Belize
itinerary map

Table of Contents

  • 24 days
  • 2020 Winter

Belize was mostly about snorkeling, with some wildlife, a little hiking, and plenty of time relaxing on the beach. And about escaping winter back home! You may notice the absence of any Mayan ruins. Since we’d been to Chichen Itza, we skipped the ruins. Had we not been to Chichen Itza we would likely have included Tikal. One big surprise: the food! We expected lots of rice and beans. It was so much more than that. Belikan Stout is quite good and is widely available.​ It looks like we did a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and we did; that’s because we wanted to end our trip at the beach.

Food & Beverage $43 per day*

Average per person per day, including alcohol. We ate out every meal. Our first three stops were remote and included a meal plan.

Lodging $60-$108 per night*

It's difficult to calculate the nightly rate since we had meals included. All of them were good value.

Transportation $502 per person*

This includes three flights within Belize, boats to and from Caye Caulker and Tobacco Caye, a rental car for a couple of days, a shuttle, and a few taxi rides.

Entertainment $100 per person*

Entertainment included a snorkel trip, a daytime visit to the zoo, and a night tour of the zoo.

* Costs in US dollars at time of trip

Days 1-4: Mayflower Bocawina National Park

The Plan: This is the first part of a combined package along with Tobacco Caye. While the focus of this trip is snorkeling, we thought we’d fit in a little jungle and hiking. It will be interesting to be off the grid for the first time. 

The Reality: Our stay included two guided activities, so we did a guided hike and a guided bird-watching session. 

  • Hike
  • Birdwatching +

Related Posts: The first post describes daily activities and the destination. Other posts cover anything that generated lots of photos!

Days 5-8: Tobacco Caye

The Plan: I have always wanted to stay in an overwater bungalow, and this place has them, at an affordable price! Also looking forward to being able to snorkel off the beach, and to being off the grid on a tiny little island. 

The Reality: Pretty much like we envisioned. We did less snorkeling than we planned thanks to all the rain, but that just meant more time to hang out on the deck, which was even better than a beach!

  • Snorkel
  • Hang out on the beach
  • Hang out on the deck +

Related Posts: The first post describes daily activities and the destination. Other posts cover anything that generated lots of photos!

Days 9-10: Belize Zoo

The Plan: Once we learned you could do a night tour here, staying overnight was a must!

The Reality: Just like we planned, although our drive ended up including shopping for a new duffel bag when our zipper broke. 

  • Visiting the zoo
  • Night tour of the zoo
  • Driving around Belize… looking for a new duffel bag

Related Posts: The first post describes daily activities and the destination. Other posts cover anything that generated lots of photos!

Days 11-16: Caye Caulker

The Plan: We’ve heard people get warned here that they’re walking too fast, and that spending time in a hammock is a viable use of time. With that and a couple of snorkeling trips, we should be good!

The Reality: The weather prevented us from taking a second snorkeling trip.

  • Snorkel
  • Hang out on the beach

Related Posts: The first post describes daily activities and the destination. Other posts cover anything that generated lots of photos!

Days 17-24: Placencia

The Plan: Placencia is reputed to have the best beach in Belize, so that’s why we chose it for our last stop, for some chill out beach time. 

The Reality: We got some great beach time and skipped the snorkel trip because we didn’t want to deal with a long boat ride. We did get to see some sea life off the pier. 

  • Snorkel
  • Hang out at the beach
book cover

Resources

  • We used Lonely Planet Belize (Kindle format) as our main resource. And by the way, that picture on the cover is of Tobacco Caye Paradise, one of the place we stayed. (It’s great.)*
  • TropicalSnorkeling.com has info on snorkeling in Belize
  • The Colinda Cabañas website has great local tips for Caye Caulker
  • We don’t often book packages but Island Expeditions made it easy to visit the Bocawina rainforest and Tobacco Caye and they offer a number of multi-day trips

Christmas Ornaments

We buy Christmas ornaments on each trip. We saw lots of rays on our trip. This is not the first time we saw tapirs but it was the first time we fed a tapir. The shark bottle opener was a bonus.

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