About

Who we are

The site is the work of a small group of editors — the same team behind the diving and marine coverage, the local-island reporting, and the logistics desk that tracks the country's seaplane and speedboat operators. We publish collectively under the masthead "the Top 10 Maldives editors" rather than under individual bylines: every list on the site is reviewed by at least two editors before publication, and the team as a whole carries responsibility for what goes out.

Between us we have been diving, reporting on, and booking stays in the Maldives for more than a decade. We speak Dhivehi, we hold MAS-affiliated PADI cards, and we have, at minimum, stepped off the jetty at every resort in the top half of each resort list at least once in the last three years. Where we have not been to a property in person — or where our last visit is older than two years — we say so in the entry's review basis.

What we cover

Two categories: private-island resorts and inhabited-island guesthouses and boutique hotels. Inside resorts, we keep thematic lists for honeymoons, families, adults-only stays, all-inclusive plans, new openings, upcoming openings and value picks. Inside guesthouses, we keep a list for each of the six local islands worth travelling to: Maafushi, Dhiffushi, Thulusdhoo, Fulidhoo, Dhigurah and Thoddoo.

We don't cover liveaboards, dive-only packages, the fleet of mid-range properties we don't think a ranking would survive, or Malé's city hotels.

How we rank

Each list states its criteria. In general: what the resort or guesthouse actually does well, what it fails at, what makes it defensible against its neighbours, and — this matters in the Maldives — what it costs to get there and stay there in 2026. We verify rates against the property's own booking channel between January and April of the year on the cover, and re-verify on a rolling basis.

We do not base rankings on TripAdvisor averages, Booking.com scores, r/Maldives threads, or any other crowdsourced review aggregator. Those can be useful reading, but they are not a ranking. We read them, then we discount them.

Full review process: Editorial standards.

Independence and payment

We accept no paid placement. Rankings are not influenced by advertising because we carry no advertising on ranked pages. We hold no affiliate relationships with resort booking channels and take no commission on stays booked after reading our lists. We pay for any on-island site visit we undertake — including flights, transfers, rooms, and meals — out of the publication's editorial budget, and we do not accept press-rate or comped stays used in ranked coverage.

If a resort sends us a press kit or imagery, we credit the resort in the caption and note permission-pending or licensed on the underlying image record. Press material does not buy placement.

Corrections

We publish corrections transparently. If you spot a factual mistake — wrong villa count, wrong opening date, wrong transfer time — write to us at [email protected] and we will fix it and note the change in the list's changelog at the bottom of the page.

Contact

Editorial and press: [email protected]. Corrections: [email protected]. We are a Maldives- focused publication; for any other destination, we are not the right people to ask.