Best of the Maldives: Coffee Cafe – LUX North Male Atoll

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LUX North Male Atoll - cafe 2

International Coffee Day. And really who else could we feature but those boss baristas at LUX (this is the 6th “Best of the Maldives” recognition for LUX just in the area of “coffee”?

This time a shout out to their Coffee Cafe. Take-away coffee from 6:00 am through 10:30 am. This is just perfect for me. I often get up early for the quiet morning time to catch up on some email and web surfing. I like to leave the villa because my shuffling around can disturb Lori who likes to savour her opportunity for a lie-in. But I do want a coffee as soon as I get up. I’d rather not go into a restaurant, but just find some quiet corner of the island to stretch out on. LUX North Male Atoll was about the first island I could easily do this with their take-away service. Also, the more insulate, tall thermal cup keep the coffee hotter than a conventional ceramic cup (and the serving is larger too).

And extra bonus, the café offers 4 types of sweetener (see photo below). If this seems like a trivial detail, then you are not a sweet tooth aficionado like me.

LUX North Male Atoll - cafe 1

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Best of the Maldives: Luxury Remote Working – Nautilus

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Nautilus - remote working

Why add a fake backdrop to your work Zoom calls when you could have the real thing? We’ve all experienced just how far one can go with remote working during the pandemic lockdowns, but Nautilus is inviting folks to go all the way out to the middle of the Indian Ocean with their special offering “Workstation Package”:

  • “Work remotely from paradise your private Nautilus Beach Houses with our exclusive workation package; have the ultimate zoom call background from our castaway sandbank that will be your office for a day, have a private PA on hand 24/7 and continue your corporate errands whilst your children engage in a bespoke educational programme by Young Wonderers. Available from seven nights or longer if you decide you simply can’t leave your new paradise office!”

With prices starting at 23,250 USD for 7 nights in a Beach House you can also enjoy their Workation sandbank experience – “work for a few hours upon our secluded sandbank with your own personal desk, a shaded sun canopy and portable high speed wi-fi.”

The concept mashes up two of my passions and my most prominent websites – Maldives Complete and Dynamic Work. My founding vision statement for Dynamic Work (at the top of the home page) was “Within 10 years, the majority of ‘office work’ will be worked outside the office.” Which was a actually just about ten years ago. And research has shown that the lockdown has indeed pushed the incidence of remote and flexible working to 50% of the workforce (varying of course by geography, sector, etc).

Before and since, I have walked the walk of flexible working for many years now. And that meant working while in the Maldives (not just the work of Maldives Complete research, but also my day job that pays the MC bills). I was always happy to work for an hour during a day in the Maldives if that hour forestalled crises back at the office and allowed me to linger in paradise another entire day.

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1000+ Room Types

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100o Maldives room type

Another milestone for Maldives Complete as the Room Type database crossed the 1000 mark. When I started the website, there were typically just a few room types – standard, deluxe and maybe a water villa. A decade ago, I did a piece on Kurumba having the most room type variety (exactly a decade ago) with 8. These days, 8 is the lower end of the average number of room types for a resort. In fact, the fact that over 1000 types across the nearly 160 active resorts means that the average is nearly 7 categories for every resort. Soneva Fushi has 27 room types! Nearly every villa is unique and hence categorized as its own room type. With more and more resorts coming online, it was just a matter of time before this grand milestone was hit.

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Best of the Maldives: Kids Beach Football – One & Only Reethi Rah

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One and Only Reethi Rah - kids football

For the aspiring young footballers, One & Only Reethi Rah offers a special beach football pitch at its kids club. If there is one thing that rivals hours of snorkelling to tire out active youngsters (for that relaxing evening), it’s then running around (on the sand!) kicking their favourite ball.

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Kicking Back in Paradise

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A bit delayed and with a “new normal” skewed experience, both Maldives Tourism and Premiere League football have recommenced with this weekend being the starting whistle for most leagues like the Premier League. So to celebrate the return of football (albeit with a few safety tweaks), here is the Maldives Complete starting XI…

  1. Óliver Torres (Spain) – NIYAMA – FC Porto [ABOVE]
  2. Alberto Serrán Polo (Spain) – Bengaluru


        

  3. Guillaume Philippe Renault (Italy) – Atalanta BC


          

  4. Dwight Eversley Yorke (United Kingdom) – Kooddoo – Aston Villa


        

  5. Mauroi Cardi (Agentina) – Baglioni – Paris Saint Germain


        

  6. Brian Mengel (Denmark) – Kandima – Kolding


  7. Joel Pereira (Switzerland) – LUX North Male Atoll – Manchester United


        

  8. Marcos Llorente (Spain) – Joali – Real Madrid


        

  9. Tobias Karlsson (Sweden) – Paradise Island – Falkenbergs


        

  10. Daniel Agger (Denmark) – Liverpool


        

  11. Rio Ferdinand (United Kingdom) – Kudadoo – Manchester United


And the prize for the best football fanatic bed decoration goes to Anantara Dhigu…

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Best of the Maldives: Boat Residence– Jumeirah Vittaveli

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Jumeirah Vittaveli - boat bar

Your “remote” office doesn’t have to be on the water to be on a boat. If you want that maritime vibe with out the roll of the waves throwing off your Zoom camera, then Jurmeirah Vittaveli’s Five Bedroom Royal Residence with Pool will provide the seafaring atmosphere just close enough to the water to not distract:

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Best of the Maldives: Ocean View Office –Hideaway Beach

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Hideaway Beach - water villa deck office

A bit belated Labor Day post as I myself was on holiday yesterday (not the Maldives sadly). With remote working becoming the new default, high powered professionals (the work-hard-play-hard set who have always been a big market segment in the Maldives) can now extend their stay by keeping just enough tabs on the work back home. I’ve actually taken that approach for years. People wonder why I would want to interrupt paradise with thinking about work. I just see it as an investment…by doing 5% work during my stay, I can often extend my stay at least 50% (at 10x return of parardise time).

