18 Best Things to Do in Belize

Lush rain­forests, pris­tine beach­es, ancient Mayan cities, flo­ra and fau­na, and a long bar­ri­er reef (the sec­ond largest in the world) are just some of the attrac­tions that draw trav­el­ers to Belize.

Things to do in Belize

Sand­wiched between Mex­i­co and Guatemala, the tiny and eclec­tic coun­try of Belize has become a pop­u­lar tourism des­ti­na­tion in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. For a beach hol­i­day, there is white sand, blue water and a com­fort­able tem­per­a­ture all year round. There are hotels of dif­fer­ent lev­els of com­fort on the coast, many of them work on an all-inclu­sive basis.

Fans of snor­kel­ing, div­ing, surf­ing and fish­ing choose one of the many islands. Almost every piece of land has a base with equip­ment and expe­ri­enced instruc­tors.

Belize is the only Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

Archae­ol­o­gists esti­mate that over a mil­lion Maya lived in present-day Belize and flour­ished dur­ing the Clas­sic Peri­od from 300 AD to 900 AD. Tem­ples and ruins of ancient cities await lovers of his­to­ry and archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions. In addi­tion to the ruins, Belize has one of the most com­plex cave sys­tems in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca — these are real trea­sure troves of geo­log­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal won­ders.

This is a par­adise for nature lovers. Belize is home to rare wildlife and 40% of the land is clas­si­fied as a pro­tect­ed area. It is home to many species of plants, birds, amphib­ians, rep­tiles and marine life. Belize is also the only coun­try in the world that has a jaguar sanc­tu­ary.

natural attractions

Great Blue Hole and Barrier Reef

The nat­ur­al attrac­tions of Belize attract thou­sands of tourists and div­ing enthu­si­asts. Fame for the “blue hole” was brought in 1972 by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, mak­ing it one of the TOP 10 best places to explore the under­wa­ter world and div­ing. It appeared as a result of the flood­ing of a sys­tem of lime­stone caves. Here you can observe the life of nurse sharks and reef sharks.

The Belize bar­ri­er reef itself, in which the “blue hole” is locat­ed, is under the pro­tec­tion of UNESCO. More than 130 thou­sand trav­el­ers come here every year, attract­ed by the unique ecosys­tem, blue waters, rare species of marine ani­mals and a karst cave.

Aktun Tunichil Muknal

Trans­lat­ed from the local lan­guage, the name of this attrac­tion is trans­lat­ed as “cave of the crys­tal girl.” It is locat­ed near the city of San Igna­cio. Inside the cave there are sev­er­al more small caves and grot­toes, many of which are half filled with water.

In addi­tion, Aktun Tunichil Muk­nal is an archae­o­log­i­cal site that has pre­served traces of Mayan life. Here they found sev­er­al skele­tons, among which were chil­dren. They are cov­ered with salt crys­tals and look like crys­tal. The most famous find is the remains of a girl who was sac­ri­ficed by the Maya.

Kay Kolker

Tourists come to a small island 33 kilo­me­ters from Belize City in search of peace, and local res­i­dents (only 500 peo­ple) do not inter­fere with this.

Hol­i­days on Cay Caulk­er are so seclud­ed that every­one can feel part of a unique nature. Vaca­tion­ers come to the island to go snor­kel­ing or admire the pel­i­cans in the sun.

Rio Hondo River

The largest riv­er in the coun­try, the length of which is 150 kilo­me­ters. This is a nat­ur­al bor­der between two states — Belize and Mex­i­co. Since ancient times, the riv­er has been used to float cut down forests along it. Cur­rent­ly, such fish­ing is pro­hib­it­ed in order to main­tain a favor­able eco­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the region.

Dur­ing exca­va­tions, archae­ol­o­gists dis­cov­ered sev­er­al set­tle­ments along the coast of the riv­er that belonged to the Mayan civ­i­liza­tion, who lived here long before Colum­bus dis­cov­ered the main­land.

Ambergris Cay

The largest island of Belize is 40 kilo­me­ters long and 15 kilo­me­ters wide. The island owes its unusu­al name to the enthu­si­ast who first dis­cov­ered that a large amount of amber­gris, a valu­able waste prod­uct of sperm whales, is nailed to its shores.

