The Maldives is a destination which is known for being a fancy tourist destination. Most places are possible to travel there on a low budget, the Maldives are one of them. In this article you will be able to find things you need to know about it beforehand.
Is camping legal in the Maldives?
As I understand it correctly, camping isn’t legal over there. Obviously depending on where you are at. There might be more likely to make it happen as in other destinations, but I will come later.
The touristic section is of course a huge income source, so the people obviously want you to stay in a hotel or similar places. So at the end if you stay in your tent, the locals and the government isn’t earning money with you.
When talking to the locals, they don’t seem to have an issue with you camping, but still they told me that I have to be a bit careful with my ideas.
Basically it is a grey zone?
So basically it is illegal, but as you know from my blog, there are always ways around laws, but you need to decide it for you if you want to do them, I just test them for you guys.
How to choose the place for camping in the Maldives?
Basically, how I am always deciding on places to do camping is just checking satellite images. I am checking where there is a lot of nature with not many houses around. In the Maldives it isn’t as easy as you might think.
There are a few different places:
Private Islands
Over here it is just not possible to reach without a booking, you are sent off the island directly if you haven’t booked anything. Also reaching there is not really possible, because they don’t want outsiders there. These resorts are making a lot of money and offer privacy in exchange.
Unhibatitate islands
Of course when you are here, that might be the best option, just getting there isn’t easy. You need people who you trust or a boat. It is important to organize that well, but during my trip I wasn’t trying this option, it is something which should work, depending on stories of some friends of mine.
Local Islands and touristic islands
Here the chance of it work is the same. At touristic islands it is a bit more controlled of course, but still. It is easier to reach here in comparison to the other two options, also public ferries are possible to use.
So basically just try it first at those islands.
Most islands will not be possible due to being built up a lot with infrastructure and not being as big. The perfect example for this is Sacchetti, a cool island with great people. There is not a spot where you could put up a tent, only on the beach, where you will be found quite easily sadly. So in order to find the right island, you search for many green spots and some distance between the green area and hotels / other buildings.
Maldives camping in Dhigurah
One of the islands where it is for sure possible is Dhegurah, we were successfully doing it here. The island has a big section where there are the locals living, next to it is a section for tourists with hotels and everything needed. After this section comes a big section with a jungle, not a place for hotels.
The island is getting slimmer as further you go and as less people are being found at night.
At the end we actually just went out in the darkness and put up the tent next to the beach roughly 500m away from the hotel. It was quite risky over there, but we were not motivated to walk further, as we planned to go to a different island the next day.
There are no buses, so you basically need to walk everything, if you don’t plan to hitchhike, which is actually working in the Maldives and also in tourist islands like this one.
At 6 in the morning, there were locals coming around to clean the beaches. That was a bit stressful, but they didn’t care at all about us camping there. They did their work and greeted us in the morning with smiles.
What else is important about camping in the Maldives?
- In general it is important to keep your camping spot clean, whatever you make dirty, just clean it. This is in general helpful for a lower fine. If you are caught, you can show that you are keeping the place clean and have respect for your surroundings and the nature, this is important wherever you are doing wild camping.
- Build up the tent in the dark, the chance of being caught is lower. If you do it during the day and islands in the Maldives aren’t big. You can walk around the whole island in a short time.
- Check the surroundings, there can be a shitty underground, so better check it before, to use less flashlight, this can help you a lot.
Summary
In general do it at your own risk. I just give advice on how I did it and how you are most likely not being caught. Camping at the Maldives is working and you can save a lot of money while doing that and being able to enjoy the waves and everything is a great thing to do. Also next time being there, I will be doing it again and more often, because it worked decently.
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