Enjoy a traditional lunch with a local family Learn to cook a Maldivian meal and keep the recipe so you can impress friends back home with your culinary skills Go shopping in a local market selling produce, fish, and other daily staples Learn about the Maldivian way of life from those who live in the community Hop aboard local transit, riding a public ferry and bus that’ll take you through the neighbourhood.
Connect with local life in the best way possible: through food! Get a true local experience with a home cooked meal in a family home, where you’ll be put to work in the kitchen before digging into a fresh lunch. Visit a neighbourhood market, see where locals live, and learn how to make typical Maldivian dishes. We’ll start our Maldives tour with some shopping, gathering the ingredients we’ll need for our delicious lunch.
You’ll be taken to the local market and a fish market, where you’ll be able to browse and taste fruits and vegetables typical of this 1,200-island nation. From there, we’ll walk along the harbor jetties to the Hulhumale Ferry Terminal, where we’ll board a ferry to Hulhumale, an artificial island settled in 2004 to meet the booming housing, industrial, and commercial development demands of the Male region.
We’ll gather on board with locals making their daily trips — you can start up a conversation with some, or just take in the awesome view (you might even be lucky enough to spot some dolphins!). The ferry ride will take about 20 minutes, after which point we’ll disembark at Hulhumale Island, the sixth district of Malé. From here, we’ll take a local bus to the family home where we’ll be hosted for lunch. Along the route, you’ll see a bit of local life in a residential neighbourhood away from the resorts, passing by the Hulhumale hospital, local shops, small cafés, a youth centre, and a mosque.
Once we arrive at our hosts’ home, you’ll be asked to leave your shoes at the door, and your guide will teach you the traditional greeting to be made before entering a local home. You’ll meet some of the family members, and even though there may be people there who are unable to communicate with you in English, you’ll see how local hospitality transcends language barriers Together, we’ll pull out the ingredients we picked up the market, and you’ll be invited to participate in lunch preparation, helping to chop and grate coconut. Want to impress friends back home with your new Maldivian culinary skills?
We’ll help you to make notes so you can cook up an island feast on your own. Once all the cooking is done, we’ll set the table and enjoy a freshly prepared meal with our hosts. Sitting around the table together, we’ll share our thoughts about Maldivian cuisine, discuss local life in the Maldives, and you’ll even learn some common words that you can use during the remainder of the holiday. After our meal, your guide will walk with you to the ferry terminal and accompany you back to Malé.
Go under the sea and swim with tropical fish on an afternoon snorkeling adventure Learn to identify the marine life of the Maldives Sun yourself on a sandbank as you take a break from the water Enjoy a traditional Maldivian afternoon tea with savoury treats and sweet desserts.
Slip on your snorkel mask and fins and jump into the aquamarine warm waters of the Indian Ocean. You’ll discover colourful corals, turtles, reef sharks, and stingrays… oh my! Then sit back and relax on a sandbank and enjoy a traditional Maldivian afternoon tea. Your Maldives snorkel tour will begin with a safety briefing at the jetty, before we board the speedboat that will take us out onto the water. (Life jackets will be available onboard). We’ll leave Hulhumale lagoon behind and head to our first stop, a coral reef where, just two metres below the surface there, you’ll find young and delicate hard coral, as well as a multitude of reef fish.
Your guide will give you tips on how to snorkel without causing damage to the coral, as well as talk you through the key points for using snorkel equipment, remaining calm in the water, and protecting marine life. You’ll also get a mini marine life lesson, so that you can put names to many of the colourful fish you’ll see. From there, we’ll travel to Kandu Oiy Giri island, where, just beyond the harbour wall, we might spy the many stingrays and moray eels that come to feast on the fish scraps thrown back into the water by the local tuna fish processing plant. Afterward, we’ll head to a sandbank where you can swim and snorkel some more, or just relax on the beach. We’ll enjoy a traditional Maldivian tea accompanied with fresh coconut, and get the chance to chat with our boat crew.
We’ll snack on bite-size sweet and savoury delights — the savoury ones filled with vegetables, tuna, egg, and chili, the sweet ones with coconut, banana, or sponge cake. As the afternoon comes to a close, your Maldives tour will take you back to Hulhumale, where you will be able to catch a ferry to return to Malé or a taxi to your Hulhumale guesthouse.