How Much Does It Cost to Go to The Maldives: Full Budget Breakdown

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I recently got back from my dream honeymoon in The Maldives and it really was just that, a dream…come true! The Maldives is known to be one of the most expensive destinations, but it certainly doesn’t have to be that expensive.

There are travel costs that are inherently expensive, but in this cost breakdown, I’ll share exactly how we traveled to The Maldives on a budget as much as possible.

I’ll share how we travel hacked our way to The Maldives with other tips for visiting on a budget without travel hacking, as I know this isn’t a method that is available to everyone.

Either way, I know that there are some great tidbits in here including how we saved over $1000 on food (and how you can, too!), what costs you just can’t avoid, and how to make your dream trip to The Maldives happen without wrecking your savings.

Why is The Maldives so expensive?

It’s quite pricey for a few reasons, starting with its location. The Maldives are made up of over 1,000 islands and the country is located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That means importing goods isn’t easy and local resources are limited.

Another reason is because of the prevalence of large resorts that own individual islands. That means that when you visit The Maldives, you may end up at a resort’s private island. This certainly isn’t the only way to travel to The Maldives, but it is the most popular and most expensive. 

How to Budget for The Maldives

Transportation

Before we dive into costs associated with The Maldives, the first step is “simply” getting there (insert Lord of the Rings Boromir meme here). Flights, especially from America, are typically pretty expensive and cost upwards of $1,700 per person, if not more. 

That’s because there are no direct flights from the US to The Maldives and each leg of your flight adds up. 

Some airlines to consider to fly to The Maldives are Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Lufthansa, and British Airways.

Flight prices that I saw when planning were around $1,700, although it really depends on where you’re flying from (we flew from ATL and stopped in Istanbul), your dates, and if you have flexibility in your travel plans.

Related read >> How to plan your trip budget using Excel

The other flight to account for is your seaplane transfer, which may be needed to transfer from Malé International Airport to your resort’s island. These typically cost $650 per person and unfortunately, can’t be avoided should you need them. They also can’t be booked as reward redemptions as the airline is Trans Maldivian Airways, a small local airline. You could cover the cost using “Pay with Points,” which essentially pays you back for the price using your points as a statement credit.

However, some resorts are within boat transfer range and if that’s the case, you can save some money there.

How to Save on Transportation Costs

First, if you can book your flight using credit card points in any way, that’s a big saver.

We booked ours with our Capital One Venture X points by transferring them to Turkish Airlines where the redemption value was better. 

I’ll admit, it wasn’t easy. The flights were only bookable with points by calling because the best redemption for us was to book each leg individually, which the system would not allow without calling a human. There was a language barrier and it took a couple hours to sort it out.

I hope you have an easier time, but should you be going the Capital One → Turkish Airlines route, just keep that in mind.

And note that for flight reward redemptions, you still have to pay the taxes on the flight. For us that was a whopping $450 per person, so don’t forget to budget that in.

Consider a resort that is close enough to Malé that you wouldn’t need a seaplane transfer.

Finally, you can certainly stay on Malé Island and have a more local experience. More on that in a bit.

Accommodation

This is the other big ticket item and can definitely add up quickly. You’ll find resorts in the Maldives that range from budget to ultra luxury.

I’ll share how we stayed “for free” at our resort – the Conrad Maldives – and some other options and ideas to cut costs down on accommodation.

Our Reward Redemption Strategy

My plan going into this trip was to maximize our travel credit card strategy to minimize the hit on our wallets. I know that not everyone is able to open travel credit cards in order to travel hack, so keep reading for more ideas beyond travel hacking!

My husband and I each ended up opening an AMEX Platinum card just over a year prior to our honeymoon where we both earned 150,000 points from the sign up bonus in addition to whatever points were gained from the spend required to earn that sign up bonus.

We chose this card because AMEX has a 1:2 transfer ratio to Hilton points. Meaning if we earned 300,000 points from our combined sign up bonuses, we really earned 600,000 Hilton points! Plus, occasionally AMEX runs a promotion where the transfer ratio is increased to 1:2.4, so we had even more points to work with.

From those points (840,000), we had enough for 8 nights:

• 3 nights at 120,000 points each in a Beach Villa (360,000 points total)
• 5 nights at 120,000 points each in a Sunrise Water Villa where the 5th night on reward stays at Hilton is free (480,000 points total)

The Conrad Maldives was truly a wonderful place to stay and if you can leverage your points, its an incredible value. 

The cash price for the same rooms were $1000 – $1100 per night so it would have cost us over $8000 for the room alone.

Other Resorts

If you’re looking to save on accommodation, I probably don’t have to tell you (but I will), that overwater bungalows and suites are more expensive. You can save by booking a garden room or beach room at most resorts, so keep that in mind.

Also note that not every hotel includes food in their room rates and alcohol is not permitted on local islands including Malé, so if you’re looking for a boozy tropical getaway, you’ll need to choose a hotel with their own private island.

