It's UnBelizeable!

I stumbled quite accidentally upon Belize, when a long-planned trip to Costa Rica went awry. There were no seats available on any flights for almost a week, and my friends and I had to run down the airport concourse to find an alternate destination. We chose Belize because the flight was about to leave, and it had empty seats. And boy, were we surprised! I had read a few books on Belize. Heard a few stories. Something about inner-tubing in caves, some dry jungle, and a few overcrowded islands out on the reef.

Belize turned out to be the most impressive little destination I've stumbled across in the past decade of travel! It's a peaceful, English-speaking country with the flavor of both Latin America and the Caribbean. It's small enough to get around easily and quickly. The scenery varies from staggering, pine-topped mountain ridges to mysterious, steaming rainforest, to picture-perfect palm-fringed beach. Each within an hour of the other!

The currency is a breeze for Americans. will always be . And while Belize is expensive compared to travel in Mexico or Guatemala, it's still a bargain compared to ruinously pricey places like Europe and the Caribbean. Decent guesthouses or hotels won't ever cost you more than for a night, and you can get by comfortably on MUCH less.

You can easily see the highlights of the entire country in a week, which is rare, at least in my book. In seven days you can visit Mayan ruins (even the spectacular Tikal in Guatemala), go cave rafting or canoeing, whizz along zip lines in a canopy tour (for half the cost of those in Costa Rica!), camp in a jaguar reserve in search of the elusive tiger, stay in a self-sufficient rainforest lodge, and go snorkeling or diving on the world's second largest barrier reef. Where else in the world can you have a vacation this varied, for this price?

The answer is...nowhere.

Quick Tips:

Visit Belize in the off season. This is my catchphrase to all travelers. There is never any excuse for visiting a destination during the peak season, unless you specifically are going for a special event (like Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, Carnival, etc.)

In Belize, the off season is the wet season (or Green Season), which is May-November. Unlike Costa Rica, where high mountain ranges bring monsoon rains almost every day in the Green Season, wet season in Belize is simply the hurricane season. So it's entirely possible for you to visit an entire week during October and not get a single drop. Still, most travelers to Belize come December-April, with a second rush from May-August. This means your target time should be September and October.

Many guidebooks state that American credit cards cannot be used in Belize ATMs and to take lots of cash. And while cash certainly is more convenient than cards (most establishments charge up to 10% extra when -and if- they take cards) there are now ATMs in San Ignacio, Belize City, and San Pedro that accept US credit cards. Take several hundred cash with you, and use ATMs for the rest.

Best Way To Get Around:

As a budget traveler, it's hard for me to recommend car rental to anyone. In Belize, there are only a handful of roads, and most are serviced by regular buses. So it's entirely possible to get around on buses, and to get to more remote destinations on guided tours. (Many destinations in Belize are ONLY available with a guide, like the caves.)

However, you will get to experience much more in a short time if you have your own vehicle. You can rent a 4WD that will seat 4 adults for around a week in the wet season, not including insurance. That's not bad if you have 4 people to split the bill. But if it's just two of you...or even worse, just one...you'll likely end up busing.

Not to worry. When it comes down to it, you'll either be sleeping in San Ignacio or on the Cayes for most nights, and it's quite simple and cheap to get there without a rental car. See the TRANSPORTATION section for more information.

In the old edition of the guesthouse are several basic rooms with a shared bath, which you can get for around $15 single and $20 double in the high season (a little less in low season).

A new addition to the guesthouse offers rooms with private bath and hot water (sometimes!), and you can get these for around $25.

The hotel is basic, but there are a few decorative touches to the rooms. The best feature of the guesthouse is the large number of comfy balconies and common rooms throughout.

It's a block from the center of San Ignacio, right above a grocery store, and within a block of the best restaurant in town, Erva's (NOT Eva's!). For a budget place to sleep in San Ignacio, with a nice international backpacker crowd, the Hi-Et can't be beat!

However, as Hurricane Wilma was forcing coastal Belizeans inland, I found myself in the rare predicament of not being able to find a room in San Ignacio. The Venus Hotel was my last resort.

