Whether your dream beach trip consists of paying a number of spoiled nights during a four-star resort or swimming among tropical fish some eighty feet (24 meters) underwater, the Maldives ar the kind of islands wherever either—or both—can come back true. Straddling the Equator southwest ofstate, the 1,102 islands that structure the Maldives kind twenty six atolls. The soft air close theground blends into a gorgeous palm-fringed haze.