Are the Maldives worth it? 💸
Plus traveling for abortion and chilled red wines
Happy (almost) 4th of July weekend! Not that it feels like there’s much to celebrate about the U.S. this summer…
This was going to be a fun newsletter about the Maldives and how travel writers make money, but the Supreme Court went and made abortion a travel issue, so here we are.
One note: there’s a travel survey at the end of this newsletter. Please help me out and respond to the polls!
While I spent much of the past week alternating between rage and despair and have plenty to say, I’m going to try to keep this related to travel.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization made abortion a state-by-state issue, increasing the number of people who will need to travel away from home to receive abortion care. This was already happening in Mississippi and elsewhere, but will become more common. Abortions are now illegal or will soon be illegal in 16 states, with other states pursuing additional restrictions.
In Illinois, where many readers live and where abortion is protected, Planned Parenthood estimates that that up to 30,000 additional patients could travel to the state for abortions over the next year.
What you need to know about traveling for an abortion
It is legal to travel out of state for an abortion. There are currently no abortion bans that attempt to prosecute women who cross state lines to seek an abortion, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has said that women who travel to neighboring states would be protected by the constitutional right to interstate travel. Will it be protected forever? I don’t know. But for now do not let anyone scare you or tell you that it is illegal to obtain an abortion out of state.
Use this tool to calculate your distance from the nearest state where abortion is legal.
If you need funding or transportation assistance, the National Network of Abortion Funds, NAF Hotline and Abortion Access Fund can help.
From Self.com: “One thing to note on the safety front: You might see individuals and small local groups volunteering their time and homes for people coming into town for abortions. These people could very well be good Samaritans, but if you go this route, you run the risk of encountering someone who is anti-choice and/or affiliated with a crisis pregnancy center (CPC). It’s best to go through major, reputable pro-choice organizations that have already vetted their resources.”
If you work for one of a growing list of companies, your employer has promised to cover travel for out of state abortion care. There are many, many issues with this. (Will they cover legal fees if they arise? Give you more paid time off if there are complications? Do they provide travel funds up front or will you be reimbursed later? Does this cover ALL employees? Are you comfortable telling your employer that you’re getting an abortion?) It’s imperfect and not a long-term solution, but I guess better than nothing for now.
If you are lucky enough to have citizenship elsewhere (particularly Canada, much of Europe, Australia, etc..) now is the time to feel smug and maybe move.
If it’s early enough in your pregnancy, don’t travel at all and consider medical abortion. This combination of mifepristone and misoprostol pills can be used to end an early pregnancy, up to 10 weeks. This option is safe, FDA approved, and still accessible for now.
So, are the Maldives worth it?
And now, completely switching topics and I have no seque. I took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Maldives in May and was flooded with questions on Instagram, mostly asking if it was worth the money.
The Maldives are gorgeous. I’ve truly never seen water so blue. I swam with whale sharks, dined underwater, lounged on shimmering white sand beaches, slept in an overwater bungalow, and basically felt like I was living in a dream. It mostly felt like a dream because I could never afford the trip on my own.
I was invited with three other writers to the Maldives for a press trip, where the property (in this case the Conrad Rangali Island) covers the trip in hopes that you write about them in a travel magazine later. MUCH more on this and how travel writers afford to travel so much in the next newsletter.
So was it worth it? YES! I took a free trip to one of the most luxurious destinations in the world and it was very fun.
Would it have been worth it if I was paying for it? I don’t think so.
Almost everywhere you can stay in the Maldives is a luxury resort on its own private island–there are no budget options. Getting there took 31 hours–Chicago to Doha, Doha to Malé, a seaplane from Male to Rangali Island. Once there, you can’t really leave the resort, so you have to eat every meal there. The restaurants are laughably expensive. Same for the alcohol, and you can’t bring your own because the Maldives is an Islamic country that does not allow you to bring in any alcohol (it’s more strict that many other places). It’s very difficult to access any local culture, local restaurants, markets, etc. because the hotels are so far from Malé. It felt very isolating and I didn’t leave knowing anything more about the Maldives (aside from being told numerous times that it’s the flattest country in the world, which was supposed to be a selling point but just made me fearful for its future with climate change, and made me wonder why they continue to allow new more resorts).
It is beautiful, and the snorkeling is amazing and the seafood is delicious, but you can get all of that elsewhere for less money and shorter travel times.
Here’s when I think the Maldives is worth it:
If you live in the UAE or anywhere in the Gulf, Singapore, Thailand, India, Malaysia…anywhere within a four-hour flight, it makes sense. If you want a luxury long weekend and can save money/time on the flight, it’s worth it. If you’re flying longer than four hours it feels like you should stay longer, but then there’s not much to do and you’re spending so much money each day..