And I was pleasantly surprised. The rooms were lovely, the loveliest I found in Belize, with tiled floors and private baths with glass-block showers. And real hot water! Unfortunately, the hot water here is provided by the frightening electrical contraptions that screw onto the shower head. It's always disconcerting to see a bare electrical cord running into the water supply of your shower. Nevertheless, I've yet to be shocked by one of these frightening contraptions, and they work, as long as the water volume isn't turned too high.

The Venus Hotel sits right on the main drag in San Ignacio, about a block beyond Eva's Restaurant. Their back balcony overlooks the city square, the fruit market, and the river beyond.

Most rooms comes with ceiling fans, private bath, and cable TV, and some even have A/C. Expect to pay around $30 for a double room with a private bath without a/c.

If you don't like the idea of a guesthouse but you're operating on a budget, the Venus Hotel is for you! They take credit cards if you're running low on cash.

The Reef's End Resort is the most expensive property on the island. Don't let that fool you into thinking it's actually a RESORT. Every lodging on Tobacco Caye gets their electricity from solar power and/or generators, their cooking water from rainfall, their plumbing water from crude desalination, and their bottled drinking water by boat from the mainland. These are crude lodgings, even if they are expensive by Belize standards.

The Reef's End offers three charming cottages on the beach with private bath and eight rooms with private bath in the main lodge. The water is always cold, except during the hot days, when it heats up in the pipes. Electricity is turned on generally in the early mornings and evenings until around 2am.

Like on Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye, the smell coming from your bathroom which you THINK is sewage is actually crudely desalinated ocean water, so don't freak out. Though it is somewhat unpleasant, you'll get the same water in all but the extreme luxury resorts on Ambergris Caye.

The food at the Reef's End was tasty. Breakfast is served around 6:30am (sounds early, but the sun rises at 4am!), lunch is around noon, and dinner is at 6:30pm. It's served family-style, and don't expect seconds, but it's usually enough. You'll have to buy bottled water, beer, or sodas. Breakfast includes a good juice, but lunch and dinner are served with a barely palatable artificial lemonade.

Looking back on it, I'd have rather stayed in a different property on the island. This is a RUSTIC place, and for the price we payed at this resort, I expected far more. You get just a little less at the other resorts for a MUCH smaller price. Don't worry if you can't get ahold of the other resorts by phone. Just show up at the dock in Dangriga and the boatmen will help you find a place.

Expect to pay around $75 per person per night at the Reef's End, including transportation to the island.

This gleaming new structure has fun, funky architectural elements that really make it charming. The rooms are spacious and airy, with private baths and hot water. Some even have A/C!

The crowning glory is a rooftop terrace with a thatched palapa roof and hammocks, all overlooking the magnificent lake and surrounding hills, and the beautifully ramshackle city below.

We paid $11 per night for a double room without A/C. Add around $10 per night if you want that luxury. No credit cards!

Breakfast is served down the street at Dona Goya I, and you can visit my Tikal Guide for other restaurant recommendations in Flores.

Nevertheless, should you choose to eat here, you can have burgers (around $3), pizza ($8), fresh fish ($6), Mexican ($4), and traditional Belizean chicken, black beans, and rice ($3).

Eva's is centrally located on the main drag in San Ignacio and is the headquarters for Pacz Tours, which we recommend over the giant Mayawalk Tours right across the street. Pacz is cheaper, the guides are better, and they've been doing it longer.

Please take note that this is ERva's Restaurant, not Eva's!

Erva's claims to have the best pizza in Belize, and we believe them! A huge pie with lots of home-grown vegetable toppings is around $9 and will feed four if you get an appetizer.

The waiter will usually tell you what's fresh, but if he doesn't, ask him. They'll usually feature something they just got in, like conch fritters and conch chowder or fresh red snapper. If you are lucky enough to visit when they're serving conch fritters, you absolutely MUST order them. They're the best I've ever had, by FAR, and I'm a connoisseur!

Erva's has a stupendous breakfast, with the best fry jacks I had in Belize. Fry Jacks are little fried pillows of dough, like a Mexican sopaipilla. They usually eat them with the eggs and black beans that are served, but I normally ask for a little honey and my fry jacks last. I get funny looks, but BOY is it heavenly.

Breakfast costs around $3 and is served with fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, black beans, plantains, fresh squeezed juice, and real brewed coffee, something hard to find in San Ignacio!

