Belize travel guide
Belize videos that will help you get a sense of the place
If you’ve yet to come to Belize for the first time, this whole country probably sounds rather mysterious. It’s an odd combination of Caribbean influences that are quite unlike most of the rest of Central America and Mexico, with a pace of life that is so relaxed at times that it can make a wheat field seem like Times Square by comparison.
So here are 5 videos that can help you get to know the country a bit better before you come:
San Pedro golf cart tour
With the exception of what looks like a potentially horrifying crash with a young bicyclist about 2:20 in, this random golf cart tour through the heart of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye is a bit dull. It actually makes San Pedro seem worse than it is, and the loud cart noise doesn’t help, but it’s still interesting to see the lay of the land in the commercial heart of the city.
Date: May 5th, 2008 |
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Summer in Belize
Just like virtually the entire Central American and Caribbean regions, summer is actually the off-season in Belize. Since the weather ranges from warm to even warmer all year, most people think of this country as a place to go to get out of the cold rather than a year-round resort area. It’s true that the weather tends to be more pleasant from November through March than it does the rest of the year, but not by much.
The great news is that hotels are at their cheapest during summer, and crowds in general will be small nearly everywhere you go, so if sun and solitude are your thing it can be a nice combination.
Summer events in Belize
There really aren’t too many major events during summer here, but there are quite a few smaller festivals you might consider taking in if you happen to be in the area at the time. The lobster season begins again on June 15, and Ambergris Caye, Caye Caulker, and Placencia each have a lobster festival around that date to celebrate. Aside from those it’s mostly modest happenings that probably aren’t worth seeking out unless you have some other connection with the thing.
Date: April 21st, 2008 |
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June in Belize
Once June arrives the busy season at the beach resort areas is officially over and the wet season officially begins. The good news is that hotel and resort prices are now at their lowest, where they’ll stay through November, and crowds are significantly smaller as well. The bad news is that it’s pretty hot and fairly sticky around the clock, and afternoon rain showers are an almost daily occurrence.
June events in Belize
San Pedro Lobsterfest – Mid June – To commemorate the opening of the 2008 lobster season the village on Ambergris Caye kicks off a long food-themed festival that began in 2007. The 2008 dates are June 14-21.
Dia de San Pedro (San Pedro Day) – June 29 – This celebration on Ambergris Caye honors St. Peter, who is the patron saint of the island’s San Pedro town. A boat parade on the final morning of this 3-day festival is the highlight, but there are events on the island during the entire final week of the month and a big fishing tournament that begins just after.
Date: March 26th, 2008 |
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May in Belize
May in Belize brings a mixed bag for potential visitors. Most hotels drops their prices on the first day of the month to their low-season rates, but the heat starts getting intense and the rainy season really gets going in earnest about halfway through the month. So the first half of the month can be an excellent mix of decent weather, small crowds, and low prices, and there are also loads of events to consider as well.
May events in Belize
Labour Day, May 1 – The entire country celebrates this national day off, but of course restaurants and bars are open and resort areas keep doing their thing as well. The largest celebration is in Belize City, but you’ll find something going on everywhere.
Commonwealth Day, May 24 – This national holiday celebrates the Queen’s birthday and Belize’s colonial past with horse races in Belize City and Orange Walk, as well as an annual cycle race between Cayo and Belmopan.
Date: February 19th, 2008 |
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The time I rented a bicycle on Caye Caulker, Belize
This isn’t so much a comprehensive guide to renting a bicycle on one of the islands, but more a story of how wonderfully and simply things can work in this tiny country.
I was living in New York City before I left on my 2005 round the world trip, which actually started in December 2004. I stopped to visit some friends in Miami and then Los Angeles (where I’m from) before setting out traveling for a whole year. My first international stop was Belize, and I knew I wanted to check it out for a couple days before continuing down through Guatemala.
So after a couple weeks spent in Miami and Los Angeles and a plane change in Dallas-Fort Worth, I suddenly found myself in Belize and a couple hours later I was on Caye Caulker. I was/am a cheapskate and backpacker, so I chose it over Ambergris Caye, and I liked it a lot right away.
Date: February 7th, 2008 |
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August in Belize
August is one of the least popular months to visit Belize, so those who dare are rewarded with cheap hotel prices, limited crowds, and wonderful solitude (for the most part). This is the first month on the calendar that visitors have to keep an eye on storm systems in the Caribbean before they arrive. More of this is covered in the summer in Belize section, but put simply, instead of having a zero percent chance of being in the path of a slow moving hurricane, visitors to Belize in August and September have a very tiny chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
August events in Belize
San Pedro’s International Costa Maya Festival – early August in Ambergris Caye – This used to be called the Sea & Air Festival for some reason, but now the Costa Maya Festival is the absolute highlight of the San Pedro entertainment calendar. There are parades, dancing, bands, contests, and international food, which are all featured at this 4-day blowout. Since this is the off-season for tourists you can expect a mostly local crowd, which should add to its authenticity. The 2008 dates are August 7 – 10. More information is available on the official Costa Maya Festival site.
