Plan: The Maldives on a $500 budget per day

The Maldives conjures images of white sand beaches dotted with palm trees, bright aqua ocean water with coral reefs brimming with colorful fish and postcard sunsets from the beach or over the water villas.  With over 105 resorts scatted among 2,000 individual island, the Maldives is a bucket list destination where one can escape the confines of large resorts to experience a vacation as a castaway on a small island.  For budget travelers, it’s not the most cost-effective destination for the average tourist due to the high price of food and beverage, the additional costs of speedboat transfers or float plane tickets, the lack of cheap accommodation, and high taxes and fees added to everything.
In this post, I will share the table and criteria we used to compare 4 different hotel options in the Maldives to keep our costs at around $500USD per day.