I ate five meals in a row at Erva's once I finally discovered it and will quite likely eat there for every meal again when I get back to San Ignacio.

Still, you should eat at least one meal here. It's a small place, with only eight tables, so the wait can be long in the evenings after 7pm.

Hannah's serves a good menu of traditional Belizean food (stewed chicken, white rice, and black beans) for around $3. They also have a selection of curries for around $4. The standard burgers and fish plates are also available, usually around $5.

In the mornings, Hannah's offers a complete breakfast for about $4. It comes with eggs cooked to order, refried black beans, fry jacks (like sopaipillas), fresh-squeezed juice, and coffee or tea. Be sure to ask for some of their featured rain-forest honey to put on your fry jacks. It's unreal.

Hannah's serves only until 9pm, which is a little earlier than most restaurants in town.

Nefry's is right in the center of everything and offers outdoor dining and indoor dining in a room that overlooks the central square and market.

Like most of the other restaurants in town, they serve traditional Belizean food, curries, American food, and pizzas. Their prices are pretty much the same as everywhere else, except for their specialty Mediterranean and Moroccan dishes, which are fabulous and can run up to $10.

Breakfast is decent, but Hannah's and Erva's are much better and a little cheaper.

You can take a half-day excursion there from San Ignacio for around $15 if you don't have a car. If you are fortunate enough to have a vehicle, drive west on western highway for a few miles. You'll see a small brown sign on the right hand side just past a long line of handicraft stalls that points to the ruin. You drive down a steep gravel road to the Mopan River, where you board a free hand-winched ferry that will take your car across the river. Tip the ferry man!

Another mile straight uphill is the entrance to the site, where you pay $5 to enter. The site is small, with the central focus being El Castillo, a massive pyramid that crowns the top of the mountain. It's breathtaking! There are panels of elaborate friezes across the sides, and climbing to the top will leave you tired and breathless and reward you with spectacular views.

You can climb around on several smaller pyramid structures, poke through the jungle to find some unexcavated structures, and stroll through the visitor center to see carvings and statues.

On your way out, when you get across the ferry you'll be swarmed with slate carvers hawking their wares. I can say, as a person who never buys trinkets when I travel, that you'll regret not purchasing one of these carvings! They are magnificent. You can get Mayan calendars in all sizes, carvings of Mayan gods, jungle animals, and even carved maps of Belize. You can bargain if you're good at it, and it will work. I purchased a stunning Mayan Calendar 18 inches across, which sits on its own carved slate stand, for $30 after the artist originally quoted me $75 for it. A friend who works at a local gallery offered me $600 for it, but it's too beautiful to give up, even for that profit margin!

In another decade, when you ask the same historian the same question, he'll say Caracol (Belize).

The reasons are simple. Caracol is bigger than any other ancient Mayan city and probably far bigger than archaeologists presently believe it is. Caracol was stronger than the other Mayan city states. They conquered Tikal and sacrificed its king.

The reason Caracol isn't as widely recognized as Tikal or Palenque is quite simply because it's in the middle of nowhere. It's a good 2- to 3-hour drive down a terrible bumpy road from San Ignacio, and there's no town anywhere nearby. A British mahogany hunter stumbled across some of the pyramids back in the 18th century, but Caracol wasn't truly discovered until the 1930s, and excavation didn't begin until the 1980s.

Archeaologists were stunned when they discovered how massive Caracol was. It once had a population of over 150,000 (more than half of Belize's population today!). There are more than 30,000 individually documented structures, far more than in Tikal. Yet still only an estimated 10% of the site has been mapped!

The best news is that if you join a guided trip to Caracol from San Ignacio (around $40), you'll likely share the massive complex with a handful of tourists on your bus. If you have a high-clearance vehicle (4WD in the wet season) and you visit in the afternoon, you'll likely have the place ENTIRELY to yourself.

You can't experience that anywhere else on earth, people! Caracol is a site on the scale of Tikal, Chichen Itza, Macchu Picchu, the Pyramids, or Petra. And all those other sites are overrun with thousands of tourists every single day. At Caracol, you can easily be the only visitors in the entire complex.

While only a fraction of Caracol is excavated and restored, the crowning glory of the site is Caana, a massive pyramid temple that is STILL the highest building in Belize, though it's over 1,300 years old. It's so big that when you stand at the bottom and look up, you can't see the THREE OTHER PYRAMIDS that are built on top of it!

