The heavenly Maldives – I think that everyone I talked to dreams about them and at least once thought “if only I could go there”. I know that you’ve been waiting for this post and I’m not surprised, because for me writing it was a tremendous pleasure and it took me back to the place where water is somehow a little more azure and sand is more white than anywhere else.
And you know what? It is one of those places, which look even better than in travel catalogs and doesn’t need any Photoshop, which is often used to fix the reality. It looks like in the photos (or better!) and I fully understand why people picture a paradise looking just like this. And when you finally reach it, it feels so unreal!
Let me tell you about the place, where I spent a perfect week – Fushifaru Maldives. One of the most beautiful resorts I have ever visited, where even the smallest details are being taken care of. I was invited there to lead fitness classes for the guests. In short words – Travel, Keep Fit and Stay in Paradise like a Pro edition ;)
I think that you’ll be as delighted as I was and if the Maldives are on your dream list, this island will give you everything you need to experience fabulous vacations in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
But let’s start from the very beginning…
A few words about the Maldives and the best time to visit
The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, are an archipelago and an island country, situated in the Indian Ocean, approx. 500 km south-west from the southern end of India.
This archipelago consists of more than 1190 islands, scattered in 26 coral atolls, which grew on a submarine volcanic range, extending 820 km from north to south and 120 km from east to west. Only 202 of those islands are inhabited.
The Maldives have a tropical rainforest climate, which is very humid and that’s why the average annual precipitation is about 2130 mm and the average annual temperature is 27°C. So you should carefully plan the time of your visit, because the monsoon season means heavy rain, dense clouds and lack of light, which in turn make the dreamy azure water, because of which most tourists come here, look not as azure as you might wish. The best time to visit the Maldives is therefore the dry season, which in here lasts from October to April.
How to get to the Maldives and then to Fushifaru Maldives?
Most of the flights to the Maldives – regardless if we are flying from Europe or from another place on Earth – have a transfer on the Arabian Peninsula. Usually it’s in Dubai or in Doha. I flied from Warsaw with Quatar Airlines – at first 7 hours to Doha and then another 4 hours to the capital city of the Maldives, Male.
However, flying to the Maldives is one thing, because when you get there, you also have to reach the chosen island. The Maldives developed quite an efficient network of hydroplanes, which relatively quickly fly back and forth from the capital city, Male (where the only international airport is situated), to other islands and resort islands. Ships and boats also reach the local islands but every resort guarantees transportation to and from airport by a hydroplane. Even the flight itself is a huge attraction, because you can admire the heavenly sights of atolls you are flying above, which give you a foretaste of where you’d soon land.
Fushifaru Maledives is situated only 45 minutes of flight from Male, so it’s a pleasant flight, at least for such a small and quite loud light aircraft. I wrote “only”, because you’d have to fly even 4 hours to get to the more distant resorts.
Another level of luxury
If you love to stay in beautiful hotels and experience luxury, this resort is the right place. You can be sure that since the moment you arrive there, you’d be taken care of, the staff would do everything to please you all the time (the staff is excellent, by the way) and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. This is what living in paradise must look like :)
The island, on which the Fushifaru resort was built, is a tiny thing and you could walk around it in 20 minutes, which in my opinion is a great thing. It’s a cozy, idyllic place, where you don’t have to be afraid of crowds and noises. Fushifaru Maldives is proud to call itself a boutique resort and it only has 49 villas – some flagship villas on the water, and some directly on the beach, surrounded by a lush, green garden.
Despite the small size, compared to other resorts, you won’t miss anything here – there are a couple of restaurants, a cocktail bar, a tennis court, a gym, an incredible infinity pool and an absolutely amazing spa, hidden among the tropical plants (the best massage with coconut oil I have ever had – not joking!). So everything to have a perfect holidays.
Another very important aspect, is the fact that Fushifaru Maldives is the kind of resort, which tries to run ecologically friendly and which systematically introduces new solutions, which minimize its impact on the ecosystem and makes it produce even less pollution.
A lot of you asked me, how the issue of potable water is solved there. All in all it’s a small island on the Indian Ocean, cut off from the rest of the world. So, this resort has its own purification plant and produces drinking water right there. And thanks to this solution you won’t see there any disposable, plastic bottles. Drinking water in this resort is served in reusable glass bottles, which are filled every day and then delivered to the guest rooms or served in restaurants. Just think by how much it minimizes the amount of waste, taking into consideration the number of people there. It eliminates the problem of plastic bottles, which unfortunately is a big issue in the Maldives, because they produce tons of waste and can’t manage to utilize it. So every real action taken and fight fought for the environment are indeed worth supporting. It depends also on us, tourists, which places do we support and by that make our contribution in the struggle to keep the oceans clean. Speaking about the question if we have choice or influence – we always have! We should only carefully choose places and take proactive decisions on our common good.
Private villa of dreams
During my stay I lived in a beach house with private pool and I have to admit, I wouldn’t change it to the ones standing over the water for anything. My villa was absolutely gorgeous – with a huge bedroom and a terrace overlooking the ideally white beach. Every day I was woken up by a delicate hum of the waves of the perfectly azure water.
But my most favorite place was an incredible outdoor bathroom, surrounded by a green, tropical garden, palm trees and flowers, where I not only had two showers but also a bathtub. What can I say… I will forever remember the long baths under the sky full stars.
Dining experience
There is no paradise without good food, I think that we all agree on that. The most surprising was the fact that on this small, cozy island the chef was able to cook literally everything you wished, using any cuisine in the world – beginning with the local one, to Mexican or Indian.
