Boutique and Luxury Hotels Noonu Atoll

Boutique hotels in Noonu Atoll sit in the northern reaches of the Maldives, forty-five minutes by seaplane north of Malé — far enough from the capital and the main tourist atolls to keep the lagoons quiet and the reefs uncrowded. Noonu's thirteen inhabited islands cluster around Manadhoo, the atoll's administrative capital, with another sixty or so uninhabited islands and sand cays scattered through the surrounding lagoon system. The water here is the clearer Indian Ocean blue that the Maldives' marketing photographs promise — the atoll sits beyond the cruise-ship limit and the major dive routes — and the resort density is among the lowest of any Maldivian atoll.

The resort islands
Velaa Private Island occupies its own crescent-shaped private island in the eastern Noonu lagoon — forty-seven villas and residences with private pools, the only Maldivian property recognised in Forbes Travel Guide's Five-Star list, with a Six Senses Spa, a tennis academy and a snow room. Built between 2010 and 2013 by Czech entrepreneur Jiří Šmejc as his personal vision for the Maldives, the property is named for the Czech word for "wave."

Soneva Jani sits in the larger Medhufaru lagoon — the second of Sonu Shivdasani's Maldivian Soneva resorts (Soneva Fushi being the first, in Baa Atoll). Twenty-six overwater villas and twenty-six island villas across the five-island lagoon, with retractable bedroom roofs for stargazing, an over-water observatory housing the largest telescope in the Indian Ocean, and slides from the upper deck of every villa straight into the lagoon below.

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