Belize looks manageable on a map and surprises you with its density once you're inside it. It's small — roughly the size of Massachusetts — but it has a barrier reef, hundreds of Maya sites, three distinct ecosystems, and an interior that hasn't been tamed at all. I came for the Blue Hole and left with a completely different sense of what the country was. These are the five things I'd build any Belize trip around.
Fly over the Great Blue Hole — the most arresting image in the hemisphere
The Great Blue Hole is a marine sinkhole 300 meters across and 125 meters deep in the middle of Lighthouse Reef Atoll. From a small aircraft at 500 feet, it looks like a perfect dark circle punched into turquoise water — the deep center contrasting with the shallow reef surrounding it is one of the most visually striking things I've seen from the air anywhere in the world. Most visitors dive or snorkel it; the dive is excellent (stalactites, bull sharks, visibility extending to 40 meters). But if you're not a diver, the scenic flight from San Pedro is still worth doing just to see it from above.
Ambergris Caye as base, barrier reef by boat
Ambergris Caye is the most developed of the Belizean islands — San Pedro has good restaurants, good hotels, and a golf-cart pace that suits groups well. The reef starts just offshore. Hol Chan Marine Reserve at the southern tip is one of the better snorkeling spots in the Caribbean — a channel cut through the reef with nurse sharks, rays, and fish in numbers you don't see elsewhere. Shark Ray Alley nearby has tamed nurse sharks and stingrays in shallow water. Do both on consecutive mornings before the Belize City boats show up.
Caracol Maya ruins — bigger than Tikal, almost no one goes
Caracol, deep in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve in the Mountain Pine Ridge, was once the largest Maya city in Belize — at its peak it had a population estimated at 150,000, larger than modern-day Belize City. The site is a two-hour drive from San Ignacio on roads that require a high-clearance vehicle. Caana (Sky Palace), at 43 meters, is the tallest structure in Belize. Because the journey keeps the casual tour groups away, you'll often have large sections of the site to yourself. Hire a guide who knows the archaeology. The forest around Caracol is alive with wildlife.
Cave tubing through the Maya underworld
The Maya considered caves the entrance to Xibalba — the underworld. The cave systems beneath the hills around San Ignacio were sacred and are now accessible with a guide by floating through them on inner tubes with headlamps. Nohoch Che'en, the most visited cave tube system, takes you through roughly three kilometers of cave passages with stalactites, stalagmites, and Maya artifacts in situ on ledges above the water. Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM Cave) is more physically demanding — you swim sections and climb through chambers — but has some of the finest in-situ Maya artifacts and crystal-covered skeletal remains anywhere. Do ATM if you're physically capable of it.
Glover's Reef Atoll — camping on an island with no one else around
Glover's Reef is an atoll 45 kilometers off the Belizean coast, two hours by boat from the mainland. Its small cays sit at the edge of a coral shelf where the water drops from 5 meters to 800 meters. The snorkeling and diving here are in a different category — it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef system. Several operators run camping trips to the cays. Sleeping in a tent on a small island in the middle of the Caribbean, with the reef audible in the dark and the Milky Way overhead, is something I still think about.
Belize is best experienced as two distinct trips: the coast and cayes, then the interior. A week gives you enough time to do both properly. The infrastructure is rougher than elsewhere in Central America, which is part of its appeal — this is one of the least manicured adventure destinations in the hemisphere.
Written by
Eric
Co-founder of Memorable Travel & Adventures. Eric has personally traveled to over 50 countries across six continents. He plans trips to all of them.
