Local Island Hopping in the Maldives
Welcome to the Maldives!
Velana International Airport (MLE) is where you will most likely be arriving in the Maldives. It is also the main hub for transport to all the islands, so it's a place you'll likely be spending quite a bit of time.
It's pretty warm as all seating is outdoors, but there is quite a lot of seating (quite a few under fans), and there is free wifi. For aircon, head into the pizza restaurant or coffee shop.
There are 2 ATM's to the left when you come out of arrivals. Use the Green one if possible, as the Red one will charge you 100 Rufiyaa (£5/$6.50) to withdraw cash. Be sure to have multiple cards with you as not all of them may work. Paying by card is less common on some of the local islands (other than in hotels), but both USD and Maldivian Rufiyaa are generally accepted, and prices will usually be listed in USD.
Near that corner (where the toilets are) is also the luggage storage ($7 a day - pay in Rufiyaa to save a little bit). If you have lots of time to kill before a ferry or flight and want to explore Male, you can dump your bags here for a few hours. Or if you don't need all your luggage, you can store it here for a few days too.
SIM cards are easily available. There is a little machine to get them from and set up yourself, but there are also people who will offer to sell them too at one of the stalls. I went with them as it was easier to have them set it up for you, and it was the same price. 20GB of data starts at $40, and for $50 you get 100GB (both for 30 days). Signal was good pretty much everywhere.
Alternatively you could get an eSIM like Airalo:
