Maldives

Editorial

The original barefoot luxury. The dry season is the only season.

The Maldives is not one island. It is 1,200 of them, scattered across the equator in 26 atolls, most of which are uninhabited. The luxury resort experience here — overwater villas, private islands, reefs that remain genuinely alive — is unlike anything else in the world, and it has been unchanged in its essential character for thirty years.

Soneva Fushi invented the category in 1995. No shoes, no news, a private island in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Every barefoot luxury resort that followed is, in some way, a response to what Soneva understood before anyone else: that the most luxurious thing you can offer someone is the removal of distraction.

The dry season runs from November to April. That is when you go. The sea is calm, the visibility underwater is extraordinary, and the light on the lagoon in the early morning is something that people come back for, again and again, because they cannot quite believe it was real.