- Solo trip
- January 2023
- San Pedro, Ambergris Caye
- Warm weather, fantastic snorkeling, and the English language!
What an un-Belize-able vacation! I was looking for an escape to a warm sunny climate. But your girl is on a budget because I’m still funemployed thanks to Elon.
I chose Belize because it is a very affordable place to visit, English is the national language (Belize used to be British Honduras until its independence in 1981), the weather is phenomenal, and I absolutely love snorkeling. Did you know Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world? Well, it does!
Here’s my itinerary for a week in San Pedro, Belize with recommendations and mini reviews. Enjoy!
Flights: I used my United miles to fly from Dulles to Belize City via Houston. Belize City (BZE) is on the mainland of Belize. I stayed on Ambergris Caye, a beautiful island off the coast of Belize, so that was a 14 minute flight on Tropic Air to the town of San Pedro. The Tropic Air flight cost around $200 but I used credit card rewards points to cover it. There is also a ferry to San Pedro but it takes a couple of hours and you have to travel from the airport to the ferry terminal. No thanks!
- Warning: The flight to San Pedro is on a very tiny plane! One of the passengers actually sits in the copilot seat.
- Second Warning: Double check which tiny plane you’re boarding because the process is somewhat chaotic and I almost ended up on a flight to Guatemala.
Here is a slideshow of the flight:
Fun fact: Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” is about Ambergris Caye! “Last night I dreamt of San Pedro…”
Hotel: I stayed at the Drift Inn, which was just perfect. The cost for a week’s stay, paid in advance and non refundable, was under $400. They offer dorm style and private rooms. I stayed in a private room and it fit my needs just right. Drift Inn is connected to the Sandbar, which is another hotel with a great pool and a really fun open air bar that looks out onto the ocean. As a guest of Drift Inn, you have access to the awesome pool at the Sandbar. The hotel is about a 30 second walk to the beach! There is a resident cat named Garfield.
Every morning at around 5:30 am I was woken up by roosters crowing but that only lasted about ten minutes. Sometimes Garfield would join in the fun with some yowling which made no sense to me. Shut up, Garfield!! Once I learned this was a daily occurrence I kept my Bose headphones on the nightstand and it was no problem.
The Drift Inn has a fun Instagram account with lots of helpful info: @driftinnbelize
The people who work there are really friendly and sent me helpful info via WhatsApp before I arrived. They also booked both of my snorkeling trips and my golf cart rental. There’s free coffee in the lobby area every morning and a big water jug you can use to fill your water bottle. (Believe it or not I had a water bottle.) There’s also a kitchen area if you want to cook your own meals (I didn’t use it but it’s nice to know it was there).
Day 1: Getting acclimated and meeting some locals
I walked along the beach and had lunch (conch ceviche) at Estel’s, a well known restaurant and bar. The waiter told me that they were doing chicken shit bingo that night and I knew I had to come back for that. It’s just what it sounds like. I highly recommend chicken shit bingo! It was a blast and I ended up meeting and befriending several locals that night, including Estel, the owner of the place, who gave me a ride home later that night in her golf cart. So much for just staying for one drink!
Day 2: Snorkeling and Caulker Caye
On my first full day in San Pedro, I went on a full day snorkeling trip on a catamaran with Searious Adventures. The guides were friendly and knowledgeable and provided us with fresh tropical fruit and after the snorkeling, rum drinks! Our first stop was the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, where we saw all kinds of tropical fish, as well as sharks, rays, turtles, and even a Moray eel! The water is so warm you don’t need a wet suit. There were about fifteen guests on the boat and they split us into three groups of five for the snorkeling. Each group had a guide who would swim with us and point out various sea creatures.
Tip: Ditch your phone when you’re underwater. I find myself so much more in the moment when I’m not distracted with my phone in a watertight case. I like being disconnected from the world above the water and focused solely on the snorkeling. Lots of people I see with phones and GoPros are fiddling with them the whole time instead of enjoying the marine life.
Our next stop was Shark Ray Alley. This is a place where they feed the reef sharks to get them to cluster all around the boat. It’s quite jarring to be in the water and surrounded by so many sharks, but definitely fun.
Tip: Be sure to bring reef safe sunscreen. It’s very hard to find in San Pedro. The tour guides didn’t check and some of the people on the boat had regular sunscreen, but just because you can get away with having the regular stuff doesn’t mean you should be a dick. Even though I was carry on only, I found two small bottles of reef safe sunscreen on Amazon that would fit in my bag.