There are also a few restaurants on the island. The specialty is of course seafood, fished and caught in the ocean surrounding the island.
Breakfasts and suppers are served in an outdoor restaurant, with tables placed directly on the beach. Especially the evening meals look spectacular, when the whole restaurant is lit with candles and lamps, while stars sparkle above in the sky. The chef was also a charming person and every day chatted with me and asked everyone if the food tasted well. This very personal approach makes you feel uniquely taken care of. Besides, he also happened to pop in to my workouts and I think that after that he liked me a little bit less ;)
What do you do in the Maldives?
Of course, you can do nothing, that is: just be there, eat and sunbath on a white beach, which for some is the real rest. However, it’s worth to devote your time to some other stuff, which you wouldn’t be able to experience elsewhere.
I was so surprised by the number of attractions they have on such a small island. Every day I tried to check out new things and I have to say that I didn’t manage to do everything. If I had stayed for a few days longer, I would still have had something new to do.
Besides, there were activities I wanted to do every day and which, I guess, will never get boring to me, like diving. This resort really does its best to always have something happening on the island and they also present a few options of spending your time. There are theme evenings, artistic shows, like for example traditional dance of the Maldives – Boduberu. If you want to spend your time more actively during the day, there are plenty of options and things to do, to use your time in the Maldives to the fullest.
A picnic on a deserted Robinson Crusoe island
This is the highlight of the show. Didn’t we all just dream, even at least once, of how would it like to live on a deserted island, which is covered with perfectly white sand? Well, no one would like to end up like Robinson Crusoe but trying it for a while – it could be fun. And Fushifaru answered those dreams and gives you the opportunity to have a picnic on a deserted island, which is situated only 10 minutes of boat ride from the resort.
In practice it is so, that at a scheduled hour (I chose the lunch time, because I wanted to experience the intense color of water in the full sun, but I’ve heard that sunset is also very picturesque) you are taken there by a boat and simply left there. You receive a mobile phone and when you want to come back all you need to do is call and then the boat will pick you up.
What already awaits you there is a beautifully arranged picnic under a baldachin – blankets, pillows, fruit tray, cold drinks… you can delight in the taste and peace, because you are absolutely alone on this island.
But when I flew my drone up and when I saw from above where I am and how it really looks to be a single dot in the middle of the ocean, it felt spectacular.
In my opinion it is really worth a try, even only to feel this solitude and isolation from the world, which are very difficult to experience in modern world.
Diving with turtles and dolphins
The Maldives are one of the places in the world, where you go especially to scuba-dive. Coral reefs and local submarine world are simply jaw-dropping. I’ll tell you honestly, even experiencing only this one thing made it worth to travel across half of the globe. It really stays in your head and heart forever. This time I only had time for snorkeling, that is swimming with a mask and a snorkel, but deep inside I really dreamt to be so lucky to see a turtle even once.
The resort organizes trips for snorkeling and scuba-diving and uses a private boat to take you to the places, where the chances to see a turtle are the highest. You set off in the morning for a few hours and in case of snorkeling you usually spend 2-3 hours in the water.
My prayers were answered, because not only I swam with a few turtles, which was the most beautiful view during the whole trip, but from the boat we also saw dozens of dolphins (and they are so happy in the wild!). Besides, during snorkeling I also saw a shark – I have never swum so quickly in the opposite direction!
Apart from that, there were hundreds of fabulously colorful fish, which looked like someone painted them just a minute ago. This is something so beautiful, moving and for me also strongly making me aware of how marvellous our world is and that the fight to keep it so as long as possible should be our priority.
Paddle boarding
I would recommend paddle boarding even to see how good your physical coordination is. Theoretically, I have no problems with it but before I was able to stand straight on the board (add quite large waves that afternoon), I fell into the water again and again. You probably wish you could have seen that, because the view must have been really embarrassing ;)
This message is for all the people, who always say that “it’s so easy” :) No, it isn’t! But it’s good – if there’s a challenge, there’s also fun! And those views, when you finally get the rhythm and you can focus on looking around… The island looks incredibly, when looking at it from the ocean and if you swim even further away you can easily imagine yourself being all alone in the middle of the ocean, surrounded only by endless water and complete silence.
Fitness classes in tropics
Fitness classes were the main reason why I flew to the Maldives. Fushifaru Maldives invited me to lead them for the guests of the resort and show them that you can train and be active anywhere, even at the end of the world, in a paradise, without special equipment, professional gym and ton of other excuses that might cross your mind.
If you were there with me I would, of course, encourage you to spend 40 minutes a day and join my workout :) Even because training on a beach, at sunrise, on a private island in the middle of the ocean is a really surreal and marvelous experience. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever trained at and such physical exercise tastes absolutely different there. Just like you wrote in the comments on the Instagram – in such place you just want to train!
You can read the whole story about my dream job in the Maldives in the post below:
>>>Dream job in the Maldives<<<
Fushifaru Maldives is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever been to and I had wonderful time there. Not only because of the surroundings but also because of the awesome fitness project. Making it come true in such a place was an unusual challenge but also a tremendous pleasure. The slogan Travel and keep fit got a whole new meaning :)
If this post and pictures didn’t convince you to visit this place, try to watch the video I uploaded on YouTube – I am really proud of the drone shots. Besides, nothing shows this paradise in the full picture than the bird’s eye view :)
Previous
