I always enjoy a burst of warm sunshine and vitamin D in December before we enter the dreary winter months, and we had such great memories from our first trip to Belize seven years ago, we decided to go again. We really love the combo of ocean and jungle in a small, easy to navigate, English speaking country, and it’s only a 3-hour direct flight from Atlanta. Luke and I are now scuba divers alongside Mitch, so we reversed our jungle-to-beach journey and started out on the island of Caye Caulker for the first half of the week. We would definitely recommend this smaller, quainter island over Ambergris Caye and the touristy town of San Pedro. On Caye Caulker, there are no cars, just golf carts, on the white sand roads. There are tourists of course, but it’s feels like a local, tropical neighborhood. You can catch a taxi from the Belize City airport to a waterfront ferry (two choices, Caribbean Sprinter or San Pedro Express, and neither require a reservation), and it’s a beautiful 45-minute boat ride to the island. We stayed in a two-bedroom condo overlooking the beach and walked everywhere.
Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world and it’s absolutely beautiful. We dove with Sunrise Scuba, swimming alongside sharks, rays and sea turtles. The coral still has hints of pinks, blues and purples and the fish are as plentiful as they are colorful. If you aren’t a diver, many outfits take snorkeling excursions, but we would recommend Sunrise as they are very professional and kind. In fact, I was reminded just how warm and friendly the locals are, and we continued to experience that again throughout this trip.
We also enjoyed a lazy day in the sun at the north end of the island called The Split, swimming and relaxing in beach chairs on the dock at the Lazy Lizard surrounded by other families’ squealing children and hungover backpackers making their way south from Mexico.
On an island brimming with seafood, you have amazing choices for every meal. We ate grilled lobster for lunch at Chef Kareem’s outdoor kiosk next door to Sunrise Scuba for just $20. Belize accepts U.S. cash but their Belizean dollar currency rate is 2x the U.S. dollar. We enjoyed the Happy Lobster cafe and breakfast at Ice and Beans, with casual picnic tables right on the beach.
The highlight every evening was a short walk to The Pelican Sunset Bar for happy hour and a stunning sunset. We ate dinner there several times after comparing their conch ceviche against others and finding it far superior. Luke loved the fish quesadillas, as well. Next to our condo was a lively beach bar called Salty’s where we played bingo and trivia (we weren’t brave enough for karaoke night!). The food was average, but the family-friendly atmosphere at the rooftop bar was really fun.
After four nights on Caye Caulker, we ferried back to Belize City and rented a car to go inland. On this trip, we stayed near the Guatemalan border in San Ignacio at the Santa Cruz Cabins, a treetop cabana with lovely hosts who brought us homemade breakfast burritos on our porch every morning. In this region, you have lots of choices of jungle adventures and we used Belize Caving Expeditions to plan our day trip to Guatemala to see the Tikal Mayan ruins and a day climbing at the ATM caves. Both were so exhilarating and fun, even Luke was smiling, laughing and thoroughly entertained! They also do cave tubing and ziplining excursions, we just ran out of time!
San Ignacio is not the cutest town, so we enjoyed staying outside the city tucked away at the top of a hill. But we found good restaurants for dinner and were always busy during the day, so we only ventured in for meals at Let’s Go Eat, Erva’s and Tolacca Smokehouse BBQ (our favorite).
After long days of adventure, we enjoyed relaxing together with a semi-competitive family card game and a few movie nights. The mantra of Belize is ‘Go Slow’, and even though we packed in lots of fun activities, we came home relaxed and refreshed.
