like there were lots of things to like about Maafushi island…the price was right, the distance was right, there were multiple restaurant options, and it looked like day trips were easy to book.

Sold. Maafushi it was.

Where to Stay on Maafushi

I started looking at hotels on Maafushi with my $100 budget per night all in (including taxes and breakfast) and found Triton Beach Resort & Spa, which had positive reviews and a good location, although it wasn’t on the beach itself. Later, I would learn that it’s hard to have a bad location on Maafushi! The island is pretty small. Of course, water views are great but at any point, you’re like a max 3 minute walk to the water so I figured I’d be fine. I like the Triton Beach. The staff were very helpful and friendly and the rooms were spotless. The food is not really super-gourmet but as I note below, I tried two other places on the island and the food was all pretty similar. (Get ready for a lot of fish curry.) The hotel has a ton of day trips to offer and is really good about suggesting which trips might be the best fit for you.  My only gripes with the Triton was that the bed was a little on the hard side and it was hard to eat breakfast without an audience. Surely they see a lot of Western tourists eating but the mostly young male staff seemed overly fascinated by me!

In short, I thought the Triton Beach & Spa was a great choice for a budget trip to the Maldives. (And note that I’m conscious that $100 is not “budget” by any stretch but I found it hard to find anything decent that was much cheaper and this was a last minute booking.)

If you’re looking for something a bit more upmarket in Maafushi, check out the Liyela Retreat Maldives hotel. It has a really gorgeous design, a boutique-y feel, and amazing food.

Likewise, if you really want something cheaper on Maafushi, check out the Venturo Maldvies It has comfortable rooms, friendly service, and is very quiet.

What to Do on Maafushi Island

The main activities on Maafushi revolve around the water and the beach. There are a ton of snorkeling trips and day trips to different resorts.  Here are a few things I to do on Maafushi that I can recommend:

Go to The Beach!

I thought the beach on Maafushi was pretty beautiful. Clear turquoise water. There is some dead coral in parts but if you walk the entire length of Bikini Beach and follow the crowds, you’ll figure out how to avoid the coral. If you’ve never encountered dead coral before, it can be quite painful to walk on. If you’ve got about 12 inches of water, I actually recommend trying to doggie paddle over it. (Please don’t ever ever ever walk on live coral.)

Go Line Fishing at Sunset

I loved this compact sunset cruise and fishing expedition. We spent about 2 hours trolling the waters around Maafushi, trying to find fish. I caught four white snapper! It was really fun but it was interesting to see how most people who had never fished before got really disappointed so quickly and easily. They expected to just throw their fishing line into the water and catch something immediately. Fishing doesn’t work that way!! I found that things picked up for everyone on the boat once the sun set. One gal even caught a barracuda! (Which was thrown back, along with a parrot fish.) We kept the white snapper and red snapper that everyone caught and headed back to the Triton Beach, where the chef prepared everything for us and we had a simple meal of grilled fish, rice, and salad. In March of 2019, this tour cost $50 USD which I thought was pretty cheap considering the value we got out of it. A sunset cruise, bottled water, and dinner!

Visit Andaaran Prestige Vadoo

If you are cheap like me and want to experience The Maldives the luxury way but don’t want to spend $500+ a night, you can stay on Maafushi island and get a day pass to one of the resorts. I visited Andaaran Prestige Vadoo one day for $125 and had a nice time. We arrived at the resort at 8:30 am and then the boat came back to get us around 5:45 pm. There’s not much to do at the Andaaran Prestige Vadoo besides going swimming and snorkeling, using the pool, indulging in their limited lunch buffet and afternoon tea, and drinking fruity cocktails (yes, with alcohol), but it’s still a nice day out. This resort is very quiet — each luxury bungalow has its own private plunge pool so I get the sense that most guests don’t really leave their rooms all day.  As such, I had the main pool practically to myself for the entire day…occasionally, one of the other 19 day trippers would come join me but they tended to stick more with snorkeling and drinking. Big warning though: my general sense from the Andaaran Prestige Vadoo is that they are not too keen on day trippers. They do a lot to keep you entirely separate from the main guests — there’s an entirely separate dining area for day trippers for example. And a separate bar for your all-inclusive alcohol package for the day. The other weird thing about this resort is that it faces a huge building site…apparently right across from the Andaaran, they are building a dining and entertainment complex. In March 2019, a day pass to the Andaaran Vadoo cost $125 including the boat trip. Ah one tip before I forget…when we went to lunch, there was only water and tea and coffee to drink. If you wanted a beer or wine or anything with alcohol, you had to walk back to the other side of the island was where the bar is. So one suggestion for you if you do the day pass at Andaaran Prestige Vandoo: make sure you get your drinks from the bar before you walk over for lunch!

