Maldives ... off the resort!

The Maldives is truly an iconic beach destination. Not usually the kind of place we choose to travel to. In fact it was only going to be a side trip to our month long trip to Sri Lanka, which unfortunately we had to cancel because of civil unrest. But that is another story.

​We spent 3 weeks in the Maldives loosely following a route suggested in Lonely Planet for independent travellers. Our flights from Canada were booked to Colombo, Sri Lanka with the same return.  From Colombo, we flew directly to the island of Gan in the far south without overnighting. We then transited Malé (the capital) to the island of Hanimadhoo north. Our goal was to spend as little time in Malè as possible. And our eventual delay, confirmed that this was a good decision. In total we stayed on 7 different islands, including Male, 5 "local" islands and one resort island.

We arrived in the Maldives in early March 2022. There were still remnants of the pandemic. We had to download an app and upload our vaccination records and some details of our travels before we arrived. And there were extremely few tourists, even though we were still in high season (December to April). We stayed in at least 3 guest houses where we were the only guests.

Accommodations:
Most of our accommodations were at guest houses which were uniformly delightful and the hosts very eager to meet our every wish.

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