It's a tough climb, but there are levels to stop and relax, exploring chambers and walkways on your way to the top.

Once you're there, you will be treated to one of the best views in all of Central America. Miles of jungle-shrouded ridges roll off in either direction. Flocks of green parrots will scream overhead. And howler monkeys will screech in the jungle below you.

Give yourself an entire day to reach Caracol (with a few stops along the way). You'll pay around $8 to enter the site. Leave the site with at least an hour of daylight left to return to San Ignacio, and watch for jaguars on the road!

San Ignacio sits just a few minutes from the Guatemala border and only a few hours' drive from Tikal, which is close enough to lure most travelers who have the time and the money.

There are three ways to do it: on your own, with a shuttle service, or on a guided tour.

If you want to visit Tikal on your own (by far the best option), you'll need a rental car that can cross the border. The only rental company in Belize that permits this currently is Crystal Rental (http://www.crystal-belize.com/). A little Spanish will help, as the border crossing can be confusing. The vehicle must be sprayed with insecticide ($10), and you'll pay around $30 for an importation tax, in addition to your own immigration charges into Guatemala, an exit tax of $17.50 from Belize, and a $5 bridge crossing fee just beyond the border.

Make sure you have a good map, and resist the temptation to turn right into the main area of Melchor de Mencos, the first town in Guatemala. The road to Tikal (currently unpaved at this section) goes straight ahead up the hill, even though it looks like an alley.

I suggest that you try to arrive at Tikal (an hour and a half or more once you cross the border) after 3pm. Your $15 admission ticket will be stamped for the next day, so you get 2 days' admission for the price of one.

The hike into the site takes about 45 minutes at a relaxed pace from the parking lot. Many local guides will offer their (expensive) services, and you'll get more out of your trip with a guide if you can afford one.

Poke around the Great Plaza for a bit, then watch the sunset from the Great Pyramid in the Mundo Perdido (Lost World). Make sure you have a flashlight for the long, dark hike back to the car.

Spend the night in Flores, a 1-hour drive from Tikal. It's an enchanting little village on an island in the middle of Lago Peten Itza. Expect to pay around $10 to $15 for a nice room--the Hospedaje Dona Goya II is recommended.

Spend the next day back in Tikal visiting the outer ruins, the Central Acropolis, and the Bat Palace. Leave early enough to drive back to the border in daylight so you don't hit any people or animals on the road (a real danger)! Some people sleep in the road, and I'm not joking!

The Guatemala border crossing closes at 9pm!

A shuttle service from San Ignacio provides transport to Tikal, then to Flores, back to Tikal the next day, and back to San Ignacio. You'll pay around $75 to $100 for transportation alone.

A fully guided tour to Tikal from San Ignacio can run $300, all expenses included.

Most people visit Barton Creek on a day trip from San Ignacio, which costs around $30, not including admission to the site ($10 per person). But if you have your own car, you can drive out to the site, pay a few bucks to rent a canoe, and tag along with an already scheduled trip. Just ask the guide; he'll be happy to pocket the extra dollars and show you around.

The trip is usually undergone in a canoe, unless the creek is high enough to float in a tube. High-powered spotlights are loaded into the canoe, and you practice rowing upstream to the cave entrance.

Once inside, you'll paddle for 30 minutes through impressive galleries of stalactites and past a genuine human skull placed by the Maya to scare off intruders.

At some point your guide will stop and haul the canoes up onto dry ground, and you'll continue into the cave on foot with headlamps to view ancient Mayan pottery and ceremonial artifacts.

If you're planning on visiting any other caves in Belize, like Actun Tunichil Muknal, or cave tubing on the Caves Branch River, visit Barton Creek FIRST, as it will be more exciting for you.

If you're not planning on doing any of the more extreme caving trips in Belize, do yourself the favor of vising Barton Creek. It'll be something you never forget.

Actun Tunichil Muknal is a sacred Mayan ceremonial cave. It translates as "Cave of the Stone Sepulchre," and there is a reason for this name... but more on that later.

