About

Who writes this

Top 10 Maldives is written by Abraham Pharez, a writer based in Malé. He covers the country's private-island resorts and local-island guesthouses for the publication, and visits properties when he can. Where a list draws on a remote review rather than a recent in-person visit, the entry says so in its review basis.

Lists are fact-checked before publication and rates are re-verified on a rolling basis; the date of the last check is printed under each list's byline. The "Sources we check" line on every list names the awards, ratings and registries the rankings are built against.

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 corrections@top10maldives.com and we will fix it and note the change in the list's changelog at the bottom of the page.

Contact

Editorial and press: editorial@top10maldives.com. Corrections: corrections@top10maldives.com. We are a Maldives- focused publication; for any other destination, we are not the right people to ask.