The Maldives - How to Stay at Multiple Resorts

The Maldives: cross it off your bucketlist

Picking a single resort and island in the Maldives is so challenging! There are so many options to choose from and each island has its own unique slice of paradise. We found it to be stressful to put all of our vacation into a single resort and spent some extra time figuring out the easiest way to stay at multiple resorts over our 12 night trip to the Maldives.

The Maldives is made up of ~1190 coral islands arranged in 26 atolls. They stretch roughly 466 miles from North to South (over half the length of the California coast!). Of these 1190 islands, ~132 of them are resorts. Think one resort per island - these are very small islands that take 10-15 minutes to walk around!

With so many resorts to choose from, and being spread out over such a large geographic region, we REALLY wanted to find a way to visit two difference islands and resorts during our stay.

The biggest challenge with this idea, is that most resorts are a sea plane ride away from Male - the capital city and main international airport in the Maldives. There’s only one major sea plane operator in the Maldives, Trans Maldivian Airways, which holds a monopoly on these transfers, making the round trip sea plane trip to the resorts ~$500+ per person!

Unfortunately, there really isn’t a way to fly from island to island without transferring back to Male, and we really did not want to pay $500+ per person TWICE in order to stay at two different resorts!

After much research, creating many spreadsheets, and mapping out all of our options, we were able to find an inexpensive way to visit two different islands on our trip. We stayed at Hurawalhi Island Resort AND Kanuhura Maldives. Continue reading below, to see how we were able to plan this trip, and use some of our tips for your trip so you, too, can stay at multiple resorts on your trip to The Maldives!

Hurawalhi Island Resort via DJI Mavic Air

Step 1: Resort and island research

There are tons of articles online for “Top 10 Maldives Resorts” and the likes. TripAdvisor is another great resource for comparing resorts and reading reviews. Pay special attention to the “terrible” and “poor” reviews! Create a spreadsheet of your top 20 resorts, based on reviews and info about the different islands and resorts. Some of the biggest things we looked at where:

Price
Total number of rooms on island
Seaplane distance from Male
Seaplane cost from Male
Adults only (Hurawalhi is adults only and actually made quite a difference!)
Food pricing and what’s included (breakfast/lunch/dinner)
Total number of “Excellent” review on TripAdvisor
Total number of “Poor” and “Terrible” reviews on TripAdvisor
What is the resort known for: bicycles to get around, snorkeling, scuba diving, etc

Create a list or spreadsheet of your top 20 resorts!

Step 2: Plot your top 20 resorts on Google Maps

Open up good ol’ Google Maps! Search for the resorts you’ve identified and save the location. This is a good time to look at the islands from a birdseye view and start looking at how they’re laid out. Are the over-water bungalows on the West side of the island? If so, you’re more likely to get some beautiful sunsets from the comfort of your private pad. Or, if you’re more of a morning person, you may want to see if the type of rooms your looking for are on the East side of the island.

Once you’ve saved the locations of all 20 resorts, zoom out to see which islands are within the same atolls, and which are hundreds of miles away from the others.

Step 3: Identify resorts in the same atolls

Take note of which resorts and islands are close to one another. For resorts in the same atolls, you can often times take a private speed boat from one resort to another! Once you’ve landed on a couple of resorts in the same area, contact them and ask for the costs of private speedboats. We chose Hurawalhi Island Resort and Kanuhura. Funny enough, Hurawalhi was going to charge $250 for the speed boat transfer to Kanuhura, and Kanuhura was only going to charge $160! Obviously, we booked the private speedboat through Kanuhura and it was WAY cheaper than booking extra round trip seaplane tickets.