Reethi Beach Resort has affordable rooms and they have options for meals including just breakfast, half board, full board, and all inclusive. Prices start at just $250 per night, which can be a great deal if food is included.

Alimas Holiday Retreat has many room options including traditional hotel rooms in a main building. On site, they have a garden and every booking comes with breakfast. Rates start at just $125 per night. 

Nihalli Maldives has some of the most beautiful, serene beaches. Their rooms start at $90 per night.

Local Stays

Like I previously mentioned, you can certainly stay on local islands to save. Note that they do not allow alcohol, pork products, or bikini bathing suits. The Maldives is a Muslim country and their laws adhere to that.

You can find many hotels on Malé Island for around $70 per night.

Hostels and Volunteering

For the ultimate budget getaway, you can look into hostels that are inexpensive or even look into volunteering programs that operate based on exchange where accommodation is typically free in exchange for your help at the property. Workaway and Worldpackers are two popular hosting sites.

Related read >> Tips for traveling on a budget

Food

While food on local islands is certainly affordable for those traveling from the US, food at the resorts may not be.

For example, at the Conrad, some themed dining options were up to $500 per person and the regular à la carte restaurants averaged $60 per person for an entrée.

Tip #1: Pack your own food

To save, my number one tip I recommend is packing your own food. 

We brought a ton of Mountain House meals, which are dehydrated MREs (meals-ready-to-eat). We tested them out ahead of time to see which ones we liked and how much a serving really filled us up, so that way we knew what to pack.

Ultimately, we packed 14 Mountain House meals and 6 plant-protein rich ramen cups. And yes, it did take up significant room in our suitcases, but it was worth it! 

We checked our bags and split the food between them so that way if one bag was lost, we’d still have some of our food.

We also packed easy-to-clean reusable utensils and a portable electronic kettle that was compatible with both 110 V and 220 V outlets as well as an outlet adapter, which we needed to charge our electronics anyway.

Ultimately, those meals cost us ~ $190 and covered 10 meals for each person, saving over $1000 on meals if we had eaten at the most affordable restaurants possible. INSANE!

Remember to avoid any meals with pork as they are not allowed into the country and will be confiscated at the airport.

We also packed lots of snacks including protein bars, Oreos, Goldfish, M&Ms, and whatever else we could gather from flights and our first stop in Istanbul.

Tip #2: Capitalize on free food

On that note, another tip for food is to take any free food you can. That might seem obvious, but here’s how we did that.

First, we packed Ziplocs with us to save any uneaten breads from breakfast. We also frequented the gym as there were free apples in there! Finally, we made use of our Hilton Honors happy hour where there were free canapés and drinks for the hour (we got status automatically with our AMEX Platinum cards).

Our status as Gold Hilton members also got us free daily breakfast at their extravagant buffet, which was normally $60 per person!

If you utilize this perk, make sure you go into your Hilton account, then select MyWay Hotel Benefits, then Conrad, then toggle on “Daily Food and Beverage Credit.” Otherwise, it’ll default to the other option, which is 1,000 Hilton Honors bonus points per stay.

Tip #3: Make it last

Additionally, consider having a late breakfast to make it last until dinner. Many breakfast buffets will go until 10 or 11 am, so if you can show up on the later end, that’s pretty close to lunch.

We often did this, then for lunch shared one meal we brought or had snacks like a protein bar, apple, and breads leftover from breakfast. That way, our lunches were small and we didn’t have to pay for full meals more than once a day if that.

Tip #4: Consider an all-inclusive

My last tip when it comes to food is to consider opting for an all-inclusive package. Depending on the hotel, that may be a financially beneficial choice!

We spent $190 on our meals, plus a bit for snacks, and we ate at the restaurants on site 4 times – 3 à la carte restaurants at $60 each per person and 1 themed dining experience at $150 per person (the cheapest available). Our food totaled $540.

So, for us it wasn’t worth it to do an all-inclusive, but that’s mainly because of the travel hacking strategy we were implementing to get our accommodation for “free.”

Excursions

You can’t go to The Maldives and not get out in the water somehow someway. If you’re staying locally, there are lots of excursions, tours, and private guides you can hire to show you the beauty of The Maldives. Prices are as low as $30, so don’t count them out!

If you’re on a resort, similar to how every section of this guide has been going, you’re subject to their prices since you’re on their private island.

We only did one excursion – snorkeling with manta rays – and it cost $190 per person plus taxes and fees, so it really came out to around $250 per person. 

It was a half-day excursion with a group where we took a private charter boat with guides who found the manta rays. We’d jump out and snorkel with them until they swam away.

We also went to a great reef for snorkeling and our guides who were snorkeling with us would point out sharks and harder to spot fish, like lionfish.

Other excursions and water activities ranged from $55 and up at our specific resort. And, of course you don’t have to do an excursion. 

