1) Passport 6 Month Expiration Laws
When traveling to internationally, you always have to make sure your passport won’t expire during your trip! However, the Maldives takes expiration requirements one step further and requires that your passport expiration date be more than 6 months away from your departure date.
This was a surprise for us, and unfortunately, Clark’s passport had an expiration date in September, just a few months after our departure date in July. Luckily, we discovered this Maldivian requirement a few months before our trip so Clark was able to get his passport renewed. We did, however, have to pay for rushed shipping to ensure that it arrived in time!
Funny enough, many island nations seem to have this type of requirement. Our friends honeymooned in Fiji, which also shares the same 6 months from expiration requirement. Our friends, however, did not discover this until the morning of their departure which led to a whirlwind adventure of driving from Portland to Seattle (the Pacific Northwest’s only in-person passport authority) to get a new “same day” passport…. Yes, it is possible to get a same day passport, but you can only imagine the amount of stress that this would add to the start of your honeymoon!
2) Seaplane cost and Baggage Limits
Purchasing an international flight to Male, the capital city and island of the Maldives is the first step in getting to some of the most remote islands in the world! Most of these international flights aren’t cheap, so you will want to keep in mind that most resorts in the Maldives are only reachable by seaplane from Male and they generally cost ~$500 USD per person round trip. This can be somewhat of a surprise to a lot of travelers!
The seaplanes in the Maldives are run by the only local airline, Trans Maldivian Airways. Generally, your resort will facilitate the ticketing of this last-leg seaplane ride and the ~$500 per person will be added to the check-out costs of your hotel bill.
Another challenge with flying to the Maldives, is the luggage allowance per person on the Trans Maldivian Airways seaplanes. You are only allowed a total of 25kg (55lb) per person which is comprised of a 20kg (44lb) checked bag, and a 5kg (11lb) hand luggage. The “per kg” charge for baggage above the permissible limit is $5.00 USD/kg plus applicable taxes.
With all of our photography equipment, there was no way we could keep under the 25kg per person limit, so we were more than prepared to pay the $5.00 USD/kg overage charges. We did try a couple of tricks that we highly recommend if you’re in the same situation! We wore our heaviest clothes and shoes, and also wore our cameras with the heaviest lenses we owned around our neck. This helped to reduce our baggage weight and no one questioned the extra stuff on our body!
At the check-in counter, they did weigh our checked bag and hand luggage (backpacks), but to our surprise, they didn’t say anything about them being overweight! We did not have to pay any overage charges, and we didn’t stick around to ask any questions. We have no clue if this is normal or if we got lucky, but drop us a note in the comments section below if you’ve experienced something similar!
3) Seaplane Schedules and Spending a night in Male
As with many things in the Maldives, island life means no worries and less organizational structure! The seaplane schedules are not published until the night before, which means you won’t know what time your scheduled to fly to your resort until the day before you’re due to arrive at your resort! You could be spending an unknown amount of time in Male.
Another surprise, after booking our resorts, is that the seaplanes only fly during the day (~6am-6pm). This means, if you arrive into Male’s international airport in the late afternoon or evening, you may have to spend a night in Male. Depending on your departure flight from Male, you may also have to book a night in Male at the end of your stay as well.
Since our Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong landed in Male at 8pm, we were outside of the daily seaplane schedule and had to spend one night in Male. Male is a normal city (not what the Instagram photos of the Maldives look like). The hotels are not your typical 5-star luxury resorts, however, there are several pretty nice places to stay. We stayed at the Hotel Ocean Grand at Hulhumale in Male and were pleasantly surprised with the experience. Someone was waiting for us upon our arrival to Male and they transported us and took our bags to the hotel - about a 10 minute drive from the airport. When we arrived at the hotel around 9pm, they gave us some delicious fresh squeezed juice, and communicated with our first resort, Hurawalhi, to let us know that our scheduled seaplane would be departing at 6am the next morning. We had a quick dinner on the private beach and went straight to bed. The room was nice, had a comfortable bed and air conditioning, but was nothing like our resorts at Hurawalhi and Kanuhura! Still a great ~9 hours spent there.
4) Travel Insurance and Planning for an Emergency
We have traveled internationally A LOT over the years, and quite honestly, we’ve never thought about travel insurance or what to do if there’s an emergency (one of us gets sick, hurt, etc). However, traveling ~48 hours to a remote island, halfway around the world, and putting down costly deposits on resorts that are way more than we would normally spend…we started thinking about all of the things that could go wrong.
Luckily, there are many different options when it comes to travel insurance! We won’t go into all of the travel insurance details, but we purchased the Seven Corners Insurance “Round Trip Elite” coverage which would help with evacuation and medical needs, should they arise. It also covered if an immediate family member fell ill prior to our departure in case we had to cancel our trip. This cost us around $345, but it depends on a lot of factors. Seven Corners does have “cancel for any reason” coverage as well, but we chose not to pay for this.
In the unlikely case of an emergency, we also wanted to have an action plan in case something went wrong on our remote island experience. The last thing we wanted to do was scramble for phone numbers and contacts if something went wrong. Prior to departing, we typed up our emergency steps and printed them out, alongside our Seven Corners documentation, to keep in our suitcase. At the highest level, our emergency action plan is below:
Emergency Steps:
Maldives Emergency Number: “119” Police, “102” Ambulance
Call Seven Corners Emergency Number: 800-690-6295 OR 317-818-2808
Call US Embassy: Columbo, Sri Lanka: +94 (11) 249-8888 (emergency) / +94 (11) 249-8500
ADK Private Hospital in Male: 24 hour hotline: 331-3553 (+1), Tel: (+960) 331-3553
Indira Gandhi Memorial (Public) Hospital in Male: Tel: 00960-333-5211
5) Items to Bring from Home
In case you are wondering… yes, Amazon delivers to the Maldives! But in all seriousness, most items in the Maldives are much more expensive than you would find on the mainland. One item of particular importance and ~3x more expensive to purchase in the Maldives is sunscreen! We brought plenty of sunscreen with us and you can find our favorite sunscreen options in Our Gear. Other items that we highly recommend bringing with you are:
Yes, the kids sunscreen is great! :)
Sunscreen
Sun shirt
Sunglasses
Hats
Swimsuits
Sandals
Short sleeved shirts and shorts only (you won’t be cold!)
Kindle/Books
Another thing to keep in mind is that alcohol is strictly banned in Male, Maldives. Any alcohol you purchase in the airport’s duty free sections will be thrown away upon entry to the Maldives (they x-ray all of your belongings upon arrival and are very strict about this)!
Have fun!