Ini­tial­ly, there was no one here except the fish­er­men. How­ev­er, since the 70s, the first tourists began to appear on the island. They real­ized that to the largest reef, locat­ed in the west­ern hemi­sphere from here — just noth­ing (200 meters).

reserves

Crooked Tree (Crooked Tree)

The most famous nature reserve in Belize, which is home to a wide vari­ety of birds. It is locat­ed very well — around four lagoons forty kilo­me­ters from the city of Orange Wolf. To get here, you can order a canoe tour and use the ser­vices of a guide.

A rare rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Crooked Tree is the Brazil­ian yabiru stork. It is in order to look at it that not only tourists, but also ornithol­o­gists come here.

Babun

To get acquaint­ed with rare species of ani­mals, you can vis­it the Babun reserve, which is locat­ed 30 km from Belize City. It was opened at the ini­tia­tive of local farm­ers. It is here that you can see the most famous mon­key — the black howler mon­key. The reserve is also home to igua­nas, cougars, 200 species of exot­ic birds, and the endan­gered riv­er tur­tle.

Vis­i­tors to the park can book a hike or rent a canoe to trav­el along the tur­bu­lent Belize Riv­er. You can get to the reserve with a tour or bus from Belize City.

coxcombe

The main val­ue of this park is the South Amer­i­can jaguar, the pop­u­la­tion of which the cre­ators of Cox­combe strive to pre­serve. The reserve also grows a large num­ber of plants list­ed in the Red Book. Also on the ter­ri­to­ry of Cockscombe, sci­en­tists reg­u­lar­ly orga­nize ornitho­log­i­cal research.

You can get to the reserve in half an hour from the city of Stan Creek. But not the entire park is open to the pub­lic — some areas, in par­tic­u­lar, dense­ly forest­ed areas, are pro­hib­it­ed from view­ing.

City attractions

belize city

The for­mer cap­i­tal of Belize was built under the British colo­nial­ists. This is the largest city of the state, divid­ed by the Oulover Riv­er into two parts — south­ern and north­ern. A bridge is thrown across the riv­er, on both sides of which there are beau­ti­ful embank­ments.

Among the sights of the ex-cap­i­tal, St. John’s Cathe­dral is not­ed — a tem­ple that was built back in the colo­nial era. It is believed that the church is the old­est in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca (its con­struc­tion began in the XIX cen­tu­ry). Tourists are also inter­est­ed in the ancient ceme­tery on the ter­ri­to­ry of the cathe­dral.

Often trav­el­ers vis­it the Supreme Court Build­ing and Bat­tle Field Park, the Belize Muse­um and Fort George.

Belmopan

A small peace­ful town is the cur­rent cap­i­tal of Belize. The con­struc­tion of Bel­mopan was start­ed in the 70s of the last cen­tu­ry. For 12 years, absolute­ly all the sights that now attract tourists have appeared here.

In Bel­mopan they vis­it the build­ing of the Nation­al Assem­bly on Inde­pen­dence Hill, the Uni­ver­si­ty and the mar­ket. It will take no more than an hour to see all the sights.

San Ignacio Cayo

The cap­i­tal of the Cayo region is locat­ed on the banks of the Macal Riv­er. In the neigh­bor­hood of San Igna­cio there is anoth­er small pol­i­cy — San­ta Ele­na. The two towns coex­ist so har­mo­nious­ly that the bound­aries between them are not notice­able.

Of the attrac­tions in San Igna­cio, you should pay atten­tion to the bridge over the Hawkesworth Riv­er. Tourists also seek to see the ruins of the ancient Maya — the remains of the city of Cahal Pech, Xunan­tu­nich and Karakol.

Image Factory Gallery of Contemporary Art

The gallery was found­ed in 1995 in Belize City. Art con­nois­seurs will sure­ly like the expo­si­tions of con­tem­po­rary artists and sculp­tors of the state. Often employ­ees arrange exhi­bi­tions and open recep­tions with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of cre­ative teams, painters. Guests are served cock­tails, they offer guide ser­vices.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the gallery there are small shops that sell sou­venirs, books and gifts.