Deer Dance Festival – late August in San Antonio – This festival runs for 9 days starting in late August in the southern Belize city of San Antonio, which is just a bit inland from Punta Gorda. It’s a Maya religious celebration where the highlight is a simulated deer hunt featuring costumed characters that reenact the hunted while the hunters symbolically pursue. The 2008 dates are hard to confirm at this point, but it’s always late in the month and sometimes stretches into September.
Date: April 28th, 2008 |
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July in Belize
July is part of the slow tourism season in Belize, partly due to this being one of the wettest months of the long rainy season. But fear not, as the rain tends to come late at night and the cool Caribbean breezes help keep the beach and island resorts tolerable even on the worst days. There aren’t many proper events during July, but there will always be no shortage of things to do since the water sports, jungle tours, and Maya ruins are all available 12 months a year.
July events in Belize
Benque Viejo Fiesta – mid-July – The small town of Benque Viejo is just 2 miles from the Guatemala border near San Ignacio and it doesn’t have much to offer for tourists, but this 9-day religious festival held each July sounds interesting if you are in the area. They celebrate the patron saint of the village with a fair, marimba bands, games, and prayer.
Caye Caulker Lobster Festival – sometimes in early July – The resort island of Caye Caulker celebrates the June 15 reopening of lobster season with a festival in either late June or early July. As with most things in Belize, tracking down exact dates for each year is difficult, but the festival actually appears to be in late June in 2008.
Date: April 7th, 2008 |
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Beaches of Belize - Probably not what you expect
As fond as we all are of this tiny Caribbean country, I think it’s important to point out that people arriving for their first ever trip to Belize might be getting the wrong impression regarding beaches in the country. When people mention, as I did above, that Belize is on the Caribbean, it’s natural to assume that the country is lined with pristine sandy beaches. Unfortunately, it’s not.
But the most popular places for visitors to the country are the offshore islands, known locally as cayes (pronounced keys), so those must have excellent beaches, right? Sadly, again, no. There definitely are some great beaches in the country and they are in quite a few different regions, but it’s important to realize before you book your trip that most of the country’s shoreline is not suited to sunbathing at all. Mangrove forests in one form or another grow naturally along most of Belize’s coastline, and while these are a very important part of the overall eco-system, they make sunbathing and even swimming very difficult. Even if you go out past the trees you’ll find the footing below very slimy.
Date: February 27th, 2008 |
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Golf Carts on the Belize Islands
If you’ve yet to make your first trip to one of the main tourist islands off Belize, this might be a little hard to picture, but on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, there are very few paved streets, and golf carts rule the road. It’s more true on the much-smaller Caye Caulker, but in both cases there are very few conventional cars to be seen anywhere.
So taxis on the islands are almost all 4-seat golf carts, and renting them is possible and popular on both as well, although the benefits of doing that are far greater on Ambergris Caye than they are on Caulker.
Golf cart rentals on Caye Caulker
There are a few small outfits that rent the carts to visitors on an hourly or daily basis, but none of them appear to have an official website. This is also true of half the things on Caye Caulker, which is one of the reasons the place is hard to get a handle on before you arrive. Golf cart taxis will take you anywhere on Caye Caulker for US$3, and the longest rides to either the Cut in the north or the Odyssey Resort past the airstrip in the south only take 5 minutes or so. If you rent a golf cart on Caye Caulker you can literally see the entire island in about 30 minutes. People might think you are lazy, but if you’ve got a group of 3 or 4 people who want to check out a few different restaurants (or bars if there’s a designated driver) they can be really fun and efficient.
Date: February 14th, 2008 |
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Museum of Belize - a former prison that has turned its life around
Visiting a stuffy museum isn’t near the top of most people’s lists when they come to a country like Belize, but there is an interesting spot in Belize City that should be of interest to culture vultures or visitors who care a bit about their host country, even for only an hour or two.
One of the more fascinating aspects to the Museum of Belize is that the two-story building was constructed as Her Majesty’s Prison back in 1857, and only opened in its current form in 2002. The official tourism board article boasts, “With all the rich Belizean heritage inside, it would be a crime to miss it.” See what they did there? A former prison and it would be a crime to miss it? Hilarious.
But seriously, the permanent collection in the Museum of Belize contains Mayan masterpieces that range from 600 BC to AD 1500, so it’s easy to get some perspective on the ancient local culture that mysteriously disappeared a few centuries ago. While the original artifact lives in a bank vault, an amazing replica of the largest carved jade head ever found in the Maya world (discovered in 1968 in Altun Ha) is on display here. Other jade items, intricately crafted pottery, and flint weapons are also parts of the popular permanent display.
Date: February 5th, 2008 |
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