The Water Issue

November opens the dry season in the Maldives, and the country runs on a simple, unusual rule: one resort, one island. There is no wandering into town for dinner and no second beach down the road — whatever you book, you commit to it, its restaurants and its price of a coffee, for the length of the stay. That makes the choice matter more than almost anywhere we cover.

The thing that decides everything else is how far your island sits from the airport at Malé. Nearby resorts run a speedboat, quick and comparatively cheap; the more distant ones need a seaplane — a small, loud, wonderful pontoon-plane that only flies in daylight and adds real money and a fixed schedule to the day. Read the transfer before you fall for the photographs, because it quietly sets your budget, your arrival and even your bedtime.

Then the villa. The overwater bungalow with its ladder into the lagoon is the postcard, and it is often smaller, hotter and more exposed than a beach villa, which tends to be larger, shadier and easier with children. Plenty of people book the water villa, love the first two nights, and wish they had split the stay; if the island has a good reef off the sand, the beach villa can be the quiet winner.

And read the board basis like a contract. With no village to walk to, the resort is the only kitchen on the island, and the gap between room-only and full-board can dwarf the price of the room itself. Know exactly what 'all-inclusive' covers before you turn out to be the one guest paying à la carte.

— Vivienne Hartwell, Editor-in-Chief