Joali Being
Sixty-eight pool villas on a Raa Atoll island where the well-being programme, not the beach, is the reason to come.
- Neighbourhood
- Bodufushi, Raa Atoll
- Status
- Open
Why we recommend it
The Maldives long treated the spa as an amenity attached to a beach holiday. Joali Being reverses the order: the programme is the purpose of the journey, and the island was planned around it. A stay begins with a consultation and diagnostics, and what follows, from treatments to meals, is set against the four pillars of mind, skin, microbiome and energy.
It suits travellers who want a structured stay without giving up the villa, the pool and the lagoon. Programmes run from five to ten nights. The approach is thorough without being austere: there is a restaurant for grilled meat and seafood, and wine is served, though the list favours organic and biodynamic bottles and alternatives without alcohol.
Our article on seven serious wellness retreats in Asia and what each is for places it among the alternatives on the mainland, and our guide to where to stay in the Maldives, with four island resorts compared by atoll sets it beside resorts of a more conventional kind.
Rooms & Suites
There are 68 villas and residences, from one to four bedrooms, all with a private pool. Beach villas open directly onto the sand, water villas onto the lagoon, and the residences are the largest category. The resort calls them Well Living Spaces, since each is fitted with its own wellbeing facilities, so that part of a programme can be followed in private.
Each villa is looked after by a jadugar, the resort’s name for its butlers, and comes with bicycles labelled with the guests’ names for getting about the island.
Dining
Flow, the main restaurant, is an open room with three kitchens, each cooking to a different principle. Su is pescatarian and works from the ocean to the table; Plantae is vegetarian and vegan; B’Well serves the resort’s signature menu, which includes meat and poultry.
Mojo is the beach restaurant, set on a sundeck of three levels by the pool and used for lunch and for drinks at sunset. Within it is Sai, a tea lounge where a tea sommelier leads ceremonies and tastings. Ocean Sala is the grill, serving Wagyu beef, Japanese scallops, and lobster and tuna from Maldivian waters.
Design
The island was planned on biophilic principles, around light, air and the trees that were already growing there. The wellbeing centre is treated as a quiet zone: there is no wireless internet within Areka.
Wellness & Spa
Areka is the centre of the island and of the stay. It contains the treatment rooms, a herbology centre and a meditation deck built over the water, and it is where the initial consultation and diagnostics take place. From these a programme is drawn up under the four pillars, lasting from five to ten nights.
For families, the resort runs Joy of Being, a retreat for children under 12, at selected periods of the year. Our report on the opening of Joali Being as a wellbeing island has more on the concept.
Location
The resort occupies the island of Bodufushi in Raa Atoll, in the north of the Maldives. It is reached by seaplane from Malé in 40 to 45 minutes; guests are met in the arrivals hall and taken to Joali’s own lounge to wait for the flight. Seaplanes fly in daylight hours only, so those landing on a late international flight may need a night near the airport. The resort does not recommend the journey by sea, which takes six to eight hours.
- Website
- Official website
