Skip to content
Blog

September 26, 2026 · FarSerene Editorial Desk

Top 10 Places to Visit in the Maldives in 2026

Aerial view of Malé's densely packed buildings and boat-filled harbour, with a long bridge crossing the sea to the airport island and its runwayFarSerene
Aerial view of Malé's densely packed buildings and boat-filled harbour, with a long bridge crossing the sea to the airport island and its runway
Share this guide

The top places to visit in the Maldives are the Malé Friday Mosque, the capital Malé itself, the National Museum, Hulhumalé, Maafushi, Baa Atoll and Hanifaru Bay, Ari Atoll, Fuvahmulah, Addu Atoll, and Utheemu. Tourism hit a record in 2025: The Island Chief reports that the Ministry of Tourism counted 2.25 million arrivals, up 9.8% on 2024.

  1. Malé Friday Mosque (Hukuru Miskiy) — Work on the Old Friday Mosque started in 1656, in the reign of Ibrahim Iskandar I, and finished in 1658. Its builders worked in coral stone, using boulders of Porites coral, and UNESCO put the mosque on its tentative World Heritage list in 2008 for its coral-built “sea-culture” architecture.
  2. Malé — The capital occupies the southern tip of North Malé Atoll and recorded 211,908 residents across its administrative area in 2022. Besides the Friday Mosque, two other landmarks stand out: Muliaage, the president’s official residence, completed in 1919 after work began in 1914, and the Islamic Centre, whose gold-domed mosque opened in November 1984 with room for roughly 5,000 worshippers.
  3. National Museum, Malé — The museum dates to 11 November 1952, when Prime Minister Mohamed Amin Didi opened it. Its current home, a Sultan Park building that China’s government paid for and built, opened on Independence Day, 26 July 2010. The museum lost its Buddhist statues in February 2012 to a deliberate act of destruction by Islamists.
  4. Hulhumalé — Land reclamation for this new island at the southern end of North Malé Atoll started on 16 October 1997, and the town was inaugurated on 12 May 2004. A causeway joins it to Hulhulé, the airport island, so you can drive there straight from Velana International Airport.
  5. Maafushi — An inhabited island of Kaafu Atoll, 26.08 km south of Malé. Tourists visiting local islands have taken to Maafushi largely because Malé and its transport hubs are so close; ferries connect the two.
  6. Baa Atoll and Hanifaru Bay — UNESCO made Baa Atoll a Biosphere Reserve in 2011; by its count the reserve takes in 75 islands, 13 of them inhabited, with reefs home to about 250 kinds of coral and 1,200 species of reef and reef-associated fish. Hanifaru Bay, inside the atoll, is known for its manta rays: at times as many as a hundred crowd into this small inlet when the tide brings in plankton.
  7. Ari Atoll — Seaplanes reach Ari Atoll from Malé in around 30 minutes. In the south of the atoll, a 42 km² Marine Protected Area set up in 2009 covers waters that are among the few anywhere with whale sharks present all year; Dhigurah, an inhabited island in Alif Dhaal Atoll, has them year-round too.
  8. Fuvahmulah — Unlike every other administrative atoll in the country, Fuvahmulah is a single island. It lies 494.2 km south of Malé and became a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2020. Researchers writing in Scientific Reports in 2024 catalogued 239 individual tiger sharks there across a seven-year study and called it the largest tiger shark aggregation known in such a confined area. Fish scraps dumped at the harbour attract them, and they are often found there. The island got a domestic airport in 2011.
  9. Addu Atoll — The Maldives’ southernmost atoll lies 540 km south of Malé and joined UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserve network in 2020. Gan became the British base RAF Gan in 1957, and the base closed in 1976; the island now hosts Gan International Airport. Divers visit the wreck of the tanker British Loyalty, scuttled in the lagoon on 5 January 1946. Birdlife in the Eydhigali Kilhi wetland, protected since 2004 and among the largest in the country, includes the Maldivian pond heron alongside other herons and egrets.
  10. Utheemu — This island in Haa Alif Atoll, 297.32 km north of Malé, is where Sultan Mohamed Thakurufaanu was born. He and his brothers waged the war that expelled the Portuguese, who held the Maldives from 1558 to 1573. His boyhood home was Utheemu Ganduvaru, a palace built of wood.

Planning note

Velana International Airport sits on Hulhulé Island, next to Malé, and opened a new terminal in July 2025. Malé (via the Sinamalé Bridge) and Hulhumalé (by causeway) are both reachable by road from the airport, and Maafushi is a ferry ride from Malé, so the first five stops on this list are all within reach of the capital. Ari Atoll is roughly a 30-minute seaplane flight from Malé. Fuvahmulah has scheduled flights to and from Malé, and Addu has its own international airport at Gan, so both are far-south trips of their own rather than add-ons. Check transfers for Baa Atoll and Utheemu with your accommodation before booking, since the right option depends on where you are staying. For your days in the capital, check the Malé forecast.

Sources

Explore more of FarSerene’s destination guides, including the Top 10 Countries to Visit in 2026 roundup, for more 2026 trip inspiration.

You may also like

Privacy preferences

Choose which categories you'd like to enable. Necessary cookies cannot be disabled.

Required for site security and session management. Always enabled.

Help us understand how you use FarSerene to improve your experience. Currently disabled.

Personalized ads and content. Not currently active. Will be available in a future update.