After the two snorkel stops, we went to Caulker Caye, which is a small island that was split into two parts by Hurricane Hattie in 1961. It’s gorgeous. People say it’s like what San Pedro was like thirty years ago. There are only two streets. We had a couple of hours to explore Caulker Caye and grab lunch. I met a fun Australian couple (not from my boat) while grabbing jerk chicken from a roadside barbecue stand.
The trip back to San Pedro was rainy and bumpy but that just made it more of an adventure. I found myself in the front of the catamaran huddled under a giant tarp with four gregarious oldies from Tennessee, laughing our assess off while we got pelted with rain. We were getting thrown up and down in the air and the tour guy kept saying “almost there” as we searched for land in vain. But when you’re already in a swimsuit and wet and you’ve had a few “panty rippas” (rum and pineapple juice) throughout the day, who cares?
I ate dinner at Waruguma, a restaurant that’s about a 5 min walk from the hotel. They’re known for their pupusas. And they should be, because there is a woman standing in front at the pupusa station making them fresh to order. Lots of locals would walk up and order from her for takeaway. I ordered a bean/cheese/pork pupusa and a shrimp burrito with coconut cream sauce and both were fantastic.
Day 3: Exploring San Pedro
The weather was a little bit iffy on this day, so I spent the morning doing a hotel room workout while it rained, and then ventured out. Working out in a on vacation is a personal choice and I like to do it when I can. Sue me! (But if you’re curious, I highly recommend the Sydney Cummings bodyweight-only strength workouts which are free on YouTube.)
I had breakfast at D Family Cafe, which is very close to the hotel and a local favorite. I had to start off the day with a Belizean breakfast, which consist of fry jack, eggs, bacon, refried beans, and potatoes, and fresh fruit.
Then I visited the touristy San Pedro sign at their Central Park (do not expect anything close to NYC; this is a small town square with a playground).
I also walked through the Eco Iguana Corner, which is a donation-only park created by this really nice guy who loves iguanas. You can walk around the trails and see iguanas all over the place. Because it was overcast, the iguanas were up in the trees. When it’s sunny outside, they’re usually on the ground.
Exploring the town of San Pedro, you come across all kinds of cafes and shops. I wouldn’t expect too much of the coffee here. The shops that sell lattes and such are definitely for tourists and it’s not that great. Belize Chocolate Company is a spot in town that comes up on a lot of lists but I stopped in and it didn’t seem like anything special–that was a pass for me.
I spent the majority of my afternoon in the sunshine at the Sandbar’s pool. Heaven!
Then, ceviche served from a conch shell and a tropical cocktail at the Palapa Bar, which is an over the water bar just steps from the Sandbar. They have a great set up, with chairs overlooking the ocean and floating inner tubes that you can drink in, and even a beer zip line out to the inner tubes! I was just at the regular bar since it was evening, though. They have live music every day at 6 pm and the band was… well, it was a bunch of old white guys in Hawaiian shirts singing songs I’d never heard of before. But maybe on other nights it’s more lively? The bar is mostly expats and tourists from the US, not a lot of locals. But everyone was very friendly.
Tip: If you’re nervous about going to a bar by yourself, especially in the evening, pick somewhere with live music so there’s something to focus on. I’m really not a fan of book and phones at bars. If you wanted to read a book or scroll through your phone you could have just stayed home!
I spent the rest of my evening on a date with a cute Belizean guy I’d met a couple of days earlier and had a grand old time drinking Belikins on the beach under the moonlight.
Day 4: Secret Beach
“Secret Beach” is the worst kept secret on Ambergris Caye. It’s in every travel blog and there are even two huge signs at the beach letting you know you’re there. That said, it’s absolutely worth a trip.
You’ll need to rent a golf cart to get there. My hotel arranged it for me and it ended up costing about $45 for the day. If you rent the cart for a full 24 hours it’s closer to $60 but I wasn’t planning on golf carting around all night long. I chose a pick up time of 9 am and the golf cart was waiting for me outside the hotel at that time along with a nice man who reminded me how to use it. (I had only driven a golf cart once before, on Catalina Island, so needed a bit of a refresher!)
