So, misses and I are planning a trip to Maldives around May 2026. We will be travelling from Mumbai. We can only go to local Island, Maafushi preferred.
Private resorts are out of budget for us, and we cannot afford that 30K-80K per night rates they ask. I understand that it is not only the base price of private resorts that is so high but even transport (even via speed boat) is expensive and separate from main cost and the excursions too are expensive compared to local island cost.
Due to all this, local island Maafushi is one we have selected. Hotels here too aren’t cheap as good ones cost 10K (± 2K) per day. We are not swimmers so we anyways cannot do stuff like snorkeling or scuba diving. The only activities I think we can do are para sailing (wife only, I am sh1t scared of all this), sandbank visit, single day resort tour and possibly small water activities in island through local operator.
Being vegetarians, we will carry our ready to eat (dehydrated) food but will still have some meals on island hotels. Snacks too we will carry as we saw that many things are just shipped from India and then sold at high markup. Breakfast will be part of hotel which usually has some usual continental options which is ok with us.
Would appreciate people who have travelled let us know of any travel hacks or any tips that we may not be aware of and suggestions if any.
Maldivies is meant for expensive trip and all private resorts taken an island and do all acitivies nearby. Been there last year and one will get bored in private resort after 4 days eitherway.
I would suggest to look at andaman and nicobar, this would be within budget and at par with maldives (except the extravaganza). You get to do lot of activities at much better rate
If foreign travel is not a must, Andaman and Nicobar trip is good, look at havelock island resorts. FyI, I have travelled Andaman and Nicobar but not maldives.
Private Island or Local, I am sure with limited stuff to do, one would get bored anyways in few days. Expensive trip is ok but still cannot fathom spending those rates even for 1 day when I can get almost 4 days to a week’s hotel stay at same price on local island.
You don’t need to know swimming to do snorkeling or scuba diving. Going to Maldives and not doing these activities… I think you’ll get bored pretty soon.
I would suggest Andamans, Sri Lanka, Phuket.. atleast there will be other stuff to do / visit.
For 3 of us including a child everything from flights from Hyderabad to Port Blair and vice versa and hotel booking and sight seeing it’s 50k per person. The cabs pickup at the airport to hotel everything comes under this charge.
These charges are from 2016. So might have increased now.
Many honey moon couples also go there for holidaying.
When we went there in 2016 there was 1 newly married couple in our hotel from my wifes DAE unit.
And another elderly couple with a young man were from another DAE unit.
We need to tell the travel agent our purpose and he will book according to our budget. I mean the hotels and flight tickets and candle light dinners etc.
We left our kid at my wifes colleague family and went for a candle light dinner in Havelock Island.
I am not denying what you are saying. The thing is, my kids don’t want to come to any place where there are only beaches or “nothing else to do”. Hence, they are completely ok with myself and wife going here while they stay at my FIL/MIL house with a cousin of similar age.
Andaman has other sightseeing etc too on Island which they would be interested in so may be after 2-3 years we may plan to go there. For now, this trip is just something for myself and wife to escape daily schedule and be not be bothered by kids and hence this location was chosen. We already had plans to go from long but it didn’t materialize as younger was too young to stay without mom. Now they are bigger and we are not going to get any younger (already are 40+) so want to tick this off from bucket list.
Also, there is a good chance once we go to a location, we may never be able to go back and Andaman may be like multiple sightseeing and what not so we would love to do that with Kids too be part of it.
Also would add Phuket as an alternative from someone who considered Maldives (found out it would be very expensive, like you did) and Andaman (whose air tickets from Delhi would cost more than going to Phuket or Vietnam would lol).
Phuket is not expensive, got a great airbnb at 4k per day that included a gorgeous swimming pool. Le Meridien in the second half of my stay was 10k per day with breakfast included. Rest of the trip wasnt expensive either. And it has some jaw dropping pretty beaches and islands. Oh and no visa fee either.
Lakshadweep lacks tourist friendly infra, don’t know whether they sell alcohol yet. It’s just like seeing a different geography than enjoying as a tourist.
Maldives reminds of earlier unpleasant episode where they went geriatric against India, usual thankless neighbor country which takes benefits from India to hate more.