WHICH IS BETTER? Bora Bora vs. Maldives // BEST BEACH VACATION

hello happy travelers we are kevin and kelly from the awkward tourists we just got back home from a bucket list six days in the maldives and a couple of years ago we went to my absolute number one bucket list destination for a honeymoon bora bora people have started asking us which did you like better bora bora or the maldives so we thought we'd make a video about that in this video we're going to be breaking down the pros and cons of each destination and tell you which one is our personal favorite so if you want to visit a tropical destination and you're deciding between those two hopefully this video will help you out first let's talk about location bora bora is located in french polynesia which is in the south pacific just north of australia and the maldives are an island chain that are off the west coast of india in the indian ocean depending on where you're coming from the location of these places could be a huge deciding factor on which one you go to for us it was a lot easier to get to bora bora because all we had was an eight hour flight from los angeles and we were in french polynesia if you saw our epic travel day video we traveled for 40 hours straight before we got to our destination in the maldives because it's so far away from the u.s but the maldives are a lot easier for people coming from europe and french polynesia is probably a lot easier for most of the people from the united states to get to so that will also factor into the cost of your flights and getting to your location now as i said the maldives and french polynesia are groups of islands so travel within the islands is a little bit different as well in french polynesia there are a lot fewer islands and they're a lot easier to get from island to island when you fly to bora bora you'll be going through the international airport in tahiti and you'll have to take an extra flight to bora bora which is not the cheapest also once you land in malay international airport in the maldives you'll have to arrange transportation to your resort which might be an expensive speed boat ride or a very expensive seaplane ride now let's talk about accommodation bora bora is rumored to have invented the overwater bungalow there are a ton of luxury resorts where you can stay in one of these iconic hotel rooms of those resorts in bora bora most of them are on the luxury or high-end side which is going to give you a high-end price tag the maldives on the other hand has over 500 resorts and a budget to fit every traveler you can find rooms for less than a hundred dollars a night or rooms for tens of thousands of dollars per night as far as different priced accommodation maldives definitely has more options so let's talk about the best times to visit bora bora is going to be best between april and november while the rainy season is going to be from december to february both locations are in the tropics so it's going to be hot and humid either way maldives actually has a dedicated monsoon season so you probably want to avoid that to avoid a lot of rain so the best months to visit are december to april with may being really rainy but keep in mind all of these islands are located in the tropics and while the temperature is generally really nice year round you can get tropical downpours at any time usually they don't last very long though all right let's talk about culture bora bora is part of french polynesia so there is a lot of french influence that will come across in the cuisine hwasong crew is one of the best dishes i've ever tasted i would go back just for that but they also have a polynesian culture as well if you've ever been to hawaii it's a similar polynesian culture to that the maldives on the other hand is very close to india so you're going to get a lot of that influence coming to the maldives we had a lot of different indian curries while we were there and a lot of coconut-infused fishes obviously at the resort you're going to have all different types of food available be aware that anything that you eat at the resort is going to be very expensive you're also going to get a little bit more of the muslim heritage the locals are much more quiet and conservative in nature just due to the muslim culture so this is definitely everyone's burning question what about price for bora bora versus the maldives both are pretty dang expensive let me tell you that much to be fair we did stay at some of the most expensive resort in both places so part of that was our own fault but with both places these are pretty isolated island nations they do have to have a lot of things shipped in so even if you're staying in more local accommodations even that food is going to be more expensive than you're going to find in southeast asia or somewhere that's generally cheaper as for accommodation budget probably the majority of places to stay in bora bora are going to be luxury resorts whereas since there's so many more islands in the maldives you have a wider range of budgets that you can choose from let's talk about food cost for a second we were a little shocked with how much we had to spend on food we're talking 40 hamburgers 35 dollar individual pizzas and if you got more upscale in your dining it was even more than that you didn't have to lift a finger to spend 100 to 150 on dinner so if you're staying in one of these luxury resorts definitely budget a lot of money for food or go check out our money saving tips videos for both the maldives and bora bora where we give you a couple of ideas on how to save a little bit of money during your vacation now let's talk about things to do both of these destinations are amazing for water sports and have some of the best snorkeling in the world as far as sea life goes they have pretty similar animals in both locations however we did get a chance to see whale sharks while we were in the maldives and that was really incredible bora bora is known for some of the best coral reefs in the world while the maldives is really popular for whale sharks and manta rays one big difference between these two destinations is the bora bora has mountains if you're into hiking or atving or more adventure activities bora bora has a lot more to offer than the maldives the highest point above sea level in the maldives is six feet so there really isn't much landscape to play with it's all about the water and the relaxation there so it really just depends on what you're looking for so there is a pretty simple compare and contrast of the maldives versus bora bora but they were really completely different aside from the fact that they were both beautiful tropical island destinations what it really comes down to is your own personal preference your budget and what you're looking to do on vacation in terms of what we liked better we thought it would be fun to both write down our favorite one and then reveal them so should we write them down yes all right you can write it on my back so i can't see okay ready three two one [Music] i don't know if this was because we went to the bora bora first and it was our honeymoon but french polynesia was on the top of my bucket list since i was a kid so it was an absolute dream for me to go there but the maldives were really incredible too absolutely and we're super happy that we went to both destinations i would 100 go back to both absolutely if you haven't seen our vlogs yet from our bora bora and maldives series please go and check those out don't judge us too much by the bora bora videos they were some of the very first ones that we posted and hopefully we've gotten better since then we hoped we touched on everything that you might ask us about the maldives in bora bora but if we didn't let us know if you have any questions hopefully we can help you in some way to plan your trip this is kevin and kelly from the awkward tourists peace out hello happy travelers we are kevin and kelly from the awkward tourists that's us yep all right let's talk about culture [Laughter] you sure [Music]

Channel: The Awkward Tourists

Views: 130,197

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Id: Zom8axxD4I8

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022