Many resorts have house snorkeling and beaches for days so you can definitely opt to skip this expense. Also, ask ahead of time if your resort has free snorkel gear to rent. Ours did and we could use it for the duration of our stay.

If not, consider purchasing and packing your own to save!

How to Travel Hack Experiences

Another reason we chose the Conrad Maldives and pursued the Hilton route was that they have Hilton Honors Experiences that you can redeem for points. That meant, we could pay for certain experiences on the property with points instead of out of pocket.

For example, we did a Maldivian Indigenous Couples Spa experience for 100,000 Hilton points rather than $586 and the visiting hour at Ithaa, the underwater restaurant, for 50,000 Hilton points total instead of $140 per person.

Other Expenses

These resorts know that they have you right where they want you. You’re on a dream trip to a dream once-in-a-lifetime destination, so chances are you’re willing to splurge on experiences and memories.

So with that in mind, here are some other expenses we shelled out for that I don’t regret for a minute.

To celebrate our honeymoon, we did a free 30 minute photoshoot at our resort that came with 2 free photos. They all turned out so great so we paid an additional $60 for 5 more photos.

When we did our excursion, we paid extra to use a GoPro to capture photos and videos of our experience. It was $70 and totally worth it as the excursion didn’t come with any media included.

What to Pack to Save in The Maldives

There are certain things that you just don’t need to pay for when visiting The Maldives and that’s because you can pack strategically and do it yourself for WAY cheaper.

Here’s what we brought with us to save.

• MREs (Mountain House was our fave) and Ramen — saved $1000+ on food
• Laundry detergent sheets — so we didn’t have to spend $8 per shirt at the hotel’s laundry service (yeah, I’m not exaggerating…wtf)
• Waterproof phone pouch — while a GoPro is great for big excursions, you don’t need to pay to rent one every time you want to film a fish underwater
• Sunscreen — our resort wanted to charge $20 for a small bottle (no, ty) that wasn’t even reef safe
• Bug repellent (I like these citronella bracelets) — again, our resort was charging $15+ for a bottle
• Reusable filter water bottle — water was $14 at the restaurants (you can also find free water bottles at hotel gyms)

Maldives 1 Week Trip Cost

Without travel hacking, here’s a budget breakdown of what costs to expect per person. If sharing accommodation, this cost will be lower by about $400. This is an estimate based on you traveling from the United States. If you are traveling from a country with direct flights, the transportation costs could be reduced significantly.

With travel hacking, here’s what we spent on the essentials. This isn’t the only way to travel hack a trip to The Maldives of course, so take this with a grain of salt.

Our Travel Hacking Breakdown

Here’s exactly what we spent and on what. This is all per person and doesn’t include the extras that you can’t travel hack your way through like food and excursions. See above for those prices at our resort.

Item	Cash Price	Points Spent	Cash Spent
Flights from ATL to MLE	$2273	120,000 (Capital One Venture X to Turkish)	$457.28
Seaplane Transfer	$650	0	$650
Conrad Maldives: Beach Villa (3 nights)	$3000	360,000 (Hilton) or 180,000 (Amex)	$0
Conrad Maldives: Sunrise Water Villa (5 nights)	$5500	480,000 (Hilton) or 240,000 (Amex) [5th night free on reward stays]	$0
Ithaa Visiting Hour	$140	25,000 (Hilton) or 12,500 (Amex)	$0
Maldivian Couples Spa Experience	$586 (per couple)	100,000 (Hilton) or 50,000 (Amex)	$0
TOTAL	$12,149	120,000 Capital One + 482,500 Amex	$1107.28

This was my first BIG travel hacking trip, so I know that this might seem totally and completely overwhelming. But, I hope this breakdown has helped, even if you aren’t planning to travel hack your way to The Maldives. I know you can do it and get there!

It’s certainly worth the blood, sweat, and tears…and creative budgeting techniques.

My Travel Essentials

• Travel Insurance – Going on an international trip? Don’t forget travel and medical insurance with SafetyWing.
• Travel Card – If you’re new to travel hacking, fear not! My favorite card for beginners gives you $750 in rewards when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months, plus lounge access, 10x points on hotel bookings, and free TSA pre-check!
• Get Your Guide – Check out Get Your Guide for a one-stop-shop for booking travel activities.
• Booking.com – This is my favorite hotel search aggregator, specifically for reading reviews. On Booking.com, the reviews can be searched for keywords like WiFi, breakfast, pool, amenities, etc.! So helpful!
• Anti-pickpocket bag – Worried about having your valuables swiped? PacSafe makes the best travel bags with zippers and straps that lock and with mesh steel enforced fabric.
• Give the Gift of Travel – This is the perfect gift for travelers in your life! Tinggly allows you to gift experiences around the world, perfect for birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries.
• Staycation Idea – Check out Resort Pass, which gives you day passes to resorts so you can use their pool, spa, and fitness center, a great staycation idea!

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