Visit Centara Ras Fushi

My hotel laughed when I booked a second resort day pass. They were very concerned that I wasn’t booking any snorkeling packages. I can snorkel for about 5 minutes before I get bored so resort packages it was. I really enjoyed my day here because it was really social. The hotel has a swim up bar where all the guests tend to congregate so I had a chance to talk to some fellow Remainers along with a few Aussies and Americans (who all agreed that the UK should remain in the European Union btw). The staff were really friendly and helpful and the buffet lunch (included in the price of the day pass) was fantastic and large. This day pass was a little more expensive than the Andaaran Prestige — $140 compared to $125 — but I would gladly do it again. The Centara Ras Fushi is just a really good time.  Also, the snorkeling equipment here is totally free where at the Andaaran Prestige, you had to put in a $30 deposit. I don’t think I would ever stay at Centara Ras Fushi — even if I had the cash — it too is facing a building site and I’m not flying halfway around the world and spending $500 a night plus tax and meals  to stare at a construction site. But for a cheap way to experience a luxury resort in the Maldives, you really can’t go wrong with a Centarar Ras Fushi day pass!!

Eat Out in Maafushi

Because I didn’t want to take out a lot of cash in Maafushi — you can’t convert it back to anything! — I kept my dinners to my hotel, its sister property Stingray Beach, and one beachfront restaurant on the north side of the island whose name escapes me and I can’t find on Google Maps.  (It may have been the Arena Hotel Restaurant.) You can tell that the restaurants are trying to cater to tourists from China, India, Russia and Western Europe as most menus I looked at had Chinese and Indian sections, then your standard Club Sandwich/Pizza/Hamburger section, and then a few more Russian dishes like borscht. I ate A LOT of fish curry in the Maldives during my six days on the island. When I wasn’t eating fish curry — which is also frequently served for breakfast by the way — I kept to the Chinese side of the menu which was mainly noodle-based. In general, I found the food on Maafushi island refreshingly cheap.

Alcohol on Maafushi Island: Visit a Maafushi Bar Boat

There are three bar boats moored off Maafushi where alcohol is available in the evening. I didn’t visit them because I felt weird drinking alone and I sorta didn’t like the idea of taking a boat to a boat only to risk finding out that I was the only person there. I did try to meet up with some day trippers I met at Andaaran Prestige but they didn’t want to go to the boats until around 11 pm and that was too late for me. (Kids!) From the scoop I got from other tourists on Maafushi, as you’re looking out to see, the boat on the left is the more local boat with cheap drinks and a DJ. (Although I think “local” here refers mainly to the workers on the island who come from all over and aren’t necessarily Muslim.) The middle boat was supposedly a bit more upscale, and the boat on the right served both dinner and drinks. I thought this was all very interesting because the other blog posts I read did not refer to three boats — they made it seem like there was only one bar boat. I am not sure if the three boats is a new thing or what. Regardless, the good news is that even though Maafushi is a dry island, you can get booze if you want relatively easily by taking a very very short boat ride to one of the party boats.

Visit Male from Maafushi Island

One regret I have is not visiting Male from Maafushi. There are a few half-day tours that you can book like this one, which has a good rating. Apparently Male has one of the highest population densities in the world.  It would have been nice to learn more about the history of the Maldives and visit some local markets and interesting places.

Drawbacks to Maafushi Island

Of course, after I booked my budget trip to the Maldives, I learned a few things about Maafushi that you might want to keep in mind. Just giving these to you all upfront to help you make your decision about Maafushi.

• This is not a luxury island. It seems like most hotels are three-star hotels. Maybe one or two four-star hotels. Maafushi is definitely targeted at people like me who wanted to organize a budget trip to the Maldives.