Ancient monuments of architecture

Cahal Pech

The Cajal Pech com­plex is locat­ed in the Belize Val­ley, near San Igna­cio. The ancient set­tle­ment was aban­doned by peo­ple in the 9th cen­tu­ry for unknown rea­sons. Archae­ol­o­gists found it only in the 50s of the last cen­tu­ry.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the old­est city of the Mayan civ­i­liza­tion, which occu­pies more than 25 square meters. km, there are 34 build­ings: tem­ples, a bath­house, palaces, res­i­den­tial and out­build­ings. A field for play­ing ball was also found. Most of the ruins are avail­able to tourists for free vis­it­ing.

caracol

The archae­o­log­i­cal mon­u­ment was dis­cov­ered by lum­ber­jacks in the 30s of the last cen­tu­ry. Once upon a time, more than 140,000 peo­ple lived on the ter­ri­to­ry of one of the old­est Mayan set­tle­ments. At the site of the ruins, many hid­ing places, tombs, dams, baths, res­i­den­tial build­ings and a unique irri­ga­tion sys­tem were dis­cov­ered.

Cara­col is locat­ed in the Cayo region in south­ern Belize. The scale of the build­ings impress­es even our con­tem­po­raries with their size and archi­tec­ture: only the city square in diam­e­ter reached 20 kilo­me­ters. The ancient city itself sur­pass­es the mod­ern cap­i­tal of Belize in area.

There is a muse­um on the ter­ri­to­ry of the com­plex, where trav­el­ers can get acquaint­ed with the most impor­tant and inter­est­ing arti­facts: jade jew­el­ry, a col­lec­tion of ceram­ics and weapons.

Altun-ha

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the archae­o­log­i­cal site is the famous “Tem­ple of Stone Altars”, the image of which has become the trade­mark of local beer. Before the advent of archae­ol­o­gists, local res­i­dents used the stone blocks of the ancient set­tle­ment to build the vil­lage of Rock­stone Pond.

The start of exca­va­tions in 1965 helped stop the plun­der and destruc­tion of the Mayan set­tle­ment, which made it pos­si­ble to make sev­er­al out­stand­ing dis­cov­er­ies about the life of civ­i­liza­tion and dis­cov­er unique arti­facts. One of them became the nation­al trea­sure of Belize — this is a huge jade image of the sun deity.

queyo

On a hill between the Rio Hon­do and the New Riv­er, west of the city of Orange Walk, are the ruins of one of the old­est set­tle­ments of the Mayan civ­i­liza­tion. The name of the area itself comes from the name of the own­er of the farm, which was locat­ed near­by.

Accord­ing to archae­ol­o­gists, the first set­tlers appeared here in 2500 BC. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the ancient city, unique tem­ples, pyra­mids, palaces, res­i­den­tial build­ings and buri­als were dis­cov­ered. Queyo is the first Maya set­tle­ment where clay was used to plas­ter the walls in the con­struc­tion of build­ings.

Jew­el­ry, pot­tery, pre­cious stones and pearls found dur­ing exca­va­tions have become wor­thy exhibits of muse­ums in Belize.

Lamanai

The ruins of one of the old­est set­tle­ments and cer­e­mo­ni­al cen­ters. Its name is trans­lat­ed from the Mayan lan­guage as “drowned croc­o­dile”. Lamanai is locat­ed 60 km from the cap­i­tal of Belize. Unlike their oth­er cities, the Maya left it only in the 16th-17th cen­turies, when the Spaniards land­ed on the coast.

It is rec­om­mend­ed to start explor­ing the ter­ri­to­ry from the Tem­ple of the Jaguar, which with its out­lines resem­bles the grin of a preda­tor. You can not miss the High Tem­ple, which is locat­ed a short dis­tance away. From the top of this pyra­mid, an unfor­get­table view of the riv­er and the lush jun­gle opens up, hid­ing it from the eyes of strangers. Trav­el­ers com­plete the route by vis­it­ing the Tem­ple of the Mask, where the stone bas-relief of a huge head strikes the imag­i­na­tion.

Shunantunich

The main attrac­tion of the ancient Mayan set­tle­ment of the clas­si­cal peri­od is the El Castil­lo pyra­mid, 40 meters high. You can find the mon­u­ment 130 km from Belize City, on top of a ridge with impres­sive views of the Mopan Riv­er val­ley.

Accord­ing to archae­ol­o­gists, the tem­ple was built in two stages and was the cen­ter of the city. The stepped ter­races are dec­o­rat­ed with fine stuc­co, and the sur­viv­ing bas-reliefs depict the birth of God, the roy­al fam­i­ly, and the Tree of Life. Only rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the elite and the rul­ing caste could get here and per­form the rit­u­al of sac­ri­fice.