With more than 1000 coral islands spread across 26 major atolls in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives may be the perfect location for island hopping. While many visitors are quite happy to spend their holidays relaxing in the luxury resort island of their choice, island hopping offers the opportunity to see much more of this unique archipelago nation and experience the different resort styles and specialist activities on offer.
Although almost every Maldivian island shares a common tropical landscape of beautiful coral-sand beaches, lush tropical vegetation and warm, clear blue waters, each is a unique location and many are quite distinctively different. The differences might include an especially romantic and secluded beach, shady groves of coconut palms, vast sandbanks where you can wander and swim for miles in shallow water, or intricate coral gardens in a sheltered lagoon. Many birds and fish species will find a habitat on one island but not another. The accommodations and facilities of the many resort islands also reflect a wide variety of styles and features - some are famed for the luxury of their water villas, for example, others for the excellence of their cuisine. Island hopping is a great way to explore this beautiful chain of islands and get the most out of your time in the sun.
The simplest island hopping trips can involve simply organising a small dhoni boat to ferry you from your resort to one of the many uninhabited islands nearby. Of the 1192 islands in the Maldives, just 200 have local villages or exclusive tourist resorts, and there are always uninhabited islands just a short boat ride away. The resort guides and boatmen know each island in their local group, and the locations of the best spots for a romantic picnic, a family swimming trip or a snorkelling tour. All the resort restaurants can provide picnic food, drinks and equipment - and many even specialise in champagne picnics and barbecues, complete with a chef and a waiter to take care of the cooking.
An increasingly popular style of island hopping is to combine a stay at two or more resorts in the Maldives. Often these will be in the same atoll group, to cut down on the time spent in a speedboat or seaplane between resorts, but many tour operators can organise a custom holiday that can take in very different parts of the Maldives. You might like to spend a week in a specialist scuba diving resort, close by many of the most spectacular dive sites in the islands, followed by a few days of unmitigated luxury at the newest five-star resorts. Or spend time surfing in the southern atolls, followed by a visit to the historic island of Gan, where the attractions include the rare opportunity to go jungle trekking, and to bicycle between local villages for a glimpse of traditional island life. A number of cruise vessels tour parts of the islands for weeks at a time, often on specialist diving or surfing safaris that take in the most remote and secluded parts of the Maldives. With so many beautiful islands on offer, why settle for just one?