The cave was discovered in the mid 1980s by an archaeologist who was shell-shocked by the number of artifacts and human remains within. It was explored, mapped, catalogued, and 98% of the artifacts are still inside. The cave, in terms of natural beauty, puts any American cave to shame, and I'm a caver by hobby, so I can say that! This, combined with the high adventure facet and the Mayan artifacts, makes this a priceless epic trip, the likes of which I really have yet to encounter on any of the 7 continents.

Because of its delicate natural and historic beauty, only two San Ignacio guide companies are authorized to lead trips into ATM: Pacz Tours (headquartered in Eva's Restaurant and the most recommended) and Mayawalk Tours (across the street from Eva's, more expensive and not as good). If you book with Pacz, try to get Juan Carlos as your guide. He's the best. Tours are $65 in the low season if you pay in cash with Pacz and $75 in the high season, including transportation and lunch.

There's an hour of driving to reach the cave through the beautiful Roaring River Valley, where the Progressive Mennonites produce almost 80% of Belize's agriculture.

Then you enter the archaeological park, which protects Actun Tunichil Muknal, and your hike begins.

It's a mile and a half to the cave, and you'll cross the Roaring River on foot three times. You'll likely see some wildlife, often the deadly Fer de Lance snake. If you're lucky, your guide will let you taste termites (they taste like carrots!), wild limes, pineapples, and habanero peppers on the way.

At the cave entrance you'll eat lunch and swim in the deep, clear pool. Then the trip begins.

You'll thrash upstream for an hour, sometimes in cold water up to your shoulders, through narrow cracks and up small waterfalls. Sometimes your guide may have you turn off your light, and the group will proceed hand in hand in total darkness. Exciting and scary!

Then you'll scramble up a cliff, remove your shoes, and enter the ceremonial level of the cave where there are hundreds of pots and human sacrificial remains. This section of the cave is profusely decorated as well.

The climax of the cave is a visit to the its namesake, a tiny chamber that hides an entire human skeleton, coated in calcite crystals. It's breathtaking and quite creepy.

The government is considering closing ATM for lots of reasons. It's dangerous. It's delicate. So go now while you still can!

More photos in "How To Do Belize."

On the way to the cave you pass a sign for Twin Cave and Nature Trail. Continue ahead to the parking lot. Walk a minute down the paved path until your jaw drops to the ground; that's how you know you've arrived.

The massive, yawning entrance to the Rio Frio cave is overwhelming. A trail leads up the slope and into the cave's mouth, where you can clamber around in its massive chamber, which is well-lit by sunlight. A large pool of water covers most of the giant chamber.

Continuing down the path you'll see the other entrance to the cave on the far side of the mountain. Basically, the Rio Frio formed this cave as a shortcut instead of having to wind around the ridge. Damn lazy river!

Unless you have climbing equipment or want to swim, you can't walk into one entrance and out the other. To visit the far entrance, you'll need to take the Twin Cave Nature Trail you passed on the way in.

A flashlight is helpful here but not necessary. There's no entrance fee and no need for a guide. Rio Frio Cave is one of the few caves in Belize that you are welcome to explore on your own.

If you don't have a vehicle to get down here, you can book a Mountain Pine Ridge tour from San Ignacio. For around $30 you'll spend the afternoon exploring Rio Frio Cave and swimming in the waterfalls of the Rio On. Most tours to Caracol also stop at Rio Frio Cave.

CAR

When you rent a car, it's a good idea to get high-clearance, at the minimum, and 4WD if possible. Because you were smart and took my advice to visit in the rainy season, and because you're going to USE your vehicle to get you places that most tourists can't go, you're going to need that versatility. I recommend Crystal Rental. They have an office right at the airport, and they're the only rental company that will give you a permission slip to take the car into Guatemala--a must if you're wanting to visit Tikal on your own.

Gas is expensive in Belize, like $5 per gallon in late 2005. Insurance isn't included in the basic rate, and you can expect to pay around $350 for a week in a small SUV.

BUS

There are only a few highways in Belize, and all are serviced by buses. They are slow, hot, and uncomfortable, but you'll rarely be on a bus for more than 4 hours, even on the longest hauls. There are a few "luxury coaches," which are more comfortable, faster, and more expensive. But it's only about $4 to get from Belize City to San Ignacio on the regular bus, so we're not talking super-expensive anyway.