The first thing you have to do once you’re ready to roll is get some gas in there. They give you the golf cart with only a quarter tank, and it’s a 30 min drive each way to Secret Beach. Thankfully there’s a little gas station a few blocks away. And just like in New Jersey, you can’t pump your own gas on Ambergris Caye so thank goodness someone did it for me!
Driving a golf cart is so much fun. They gave me an extra large one with an extra row and I was just one person so I probably should have started a one day taxi service. Golf carting is the main mode of transportation on Ambergris Caye as cars and trucks are very rare. If you go too slow, you can just pull over to the side and the other golf carts or motorbikes can scoot around.
On my way to Secret Beach, I stopped for breakfast at a roadside place that looked quite jungly. I had an excellent breakfast burrito and the proprietor very kindly helped me figure out the lock and the parking brake on my golf cart.
All of the travel blogs tell you to stop for fresh coconut juice on the way to Secret Beach, and the coconut guys on the side of the road will encourage you to stop, waving their arms and shouting and such. I didn’t stop because I had a full breakfast in my belly and it didn’t look like a coconut would fit in my golf cart cup holder, but apparently the place to go is Donovan’s Coconuts. There isn’t really an address for the coconut places, but you’ll definitely see them along the side of the road.
After you get through town, the road to Secret Beach is incredibly bumpy. Imagine a dirt road that is full of huge holes and puddles, and that’s pretty much it. This is part of what makes the drive so fun, though! But if you have a bad back maybe this is a day trip to skip.
Secret Beach is stunning. Crystal clear water that is hip deep for what seems like forever. You can walk and walk and walk out from shore and the water never reaches your belly button. Tropical fish flit around you and the weather is perfect. There are a few beach along the shore and for the price of just one Belikin beer (the cheapest thing on the menu) you can enjoy a cushioned lounge chair, table, umbrella, etc. all day. This is a place that would be great to spend all day with a group of friends. I enjoyed myself for a couple of hours and then was ready to roll.
After the beach I had a late lunch at a Garifuna restaurant in San Pedro called Black and White. According to minorityrights.org, Garifuna are the descendants of an Afro-indigenous population from the Caribbean island of St Vincent who were exiled to the Honduran coast in the eighteenth century and subsequently moved to Belize. I took advantage of the fact that I had the golf cart for a couple more hours to go to this place, because it was on the south side of town and definitely not walkable from my hotel. I was so excited to try Garifuna cuisine and it did not disappoint. I ordered hudut, which is fish cooked in a coconut broth and served with fufu and rice.
After an afternoon rest, I went to dinner at a tiny little local spot called Brianna’s Food Place. It’s a very small restaurant on a side street that only has a few tables. Lots of locals stopped by for takeout while I was there, and the other two tables were occupied by Belizean families. I ordered the stew chicken which is the most famous dish in Belize, and a horchata. My entire meal was just a few US dollars. My table looked out onto the street so I had a nice show of people and doggos going by.
Day 5: Living la vida local
This morning, I took a long walk along the beach to reach the SAGA Human Society, where I had read that you can borrow a dog for a walk. What a great idea! I saw the dogs in their pens but unfortunately the organization was closed that day. Learn more about dog walking here.
Back in town, I stopped by a cafe for an iced coffee and a chunk of banana bread, which is a local favorite. Some restaurants serve banana bread in their bread baskets at dinner! The cafe had a great little patio facing the main drag so I enjoyed some people watching for quite a while. The kids from the nearby elementary school were heading home for lunch so I saw many gold carts whiz by full of little ones in their uniforms.
I had lunch at Elvi’s Kitchen, which is one of the best known spots in San Pedro. I decided to go for lunch because dinner is more expensive and it can be hard to get a table. It’s a cute spot and has sand on the floor even though it isn’t on the beach. I had amazing tacos with pibil, which is a Mayan way or preparing pork. I was excited to try their famous coconut pie, but the waiter told me that Elvi had just taken it out of the oven and it would need at least an hour to cool before they could cut it. Wtf!
I decided to check out Annie’s Pasteleria but to be honest, the pastries weren’t that great. I don’t think Belize is much of a dessert place. But that’s ok because there is so much delicious tropical fruit everywhere!
