3 days ago
The Maldives island made for teens
Taking teenagers on holiday can be challenging. No longer are they delighted by rainy Cornish beaches and soggy chips, glamping and bathing in a plastic bucket — which for a decade constituted our summer trips. By the time they reach their teens, their tastes have refined. Somehow they have found out about infinity pools and infinite breakfast buffets (I blame the internet).
So when I told my 13-year-old, Minna, that we would be eschewing the not-very-tropical coves of the South West for Finolhu, a ritzy resort in the Maldives to test out its brand-new 'Teen hut', she was delighted. I thought we could prepare by watching episodes of Blue Planet, but she preferred TikTok videos of travel influencers and bought four new bikinis — one for each day of our stay.
Our first taste of Finolhu's delights was at Male airport where in its private lounge Minna availed herself of the buffet (chicken dumplings and a fistful of Smarties) before we boarded the sea plane. Teenagers pretend to be very cool, so it is lovely to bypass the swagger and watch them experience real wonder — which in this case began as we skidded up into the sky, the Indian Ocean and its atolls unfurling beneath us.
Finolhu is part of the Baa Atoll, a 30-minute plane trip from Male. Since 2012 it has been a Unesco world biosphere reserve, the first of three in the Maldives to be designated, meaning that it is a site of testing and learning about social and environmental interactions. It also means that the local ecology is particularly well looked after — it has 105 coral reefs.
Our first encounter with this local ecology were the yellow coconuts we were handed to drink on arrival. We were then loaded into a buggy and driven along sandy paths shaded with lush planting, glimpses of beach and sea between the trees. Something to do with the light here means that the colours of the place are almost supernaturally bright — the Maldives is very close to the equator, meaning the sun is more powerful and the sea is so vivid it is almost the colour of blue curaçao.
Finolhu opened in 2016, with a substantial renovation in 2020 by the London-based firm Muza Lab, who took their inspiration from the colours of the island: blues, greens and pale oatmeal. There are 129 villas, some with direct access to the beach, others, like ours, on stilts over the ocean, most with a private pool.
The interiors are all largely similar, featuring lampshades made of clay tiles that look like fish scales, wickerwork furniture, woven wall-hangings and artisanal features everywhere: hand-blown coloured glass from Turkey, basket-work from South Africa and wooden art installations from Java. Not that Minna was interested in any of this chic homeware — the first thing she did was jump straight in the pool, emerge to eat the fancy chocolate snacks that had been left for us, jump back into the pool, come back for more chocolate, and so on.
The Maldivian atolls are essentially by-products of old volcanoes that rose up out of the ocean and became surrounded by coral reefs, which remained even once the volcanos had receded back down. This is a bit like when you take a picture off the wall and are left with its outline and a blank space in the middle — but much prettier. Finolhu is a sort of thin crescent moon shape, with about 1.2km of white sand beach. It's not wide, but it is long, which made the buggy service to go to the restaurant or a beach useful. As well as a Milk Bar, serving coffee, smoothies and frozen custards, there are four restaurants. The Arabian Grill is for mezze and shish; the Beach Kitchen, for breakfast and buffet-style meals; the Crab Shack at the far end of the island for sand-under-foot seafood dining (they make the amazing guacamole at the table); and Kanusan for fancy Japanese, including the best black miso cod I have ever tasted, and an incredible wagyu rib-eye steak that I'm still thinking about.
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Kansan was also the location of our sushi-making class, where we created tuna rolls with fish that had been freshly caught. Tuna is plentiful in these waters. On Maldivian night at the Beach Kitchen, when chefs are shipped in from Male to make top-notch local food, it was impressive how many different ways tuna could be served (tuna broth, tuna sambol, tuna samosa, tuna and coconut ball — smoked tuna is considered a condiment here).
In addition to the sushi making, there are numerous daily activities for teens: ceramic workshops, kayaking, DJ classes, movie nights, bonfire camp. The newly unveiled Teen Hut is an organic-looking structure (inspired by barnacles, apparently) made of bamboo. It has the classic activities familiar to anyone who has ever dared enter a youth club: table football, pool table. But there are also high-end games consoles, a bar serving milkshakes, mocktails and ice-cream, a 3D printer, a DJ deck, electric guitars, drum kits, a whole band set-up. I guess the idea is that adults can divest themselves of their children (there is also the Oceaneers club for younger guests) so they can do things like go to the tranquil Fehi spa, where Natura Bissé treatments are offered alongside scrubs and wraps using local ingredients like coconut and aloe vera. Or have an aerial yoga lesson in the beautiful open-sided pavilion, or just lounge on the beach.
But I actually enjoyed spending time with Minna, witnessing her delight as she watched a shell get up and scuttle away and learning that if you pick a hermit crab up and hold it quietly it will emerge from its shell. She also loved the massive fruit bats that flapped around the shore and dangled from the trees, the crabs that seemed to gather around the Japanese restaurant, accepting that they would soon be just another delicious morsel, and the pointy-headed unicorn fish that zipped around the shallows near our villa.
The most magical day in Finolhu was when we taken out in the Asma boat with the resident marine biologist and dive instructor Ivana Tobar, who specialises in coral restoration and has a soft spot for sharks. We were taken to a reef about 20 minutes' away where we snorkelled, seeing colourful shoals and pootling turtles, starfish and sea cucumbers. Every so often Tobar would free dive down to point out some interesting sea creature.
She also explained why about 50 per cent of the coral here dies off, and took us to a little sandy outcrop to see just how much plastic had washed up. It was an education for Minna, on the beauty and wonder of the natural world, as well as the impact that humans are having on it. It was more effective and motivating than any lesson she could have had in a classroom. At end of the trip, she said that she wished Tobar was her science teacher which, from my daughter, is a huge accolade.
The floating breakfast, the swim-up bar, the Oreo milkshakes on tap, these things were fun. But it was the encounters with nature that Minna (and I) will remember from the trip — bobbing around in the beautiful waters, holding a hermit crab, walking back to our room at night along the narrow strip of sand, holding lanterns, the full moon above amid its tapestry of stars. Finolhu really is a magical place for teens — and their mothers.
From $3,743.25 (approx £2,765) for seven nights excluding fees and taxes for two adults/one adult and one teenager on a B&B basis in a Lagoon Villa,