You can flag down buses on any main highway, or walk a mile or so and you'll come to a bus stop where others will be waiting.

BOAT

The budget travelers take boats to the Cayes. From the pier in Belize City (near the cruise ship terminal), boats leave for Ambergris Caye (San Pedro) and Caye Caulker regularly from 8am to 5pm (sometimes later). Expect to pay around $20 for a round-trip ticket to either island. Boat service to the middle and southern Cayes is usually included in your hotel rate but averages around $40 per person to places like Tobacco Caye.

PLANE

Some folks like to fly to Ambergris Caye or Caye Caulker, and I do admit that the view is nice. I'd recommend, if you have the cash, to fly to the Cayes from the airport if you're going there at the start of your trip and take the boat back to Belize City so you can catch a bus inland. Vice versa, if you're doing the Cayes at the end, bus into Belize City, boat to the islands, and then fly back to the international airport to connect with your flight home.

Flights from the International Airport to Ambergris Caye cost around $40 each way (around $25 from the city airport, but if there's not much reason to use the city airport, just take a boat instead.) They run hourly until around 5pm, and the flight takes about 20 minutes. There are SMALL PLANES, folks, six-seaters or less usually.

All jungle-based activity is centered at San Ignacio, a lovely village in far western Belize. It has a developed tourist infrastructure with guesthouses, hotels, and restaurants, and all tour operators are based here.

About 99% of jungle activities in Belize MUST be done with a tour operator. For independent travelers like myself, this was frustrating. But I found that the experiences FAR outweighed the negative presuppositions I had about having a guide.

The two most popular jungle activities are visiting Mayan ruins and caving.

MAYAN RUINS:

Altun Ha - a small ruin in northeastern Belize. Don't visit it unless you've only come to hang out on the Cayes, in which case you can take an inexpensive day trip inland to see it.

Lamanai - another small ruin, but the journey to it involves a boat ride up a jungle river, which is exciting.

Xunatunich - an impressive site just outside San Ignacio. The view from the tall pyramid is stunning. (Has its own guide entry.)

Caracol - a vast, spectacular site only partially excavated, deep in remote jungle in west-central Belize. (Has its own guide entry.)

Tikal - the most celebrate of all Mayan ruins, a short trip into Guatemala from San Ignacio. (Has its own guide entry.)

CAVING:

Caving is the MOST popular adventure tour in Belize. It's quite unique, considering it's rarely an activity that people have never pursued. This isn't about paved walkways and brightly lit features, folks. This is a strap-a-helmet-and-lamp-to-your-head-and-enter-the-great-beyond. Guides are required for almost all caves, and they provide the equipment.

Barton Creek Cave - the most popular trip in Belize. Visitors explore the first section of the cave in canoes or inner tubes and then hike through an upper level with Mayan artifacts and skulls. (Has its own guide entry.)

Actun Tunichil Muknal - The most coveted adventure trip in Belize. Involves swimming and thrashing through an underground river for several hours to reach a pristine upper level that remained undiscovered until just recently. (Has its own guide entry.)

Caves Branch - The best place in Belize for cave tubing, you can ride your inner tube for nearly 10 miles on the Caves Branch River through dozens of underground passageways. http://www.cavesbranch.com

St. Herman's Cave - You can explore the first part of this cave on your own. http://www.belizex.com/bluehole.htm

Rio Frio Cave - The most spectacular cave in Belize you can visit without a guide. (Has its own guide entry.)

Cayes are roughly divided into northern, middle, and southern sections.

The northern Cayes are the most popular, with Ambergris Caye being one of the rising luxury destinations in the Caribbean. While there are still a few budget accommodations available here, consider it to be the most expensive place to visit in Belize. There are plenty of restaurants of all cuisines located in the town of San Pedro on the southern tip of the long island. Hundreds of day trips are offered by dozens of tour operators. The most popular are snorkeling and diving trips to Lighthouse Reef, the location of the famous Blue Hole. Despite what you might think, Ambergris Caye doesn't have great beaches. There is sea grass just offshore that litters the beach and makes offshore swimming somewhat unpleasant.