If you have a longer trip planned to India and you want to tack on two days of luxury beach time. I can see this being a fun option (though I would still probably go to one of the dozens of beautiful beaches in India).
If you’re a billionaire.
Maybe if you could spend more time in Malé? It didn’t look like there were many lodging options, but if I were to plan this trip myself I would spend a couple of days in the capital, where food is cheaper and looks delicious (even if the beaches look less idyllic than the resorts).
Where I would go instead:
If you’re flying from the U.S., the water in parts of the Caribbean is just as pretty and you’ll find all the same hotel/resort chains.
If it’s whale sharks you’re after, you can swim with them in parts of Mexico, Belize and Honduras.
If you want the luxury overwater bungalows, I’m not gonna lie they’re pretty awesome. But if I were going to really splurge and spend that much money on a vacation, I would go to Bora Bora. I did a very similar trip to Bora Bora a few years ago and though it’s still a long flight (about 10 hours from LA) and still outrageously expensive, it seemed more worth it. There’s more to do––you can visit towns where people actually live, go hiking, learn more about the history of the islands, do more cultural activities (even if they’re a bit cheesy, like making flower crowns), and drink and dine away from your hotel. I wrote about Bora Bora for AFAR and Curiosity Magazine if you want more of my thoughts.
The Seychelles seem very similar to the Maldives, but with more interesting terrain and a bit more to do, at least according to people who worked at the Maldives resort but had previously worked in the Seychelles. I haven’t been.
If you really want to dine underwater, the Conrad Rangali Island restaurant was the first but not last aquarium restaurant. It is a bit weird to watch fish while eating fish though…
Travel for the Food
Before visiting the Maldives I read about the Dhivehi cuisine, which looks incredible. The resort had excellent food as well, but none of these curries or deep fried snacks. Seriously debating another Maldives trip only to Malé, just to eat.
Cooking
In the Maldives I ate so much seafood. While it’s hard and maybe not the best for the planet to find certain ocean fish in the Midwest, we’ve been cooking lots of lake whitefish every which way–grilled, roasted, leftover on a green salad, in green curry. Also recently purchased Take One Fish, Josh Niland’s James Beard Award-winning fish cookbook. Excited to delve in.
Also lately: strawberry hand pies, lemonade, lots of use-up-the-CSA salads, pesto pasta salad, summery things.
Wines of the Week
Chilled reds are perfect for the 4th of July! You can chill lighter reds like Beaujolais, Valpolicella Classico, Frappato, etc. Wines without oak do best. They don’t need to be as cold as whites––around 50°F-60°F.
Some favorites: Planeta Frappato (Italy), Fossil & Fawn Do Nothing (Oregon), Stolpman Vineyards Love You Bunches (California), Siflogo Keropatis (Greece).
And if you want to be patriotic, a note on American wines from 2020:
Other Things
In some exciting news, Be a Better Traveler was accepted into Substack Grow! This is a program that (you guessed it) helps you grow your substack audience. As part of this, I would love to know more about you and would be very grateful if you could answer the questions below.
Please feel free to email me if there are things not listed here that you would love as a paid offering.
Weekend Reading
How to have aperitivo at home (from me for Food & Wine)
What the end of Roe could mean for the rest of the world
A fun interview with Phil Rosenthal
If you liked the newsletter today, please pass it to someone you know who’d enjoy it, and tap the heart icon above, which helps me reach more readers. I write this for free and for fun, but it does take time.
Next time: behind the scenes––how travel writing actually works 👀. Plus, how to plan the perfect Puglia vacation.
Happy 4th of July! Gee, I love all the freedoms I have as a woman in 2022… Go exercise your civil rights and protest, sign up to work a primary, or donate to your midterm candidate of choice!
–Rebecca 💛
First of all, the U.S. and the abortion ruling and, oh man, I still can't wrap my head around all of that. Makes me doubly glad we left the US five years ago, but still so worried for all of our friends and family back there.
Second, thanks for the honest review of the Maldives. Been hearing about it much of my life but I'm pretty sure after your assessment, I just crossed it off of our list. As you say, it looks beautiful, but there you enumerate too many downsides for me.
Thank you for rearranging your content to include abortion information--it's so important for people to know that abortion services and travel funds are available--but it does require even more time to find that info and the right resources. My rage dissipates a tiny increment each time I encounter good people in the world who use their platform for the common good. Thanks again.