That afternoon, I met up with Catalina, a friend I had made on my first night in Belize, and we spent the rest of the day (and all night) bar hopping, meeting up with other friends, and having various adventures. There’s nothing like zipping around in a golf cart on sandy roads belting out songs with new friends at midnight! I made another friend who was on the run from the Mexican police for various reasons, but that’s another story. Needless to say he was flying directly to Canada from Belize to avoid the US. Fun! I’m now the proud owner of a hot pink San Diego Padres hat that Catalina insisted I keep. As much fun as that night was, I also really enjoyed learning about Catalina and her family and her life in Belize.
Tip: Open yourself to opportunities and see where the night takes you! Nothing beats meeting and befriending locals (not just other tourists) and getting a taste of a place.
Day 6: Snorkeling and the Shotzski King
I had breakfast at Cool Beans, which is an over the water cafe. There’s something so lovely about strolling down the beach in the morning, walking out onto a pier, and then taking a seat right next to the water while pelicans swoop around you.
That afternoon, I went on a second snorkeling trip. This was a half day trip with Chuck and Robbie’s Dive Shop. This spot is a stone’s throw from the hotel. On this trip, we went to Mexico Rocks, which is a place along the northern part of the reef. It’s pretty shallow and you can see all kinds of incredible tropical fish and rays. Our boat only had ten people and we were split into two groups, each with a guide.
I made friends with a guy who was headed out on a diving trip while we were both waiting on the dock at Chuck and Robbie’s, and ran into him again when I was back at the Sandbar for happy hour. Turns out he was staying there too! So we had a great chat and ended up creating our own “Taco Wednesday” at the bar. Scott was super cool and hails from Idaho but travels all over the world to dive. He also owns Shotzski.com so check it out!
Day 7: R&R
The sun, the swimming, and the shots wore me out a little bit so I spent this day relaxing. Nice long walks along the beach and lots of sunny pool time.
I walked to a little smoothie shop in town and I’m so glad I did. I ordered a coconut, lime, pineapple, ginger concoction and it was delicious. The smoothie guy’s daughter was hanging out there and she taught me a secret handshake and invited me to her birthday party.
The day before, I was chatting with some locals who were cleaning their lobster catch in their boat, and I asked them about the best place to eat lobster.
I can’t believe it was my last full day in Belize and I hadn’t yet tried the lobster! San Pedro even has a lobster festival! They recommended a spot called Caramba but it had been closed that day. So tonight was my last chance to check it out. Caramba is right in San Pedro and they have a big fish market right in front of the restaurant so you can select what seafood you want to eat and then have it prepared to order. How cool is that?
I chose a lobster tail and a reef snapper, and along with the side dishes and a Belikin beer, the total bill was $45 USD. Wowww! This was definitely my most expensive meal in Belize but well worth it. This restaurant is very popular, mostly with tourists, but definitely worth a stop.
Friday, Jan 13: Snap back to reality, oh there goes gravity
Leaving a tropical vacation when you don’t want to is the worst!
On my way to the San Pedro airport, I stopped for breakfast and tried another Belizean dish called salbutes. They’re kind of like mini tostadas. Delicious! The airport is tiny and my boarding pass was basically a laminated ad for Landshark beer. You’re called out by group and each group is about ten people because that’s the amount of people on each little plane. I got to sit in the copilot seat which was an incredible view!
Things I researched that looked good but I didn’t have time to try:
Pupseria Salvadoreno: Another no fuss restaurant full of delicious cheap eats on Middle Street. They serve up tasty pupusas and local dishes like stew chicken, rice and beans, and seafood.
Chicken shit bingo at Wahoo Lounge: There are two competing chicken shit bingo nights! Wahoo is the more well known one, but Estel’s was much closer to my hotel and also more low key. Locals come to play too!
Mariachi Night at Iguana John’s: This looked really fun but I just didn’t make it.
Truck Stop: This is a recommended tourist destination in San Pedro but honestly it didn’t seem that appealing. It’s just a food stall park made out of container units and if you’ve been to any US city you’ve probably already been to one. Also, why go all the way to Belize to eat a pizza or some other cuisine that isn’t local? I drove by the Truck Stop on my way to Secret Beach and was glad I skipped it. It’s also too far to walk from the town so you’d need a golf cart to get there.
Crab races at Nauti Crab: Hermit crab racing!
Interesting foods you can eat: Iguana, armadillo, gibnut (called the royal rat because Queen Elizabeth ate it when she visited), cashew wine. I didn’t see any of these on any menus, though.
Helpful travel planning links:
