Our DISASTROUS Trip To The Maldives

Today we bring you our final travel experience from last year (2023): our epic fail of a trip to a local island in The Maldives😅🏝️

We chose the island Dhigurah in the South Ari atoll for its ideal location for whale shark and manta ray snorkeling. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for us...🙃

We’re Oskar🧔🏻 and Dan👱🏻‍♂️, and we believe that anyone regardless of who they are deserves to live their dreams! For the past nine years, we’ve continued pushing boundaries by traveling and living all across the world, including places like Uganda, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia. In 2022, we reached a huge milestone by visiting 100 countries and we’re now on a mission to keep sharing our journey and hopefully make the world a little more open, compassionate, and peaceful along the way❤️

Thank you for being a part of the journey!

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The Maldives was country 41🌍 (first visited in 2019)

Thank you for watching!🙏😍

0:00 Intro
0:38 Why Dhigurah Island?
1:14 Arriving in Malé
1:50 Checking in for domestic flight
2:18 Food court at the airport
2:32 The process to get to our hotel
3:27 Domestic terminal
4:20 First flight to Dharavandhoo
4:50 In-flight and how we fly first class
6:04 On the ground at DRV
6:24 Arriving at Maamigili Airport
6:54 Shuttle to harbor
7:31 Speed boat ride
8:15 Arriving on Dhigurah
8:34 Room tour
9:41 First (expensive) meal
10:11 Blow in our faces?
10:40 The reason we came to Dhigurah (whale sharks)
11:00 Waking up to rain
11:32 Heading out
11:55 How to prepare for a boat excursion
12:15 Unsuccessful whale shark tour
12:43 Recovering
13:26 Next day - more cancelations
13:55 Trying to stay positive
14:33 Is this a sign?
15:15 More context to how we booked (meal at another hotel)
17:20 The beach
20:02 The lagoon of misery
21:12 The sandbank
22:34 Exploring the town on the island
24:00 Reflections and conclusions
25:00 Our time at the resort after
25:29 Should you stay on a local island in The Maldives?
26:26 What's next?

[OskarandDan]

Thank you guys for watching our last travel adventure of 2023!!😍❤ We're ready to change direction in 2024 and get even closer with you guys through our videos🙏🏼

[bennett]

An American living in southern Sri Lanka here. I can confirm that the monsoon season normally ends in the second half of November, thus leading to "The Season" in time for the holidays. This year has been very strange though; the monsoons lasted about a month and half longer than usual. Here in Galle we had sunshine today, our first all-day "Season"-like day in the past couple of months. So I'm not surprised you guys had the weather that you did.

[kathryncurtis]

Honestly after 20 years of marriage and living and traveling around the world together some of my favorite memories are the trips or excursions that have gone sideways. Sometimes you just have to look at eachother and laugh. 💜

[helenrushful]

You have to wonder looking at the Maldives, the shear level of development, some Islands just completely covered in high how sustainable is it ? What would happen if tourism dried up ? Crazy over development.

[mbirra]

Having been to the Maldives several times, always staying in 5-star resorts, my stay on a local island, Dhigurah has yours, was a completely different experience. Mine experience was so distinct from yours that, most likely, when I return to the Maldives, I won't opt for a resort again but rather for a local island!

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

The reason why Maamigili has a regular airport is because of Maldivian business tycoon Qasim Ibrahim who founded the Villa Group, which owns the airline you flew on among other things. He grew up on Maamigili, and so he wanted to develop the infrastructure and facilities of the island and make it an airport big enough so planes from abroad visiting his resorts will be able to land directly on this airport instead of having to stop off at Malé. And yes, tourism has been eating away at these islands). Poor water quality, contaminated lagoons, vital coastal vegetation cleared which leads to erosion, the government would rather lease its islands than take good care of its people. An ex-president went to jail because of island lease bribery.

[cablestick]

Sorry, I'm still blown away over how this is shot on an iPhone! Production quality is also fantastic. Thanks, really enjoyed!

[anthonyr]

11:18 'fishes' is actually correct in this case when used to count multiple different varieties of fish.

[kateemma]

Fun fact: Fish is when there is numerous of one species (or numerous of many species but you don't know that because not everyone is a marine biologist) whereas fishes refers to multiple species. So you can find a school of multiple fish and also many schools of multiple fishes.

[nikolinakaroulla]

Stop having expectations just go with the flow…expectations usually destroy everything, from a trip to relationships

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Shame you didn't get to swim with whale sharks! But yes, whale sharks are absolutely incredible creatures! The whale shark is enormous and reportedly capable of reaching a maximum length of about 18 meters. Each whale shark has a unique pattern of spots and stripes, sort of like our fingerprints. These patterns help scientists keep track of their movements as they migrate through tropical waters, including along the coasts of South Africa, western Australia, Thailand, and Mexico. Whale sharks have tiny teeth that cover their eyeballs, probably to protect the peepers from the harsh ocean habitat. One fish had over 3, 000 teeth around its iris! A whale shark’s mouth has over 3, 000 super-small teeth arranged in more than 300 rows.

The whale shark is a filter feeder. It feeds on plankton including copepods, krill, fish eggs, Christmas Island red crab larvae and small nektonic life, such as small squid or fish. It also feeds on clouds of eggs during mass spawning of fish and corals. The many rows of vestigial teeth play no role in feeding. Feeding occurs either by ram filtration, in which the animal opens its mouth and swims forward, pushing water and food into the mouth, or by active suction feeding, in which the animal opens and closes its mouth, sucking in volumes of water that are then expelled through the gills. In both cases, the filter pads serve to separate food from water.

[SensetheLens]

Suuper nice video guys 🤩 & Your funny moments are the best!! 😂😂😂

[beccavry]

OMG, I can't believe the amount of trash along the shore and that abandoned party site at the tip of that island. This was incredibly eye-opening, thank you!

[mikesloperuk]

I moved to Mauritius six years ago and you guys would love it here. Stunning beaches, rain forests, mountains, but best of all it’s not totally taken over by tourism. It’s easy to find the “real” Mauritius and there’s plenty to do when it rains!

[lollypops]

December is actually the “monsoon changeover” month where it is starting the process of turning to dry season. The monsoon changeover months tend to have a lot of unsettled unpredictable weather. February and March are by far the best months weather wise with least amount of rainfall. Travel agents will tell you November to April but nowadays it’s really Feb/March for Maldives

[TheWanderingWife]

Guys, ask your doctor for seasickness patches. You put a tiny patch behind your ear and it lasts for three days. I used them on a cruise that got VERY rough, and I never got sick.

[craig]

the view of buildings at 1:11 Great video though - as always, Thanks . stay positive - we all have those bad trips from time to time too. I'm Australian and once went the barrier reef in Queeensland, and it rained the whole time. Even though wet season should have ended.

[patriciafuchs]

Hysterical! I’m so sorry it was such a let down. It did look lovely!

[robthetraveler]

13:55 Yeah, it absolutely sucks when the weather ruins something you travelled for and you know you won't get another chance. In Te Anau, NZ this past May I was supposed to tour a glowworm cave and I was REALLY looking forward to it... and, nope. Torrential rains the day before flooded the cave and the tour got cancelled.

[OffTom]

I was planning a trip to the Maldives but I gave up. It's too much of a hassle and I live in Brazil, we have amazing beaches here...