The islands where people actually live
Around a thousand islands make up the Maldives; fewer than two hundred are inhabited, and only some of those have guesthouses. These are the ones worth knowing about — each with its own character, its own way in, and its own reason to go.
Narrow it down
Showing 25 of 25 islands
Getting in and out
Neither of these is a holiday island — both are where trips begin and end. Worth a page each because a badly planned first or last night costs more than a good one.
Photo · Ilija Jevtic / Google Alif Alif Atoll
Bodufolhudhoo
Bodufolhudhoo has just over seven hundred residents, which puts it among the smaller guesthouse islands in Alif Alif. That size…
704 residentsBikini beach
Photo · maldivian_abo / Google Alif Dhaal Atoll
Dhangethi
Dhangethi sits on the eastern rim of South Ari with a little over nine hundred residents. It is one of the older guesthouse…
936 residentsBikini beach
Baa Atoll
Dharavandhoo
Dharavandhoo is the way into Hanifaru Bay. The bay sits within the Baa Atoll UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and in season the currents…
997 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Warren Mills / Google Kaafu Atoll
Dhiffushi
Dhiffushi sits at the eastern edge of Kaafu, at the end of the chain rather than in the middle of it, with a little under…
1,270 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Hamdhoon Hameed / Google Alif Dhaal Atoll
Dhigurah
Dhigurah is long and thin — the name means "long island" — and that shape is the point. A single sand spit runs off the southern…
761 residents
Photo · Lucie Mohelnikova (other way holiday) / Google Baa Atoll
Fehendhoo
One hundred and ninety-eight people live on Fehendhoo. That makes it the smallest inhabited island covered here — smaller than…
198 residentsBikini beach
Photo · AROUND THE WORLD / Google Baa Atoll
Fulhadhoo
Three hundred and forty-one people live on Fulhadhoo, on a long sandbank at the southern edge of Baa. It is one of three small…
341 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Eduard P / Google Vaavu Atoll
Fulidhoo
Four hundred people live on Fulidhoo. That number explains most of what the island is: a few sand streets, a handful of…
400 residentsBikini beach
Photo · 黃逃逃 / Google Gnaviyani Atoll
Fuvahmulah
Fuvahmulah is a single island that is also an entire atoll — no lagoon, no ring of reef, just land dropping straight into deep…
9,177 residents
Photo · Petra Caganova / Google Baa Atoll
Goidhoo
Goidhoo has just under six hundred residents and shares a reef with Fulhadhoo and Fehendhoo in the south of Baa Atoll. Of the…
583 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Hussain Solah / Google Kaafu Atoll
Gulhi
Gulhi is a small island in southern Kaafu with fewer than a thousand residents, and its main advantage is position: it sits on…
976 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Marc Perreault / Google Kaafu Atoll
Guraidhoo
Guraidhoo sits in southern Kaafu with around seventeen hundred residents, which makes it a proper island community rather than a…
1,743 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Anil Travel Logs / Google Haa Dhaalu Atoll
Hanimaadhoo
Hanimaadhoo is the gateway to the far north. It has the regional airport, around two and a half thousand residents, and roughly…
2,664 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Jadulla Hameed / Google Seenu Atoll
Hithadhoo
Hithadhoo is the largest island in Addu and, with nearly fourteen thousand residents, the second-largest population centre in the…
13,759 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Rune Tollefsen / Google Kaafu Atoll
Huraa
Huraa lies in northern Kaafu with around sixteen hundred residents, close enough to Malé that the transfer is short and far…
1,654 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Angelo Greco / Google Vaavu Atoll
Keyodhoo
Keyodhoo has a little over six hundred residents and sits in Vaavu, the atoll with the fewest people in the country and some of…
641 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Bilal Afzal Khan / Google Kaafu Atoll
Maafushi
Maafushi sits about 26 km south of Malé in Kaafu Atoll, and it is where local-island tourism in the Maldives first took hold at…
4,471 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Mohamed Naushad / Google Alif Dhaal Atoll
Mahibadhoo
Mahibadhoo is the administrative centre of Alif Dhaal and, with over two and a half thousand residents, by some distance the…
2,580 residents
Photo · Richard Newman / Google Alif Alif Atoll
Mathiveri
Mathiveri sits at the northern end of Alif Alif with fewer than nine hundred residents — small enough to walk end to end, large…
878 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Mohamed Fazeel / Google Alif Dhaal Atoll
Omadhoo
Omadhoo lies in the eastern chain of South Ari with a little over nine hundred residents. It is less visited than Dhigurah or…
913 residentsBikini beach
Photo · hassan kuleys / Google Alif Alif Atoll
Rasdhoo
Rasdhoo is a diving island first and everything else second. It sits on its own small atoll just north of Ari, and the drop-off…
1,282 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Denis Ivko / Google Vaavu Atoll
Thinadhoo
Two hundred and fifty-eight people live on Thinadhoo. That makes it the smallest island covered here by a wide margin, and it is…
258 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Jenzy Ben / Google Kaafu Atoll
Thulusdhoo
Thulusdhoo is the surf island of Kaafu Atoll, and it wears that identity plainly. Two of the best-known breaks in the country sit…
1,801 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Carlos Alberto do Amaral / Google Alif Alif Atoll
Ukulhas
Ukulhas made its name doing something unglamorous: it sorts and manages its waste. On an archipelago where rubbish disposal is a…
1,284 residentsBikini beach
Photo · Salt Fish / Google Noonu Atoll
Velidhoo
Velidhoo has around eighteen hundred residents and sits in Noonu, an atoll better known to divers than to beach travellers. It is…
1,832 residents