Maldives: Travel Tips Worth Knowing
Entry and paperwork
Every nationality gets a free 30-day visa on arrival, no embassy visit needed. Separately, and easy to miss, every traveler including infants files the mandatory, free IMUGA Traveller Declaration online, 48-96 hours before both arrival and departure. Keep your passport valid 6 months out and your confirmed booking handy at customs, since alcohol, pork, and “idols of worship” are confiscated there.
Money
The Maldivian rufiyaa (MVR) is the local currency, but resorts price and bill in USD and take cards everywhere. Local islands run on cash MVR. Either way, budget for roughly 27% in add-ons on top of listed prices: a $12-a-night green tax at resorts ($6 at small guesthouses), 17% TGST, and a 10% service charge, plus a departure tax of roughly $50 and up.
It’s a Muslim country, and that’s not incidental
Sunni Islam is the constitutional state religion, Friday is the holy day, and five daily prayers shape the rhythm of Malé and the local islands. Ramadan (moon-dependent, roughly February-March) genuinely affects daytime life there, cafes close and reopen after sunset, and it’s worth being discreet eating or drinking in daylight, but resorts operate completely normally through it, a resort holiday isn’t disrupted. Alcohol is confined to licensed resorts and confiscated at customs; pork isn’t part of the food culture anywhere. Homosexuality is illegal on paper, up to 8 years plus lashes, though enforcement doesn’t reach resort-confined tourists in practice, worth knowing honestly rather than assuming this is a “gay-friendly” destination.
Getting to your resort
How you reach your island matters as much as which one you pick: speedboat (roughly $100-250 round trip, near Malé), a domestic flight plus speedboat for farther atolls, or the seaplane (roughly $290-700+ round trip). The seaplane is daylight-only, about 6am-4:30pm, so a flight landing after mid-afternoon usually means an airport-hotel night before you ever reach the resort.
Pacing and diving
Plan on one base, 5-7 nights is the sweet spot, 4 the floor, since arrival and departure days get eaten by transfers. You settle into an island rather than touring several, and Malé itself is a half-day stop, not a destination. If you dive, buy real dive insurance: most atolls have no decompression chamber, and an evacuation for a dive injury can run $10,000-34,000. Sun protection matters more than usual too, equatorial sun with constant water reflection.
Read more: Maldives: Where to Stay by Atoll for how these rules play out by region.