• There is A LOT of construction on the island. My hotel was surrounded on all sides by new hotel projects. I imagine by next year, Maafushi will be an entirely different place. (The beachfront hotel that you see in this photo — the completed one — is the Kaani Grand. It would be nice to have one of those seafront rooms!)
• Maldivan currency is non-convertible! So anything you take out of the bank, you have to spend on the island.  In these situations, I’ve learned to use any remaining money to pay down my hotel bill before using my credit card for the rest of the balance. On a private island, this wouldn’t be an issue because you charge everything to your room, but on Maafushi, you will likely eat out and buy drinks and snacks from vendors, so you’ll need some cash. In hindsight, I wish I had brought US dollars for this. (Dollars seem to be very widely accepted.) Note that in general, I found prices on food and drinks on Maafushi to be very budget-friendly. Most meals cost me less than $10 USD.)
• There is no alcohol ON Maafushi. This is considered a local island and because the Maldives is a Muslim country, it’s impossible to get alcohol outside of the resorts which are all located on “private islands.”  There are “Booze Boats” moored off Maafushi though so you can still get drinks in the evenings.
• There is no pork on Maafushi again because it’s a local island and Muslim country. You’ll have to ready yourself for chicken sausages and beef bacon. This didn’t bother me but I could tell a few people were not pleased with their breakfast and really wanted more traditional Western food.
• Because this is a local island, you are relegated to one “Bikini Beach” area that is surrounded by foliage. It’s pretty large and you could actually argue that it’s two beaches and not one because there’s a rock jetty in the middle of it. I didn’t have a problem with this but just keep in mind that you can’t just go swimming wherever you want. You have to use the beaches for tourists. Related to this, you should dress somewhat conservatively when you are not in the main tourist area. I saw plenty of tourists flouting this however which really bothered me. I think some people had a “You’re not going to tell me how to dress” attitude where I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being respectful of a local culture. I was very surprised by how many people were walking around in short-shorts and tank tops when most hotels seem to ask tourists not to do this.

• Maafushi is home to a prison! Personally, I found this pretty interesting but just something to think about.
• Maafushi is pretty much exactly an hour away from the airport by speedboat. You are dependent on the schedule of the island hotel boats to get to/from the airport unless you want to pay a lot extra for a private transfer. It seemed to me that some of the hotels joined up to arrange transfers for guests as on my way to Maafushi, I was on an Arena Hotel boat. On the way back, I was on a iComm boat. The timings worked out pretty well for me…I probably only had to wait at the airport for about an hour for my outbound boat, and for my trip back to the airport, my hotel gave me a 2 pm checkout to help me out with my 2:30 pm airport boat. I just want to point out here that unlike most luxury resorts that arrange private transfers, with Maafushi, you are relying on group transfers unless you specifically pay for private.

Travel Insurance for The Maldives & Maafushi Island

If you’re planning a budget trip to the Maldives, you should definitely get travel insurance. You will be getting in and out of a lot of boats and most likely participating in a lot of water activities. You might want to make sure you are covered for air evacuation given the size of Maafushi and the lack of a large hospital. A budget trip to the Maldives can become pretty expensive without travel insurance!

What to Pack for The Maldives

Thinking about my time on Maafushi, here’s what I recommend packing:

A Turkish towel for the beach: Your hotel will likely give you a towel but it’s nice to have a Turkish towel too because it’s an easy-to-pack beach blanket. You can get loungers on the beach but you will have to pay.

Waterproof cell phone case: If you plan on swimming and want to bring your cell phone alone, buy one of these waterproof cell phone cases.

Waterproof camera: Because you’ll be doing so much snorkeling in the Maldives, get one of these underwater cameras for all the cool stuff you see!

Summary of My Budget Trip to the Maldives

I thought Maafushi was a great little island. and pretty cheap for the Maldives, all things considered. If anything, I wanted it to be more local and I wanted to interact with locals more. The island keeps you pretty isolated with all the tourists. I think Maafushi is going to change rapidly in the next 12 months as more and more hotels pop up so if you’ve ever wanted to go to The Maldives, I think now might be the time. I hope the island’s infrastructure can keep up and things only get better!

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