Soneva Fushi
Idyllic, environmentally-focused island retreat
Facilities & services
- 55 rooms
- Several restaurants and bars
- Observatory
- Open-air cinema
- Spa
Activities
- Island hopping
- Scuba diving
- Snorkelling
- Fishing
- Destination dining
- Cooking classes
Nestled within the lush foliage on Kunfunadhoo Island, within the Baa Atoll Biosphere Reserve, is Soneva Fushi – a true island paradise. This island is reached by a 30-minute scenic flight from Mahe airport or a short speedboat ride from Dharavandhoo airport. This resort takes great pride in protecting its surrounding tropical environment, as well as several steps to maintain the conservation of the flora and fauna of the island, and funds beneficial foundations while implementing an array of sustainability practices.
There are luxurious villas to suit every kind of traveller, from intimate one-bedroom properties with private pools to six-bedroom villas with their own spa and gym. The architecture of the resort is inspired by nature, and the thatched roofs, wooden beams, woven ropes and recycled planks ensure that the villas blend into the surroundings and accentuate the natural beauty of the island.
When it comes to dining, guests at Soneva Fushi are spoiled for choice. Mihiree Maitha offers everything from flakey pastries at breakfast to wonderfully fresh sushi and grilled fish for lunch and dinner. Desserts are a speciality too, with home-made ice cream and sorbet made using fresh fruit from the island. For a truly unique dining experience, you can choose to dine at Sobah, a traditional Maldivian restaurant located on an uninhabited island 15 minutes away by speedboat.
Of course, there are ample opportunities to enjoy fresh seafood on the beach or relax with a cocktail on a hammock suspended over the Indian Ocean. Rather than just ordering your favourite tipple at the bar, you can descend into the resort’s incredible wine cellar, a veritable Aladdin’s cave of rare champagnes, vintage cognac and organic wines.
How you choose to spend your time is entirely up to you. Relax on the pristine white-sand beaches, snorkel or dive through crystal clear waters, hop between the islands by boat, relax at the spa or enjoy a cooking class where you’ll learn how to use the incredible array of fruits, fish and spices on your doorstep. Soneva Fushi also has an outdoor cinema and an observatory with a state-of-the-art telescope, which allows you to marvel at the star-studded night sky.
The Soneva Foundation
The Soneva Foundation uses impact-investing principles, seeking to recover outlays through carbon finance, which in turn will be fed back into projects to help extend the reach and benefits to more families.
Soneva Water
Drinking water on Maldivian islands can be an unreliable resource. Extended dry seasons can lead to wells drying up and Maalhos residents – a neighbouring island of Soneva Fushi – have required emergency supplies of drinking water to be transported from the capital, Malé, for the past three years. Soneva Water was formed as a social enterprise to eliminate imported plastic bottled water on Maalhos. From a solar-powered desalination plant, water will be filtered using carbon resin and reverse osmosis, mineralised, UV sterilised, and bottled in reusable, eco-friendly bottles. These bottles will then be delivered to households, guest houses, cafes, schools, and businesses in 500ML reusable glass bottles or 5 gallons (19 litres) reusable polycarbonate bottles. Once the water is consumed, the empty bottles will be collected and replaced with a fresh bottle of water. This is the first service of its kind outside of the capital city, Malé. It prevents thousands of water bottles from being produced, transported to the island, and then incinerated or thrown into landfills or the sea.
Soneva Ocean Stewards
Despite living in an island nation, many Maldivians grow up without learning to swim. While this poses a clear risk to life, it also means that children grow up with little environmental awareness of the ocean and the coral reefs that surround them. The Soneva Ocean Stewards programme takes children from the very basics to their first time snorkelling on the reef edge. Since 2014, Soneva has taught over 400 children and adults to swim and trained 38 swimming instructors.
Soneva Slow Life Symposium
Each year the Soneva Slow Life Symposium gather the best scientists, philanthropists, business leaders and policymakers for three days of problem-solving around the most pressing sustainability challenges and opportunities facing humanity. They use the planetary boundaries framework developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre to benchmark and communicate how they are doing against interrelated environmental and social boundaries.
Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship
Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) is an initiative resulting from a series of Keystone Dialogues between scientists and seafood companies. The SeaBOS initiative follows the hypothesis that a small minority of powerful actors can influence a majority of smaller actors.
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