Exploring Maldives On A Budget – Its Possible!

Maldives is a fascinating place to visit for an independent holiday. Five to six years ago traveling to Maldives being a budget traveler didn’t seem to be a good idea. Now every month, there are new guesthouses and hotels opening offering reasonably priced accommodation to budget travelers.

If you travel to Maldives on a budget and are planning to live on a luxury resort, you will find superior level of luxury but you won’t get a chance to experience the life of the locals. Every resort in Maldives is made on an island of its own, secluded from the local life. Staying on local islands gave me a good chance for exploring Maldives and its local life.

Visiting Maldives Can Be Done Cheaply Too!

Maldives was my childhood destination for solo traveling. Honestly speaking it was also my favorite honeymoon destination for two reasons.

1. It has the best beaches in the world.
2. The hotels and resorts are very expensive.

I always thought that Maldives was a once in a lifetime destination and it was one of those places that you visit only for special occasions. But my friend, I was wrong, this is absolutely not true!

Finding Cheap Lodging In Maldives – Isn’t Difficult

The first thing you need to clear from your head is that there is no option of super cheap accommodation in Maldives. Like in some countries of Southeast Asia, you will find a beach bungalow for $5-$10 per night but you won’t get that lucky in Maldives. However, you will find a lot of resorts and guesthouses for budget travelers and surprisingly they are a good deal. The hotel I stayed at charged me $40 per night and for that amount I received a spacy clean room with modern furniture and air-conditioning, free breakfast, two bottles of water a day, free snorkeling gear, room cleaning and a fast WIFI connection. I found this deal better than what I got for a room in Eastern Europe.

Time To Travel Cheap In Maldives

Transportation in Maldives is pretty cheap, so I won’t recommend you to walk but still the idea of walking is not bad. Local ferries travel on their normal routes and charge $3-4 for a normal journey. If you plan to stay at a resort then you have to hire a speed boat because local ferries don’t stop at resort islands. If you want to visit the resort island then hire a speed boat only if you have a lot of money because speed boats are very expensive and can cost you $200-$280 per person for just 45 minutes ride. I would suggest that you hire a local fisherman and pay him $40-50 to take you to the resort island even though $40-$50 is also pretty high for a 6 kilometers ride.

Finding Cheap Food – My Favorite Hobby. . .

Food will charge you $5-$10 per meal, but many guesthouses offer you a huge breakfast, for people like me heavy breakfast is more than enough to keep me full till dinner time, so I used to skip my lunches and only had my dinner. There is a lot fish based meals that you get in Maldives, I ate once outside my hotel there I ordered Rice and Salmon with curry and fish and chips along with delicious tartar sauce – so remember if you are eating out in Maldives you will find a lot of fish items on the menu.