26 natural atolls 1,192 coral islands, about 200 inhabited Visa on arrival Free 30 days, all nationalities Green tax $12/night resorts · $6/night small guesthouses Best diving visibility Dry season, roughly Dec–Apr One island, one resort The concept that shaped Maldives tourism Guesthouses on local islands Legal since 2009 — a genuine budget route 26 natural atolls 1,192 coral islands, about 200 inhabited Visa on arrival Free 30 days, all nationalities Green tax $12/night resorts · $6/night small guesthouses Best diving visibility Dry season, roughly Dec–Apr One island, one resort The concept that shaped Maldives tourism Guesthouses on local islands Legal since 2009 — a genuine budget route
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Methodology

How we research and verify facts

A travel guide is only as useful as the trust a reader can place in it, so it's worth being explicit about how Totally Maldives actually gets written, rather than just asserting accuracy.

Stable facts vs. moving targets

Geography, history and cultural background don't change month to month, and are researched and written with that in mind. Figures that genuinely do move — tax rates, visa terms, specific policies — are handled differently: each of those pages carries a "last verified" date, and we point toward the original official source (MIRA, Maldives Immigration) rather than asking you to simply trust our restating of it.

What we do when we're not confident

Several of our newer atoll and resort pages are deliberately short and flagged as "early-stage" rather than padded out with invented specifics — we'd rather publish a shorter, honest page than a longer one containing details we can't actually stand behind. Look for the callout boxes marking this explicitly.

No paid placement

Resort and guesthouse entries in our resorts directory are written the same way regardless of any commercial relationship — see our about us page for more on this.

Corrections

If something's wrong or has changed, that's exactly the kind of update we want to make quickly — see our contact page for how to flag it.