Caye Caulker lies just south of Ambergris Caye. It's known as the backpacker's island. There are loads of budget accommodations. The beaches are a little nicer than on Ambergris, but the variety of restaurants is limited. There are lots of cheap snorkeling trips available from Caye Caulker, and you can easily reach San Pedro on Ambergris Caye on local ferries if you need a little more diversity.

The middle Cayes are the haunt of super-exclusive luxury resorts, with the exception of Tobacco Caye, which is a budget- to-moderate destination. This lovely island is right on the reef, so you can snorkel right from the beach. It's tiny (you can throw a coconut across it) and each hotel provides all meals, as there are no restaurants. See the section on Tobacco Caye for more info.

Glover's Reef is a coral atoll caught somewhere between the middle and southern Cayes. It is home to some super-exclusive resorts as well as the Glover's Atoll Resort, a budget destination offering dorm accommodations, shacks on the beach, and camping space. See http://www.glovers.com.bz/activities.html. Trips here usually last a week (it's so remote, the boats only run on Sundays), so come prepared for a true Robinson Crusoe experience.

Southern Belize is the location for Placencia, a peninsula off the mainland and popular resort area as well as the southern Cayes.

Placencia used to be a budget destination but is now becoming more upscale. Resorts are scattered along a narrow peninsula with a fantastic string of beaches, and the area is easily reached by bus from Belize City.

The southern Cayes are largely uninhabited, with the occasional exception of an exclusive resort. Trips to the southern Cayes leave from Punta Gorda. The most popular are the Snake and Sapodilla Cayes, which harbor the most fantastic beaches in all the Caribbean. Camping is possible on some of the Cayes if you come prepared.

Tobacco Caye is the perfect getaway. It has soft, sandy beaches shaded by coconut palms, warm water, world-class snorkeling, and diving right off the beach. At the very most, you'll be sharing the island with 100 people.

Now, the downside. There's no electricity or water utilities on the island. Most resorts have solar power and a backup generator, but don't let that fool you into thinking that you'll be able to turn on your lights or keep the fan running all night. Even the most expensive resort on the island generally turns off the electricity around 2am.

Water is desalinated by evaporation for use in the plumbing system. This water has a slight sulfrous smell to it, which one might categorize as somewhat "sewage-y." But rest assured, you're smelling water and not sewage. This is the water you'll use to shower with and to flush the toilet. And, again, don't plan on it always working.

Bottled drinking water is brought from inland, and every resort has a bar serving water, sodas, and drinks. Ice is hit-or-miss, though David's Bar can usually be depended on for ice-cold beverages.

There are no restaurants on the island, but each resort serves all three meals to its guests family-style. The food, at least at the Reef's End Resort, was excellent, with a strong emphasis on spicey seafood, rice, and black beans.

There are a handful of resorts on Tobacco Caye. The cheapest, and most idyllic, is the Tobacco Caye Paradise, whose thatched bungalows have decks which reach out over the water. The nicest is probably the Tobacco Caye Lodge, with handsome cabins on the lagoon beach. The one I stayed at is the Reef's End Resort, which has a dive shop and is the most expensive on the island. They have cheaper rooms in a lodge with balconies overlooking the water and several beach cabins.

Don't expect to be able to contact the cheaper resorts before you get to the island. The more expensive ones have answering services inland that will book reservations for you, with a package price including transportation and all your meals. Expect to pay around $75 per person per night for all this. You can get by for around $25 to $30 at the cheaper resorts, but you'll have to pay for the boat ride, around $40 per person.

Tobacco Caye is reached from the village of Dangriga, where boatmen hang out in front of the Riverside Cafe. They will negotiate passage to the island and get you in touch with the cheapest place to stay. It's a 45-minute ride to the Caye.

Snorkel/dive gear can be rented at the Reef's End Dive Shop, which arranges divetrips.

Everywhere I travel I taste all the local beers. I usually bring some back for my beer-snob buddies.

And it seems like most places in the world have a local beer that's light, tasty, and somewhat along the lines of a slightly better Bud Light, which I don't have TOO much of a problem with, but I like my beer to grow hair on my tongue.

Belize is the first place in the Americas outside Quebec, where I finally found a truly outstanding beer. Belikin Stout is one of two beers brewed by a local brewmaster who is actually from Belgium. And it shows. Both beers are superb, but Belikin stout is dark, chocolaty, and DEElicious.

Don't come to Belize without trying one!