If I was heading out to the Maldives during a particularly busy time, I would consider Hideaway Beach where their water villa features a desk right by the water. Now that’s a corner office! Note: do be careful though (especially if you are mixing work with pina coladas) not drop your computer in the water. You might laugh, but I actually did this in the Maldives at our water villa a few years back. I picked up my backpack that I carried it in and hadn’t zipped it properly and it popped out, bounced on the deck and plunged into the water (fortunately, I was insured, backed up and had brought a spare with me).

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Best of the Maldives: Star Gazing Lounger – Anantara Kihavah

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Anantara Kihavah - roof deck

Spy the friendly skies.

We have been spending many an evening recently lying flat on our backs star-gazing especially watching the always dramatic mid-August Perseids meteor shower (the biggest meteor shower of the year). It is such a special occasion that we blow up our air mattress and put it out on the lawn with pillows and a duvet so we will be comfy in the cool English night. We recently returned from a camping stay-cation with friends on the south coast of the UK (the closest we could come to a seaside surrogate to our annual Maldives visit) and introduced them to the super supine approach to contemplating the celestial firmament.

In the spirit of “everything is better in the Maldives”, Anantara Kihavah has installed the ultimate star gazing loungers atop their suitably named “Sky” lounge (also suitable for sunsets and ocean vistas). If only I could find someone to serve me tropical cocktails in my backyard.

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Plane Sailing

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A number of people are wary of staying near Male for fear of hearing airplanes taking off, but actually the planes you hear the most are the iconic seaplanes. I have actually found the whir of the seaplane engines part of the exotic allure of the destination. Shades of Fantasy Island’s exclamation “Da plane, da plane!” These turboprops have long been a favourite photo prop for the Maldives fashionista crowd.

With the collapse of the aviation industry with the global pandemic, despite living near one of the world’s busiest airports (Heathrow), the skies have been relatively empty for months. Now the contrails are starting to return to up above taking people back to far flung destinations and it’s almost a special occasion when we see one. Today is National Aviation Day (USA) so a chance to celebrate these distinctive steel birds taking guests to the far away dream destinations.

  1. Nicole Elgin (USA) – Drift Thelu Veliga


       

  2. Nancy (Thailand) – Sun Island


        

  3. Mai Ka (Poland) – Heritance Aarah


         

  4. Urvashi Rautela (India) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


          

  5. Olga (Russia) – Dhigali


         

  6. Urvi Shetty (India) – Kandima


         

  7. Beth Walkemeyer (Australia) – W Maldives

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  8. Lisa Homsy (Canada) – Kandolhu


       

  9. Sakshi Malik (India) – LUX South Ari Atoll


        

  10. Svetlana Lewis (Russia) – Furaveri


          

  11. Dashama (USA) – Angsana Velavaru


           

  12. Anna Bella (Russia) – Fushifaru


          

  13. Sky Kiki Jung (Thailand) – Centara Ras Fushi


         

  14. Carolina Dargel (Belarus) – NIYAMA


          

  15. Maria (Russia) – Furaveri


        

  16. Karina Zhosan (Ukraine) – Conrad Rangali

          

  17. Alena Omovych (Russia) – Furaveri


          

  18. Sanja Papić Ognjanović (Panama) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


         

  19. Hofit Golan and Josephine Forsberg (Israel) – Hideaway Beach

     

  20. Julia Raz (United Kingdom


       

  21. Mary Nova (Russia) – NIYAMA


            

  22. Parlikah (Thailand) – Six Senses Laamu

         

  23. Alexandra Sotnik (Russia) – Meedhupparu


          

  24. Rosanna Cordoba (Columbia) – Conrad Rangali


         

  25. Siobhan (Ireland) – Sirru Fen Fushi


        

  26. Aditi Rao Hydari (India) – Soneva Fushi


        

  27. Adriana Hughes (OAE) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


      

  28. Helen Owen (USA) – Six Senses Laamu


         

  29. Belle Lucia (Australia) – Cocoon


        

  30. Arinka Nazarova and Ekaterina (Russia) – Paradise Island


         

  31. Olga Titova (Russia) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


         

  32. Fer Espiritu (Mexico) – Vommuli


        

  33. Claudia Padgett (United Kingdom) – Soneva Fushi


        

  34. Zaki (Russia) – Furaveri


        

  35. Viktoriya Kabochkina (Russia) – Drift Thelu Veliga


       

  36. Anyuta Rai (Russia) – Hurawalhi


        

  37. Alena Yurzina (Russia) – NIYAMA


       

  38. Miss Huinii (South Korea) – Vommuli


             

  39. Wendy Gates (USA) – Velaa


       

  40. Natasha Ivanovs (Russia) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


       

  41. Maria Martelo Perez and Irina Dreyt (Columbia) – One & Only Reethi Rah


        

  42. Talia Richman (Australia) – Finolhu


       

  43. Ming Arinmas (Thailand) W Maldives


        

  44. Nudee Thoedsukbodee (Thailand) – Cheval Blanc Randheli


        

  45. Anna Barykina (Russia) – Sun Siyam Irufushi


        

  46. Camila Storchi (Brazil) – Sun Island


        

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