I'm planning a trip to Belize for sometime this coming winter and thought I'd run mt itinerary by you guys for comments.

We've been to Belize once before (a long time ago) and visited San Ignacio, Dangriga, Southwater Caye, Placencia and Ambergris that trip. We'd like to go back and visit some different areas with more of an emphasis on inland/wildlife viewing. The itinerary I've come up with is:

1 night Belize City (with a flight arrival close to 4:00pm I'm assuming we should just stay in Belize City the first night?)
3 nights Lamanai Outpost Lodge
3 nights Chan Chich
4 nights St. George's Caye (or some other caye)

How does that sound? I've read pretty positive comments about both Lamanai Outpost Lodge and Chan Chich and they seem different enough that it wouldn't feel like a duplication, but am I missing out on something better particularly in terms of wildlife?

What does everyone think of St. George's Caye? We're mainly interested in peace and quiet and relaxation with a little snorkeling and kayaking thrown in. Is there a strong focus on diving/fishing here? If so, will we feel out of place? Or maybe that's a good thing as everyone else will be out doing things leaving the whole place to the two of us Does the resort seem like a good value for the rates they charge? Is there some other place we should be looking at that's in the same price range (or lower) preferably with easy access from Belize City by road or boat (the combination of small aircraft + heat tends to make me claustrophobic)?

Finally, does the itinerary make sense in the order I have it or would you change the order of something?

Sorry I have so many questions! Thanks so much!

Sounds fabulous to me - you might throw it at the Belize Forum, too, if you haven't already. Happy trails!

Thanks, hopfulist! I'd forgotten about the Belize Forum. Guess I know what I'll be doing for the next few hours

I'm also considering Caye Caulker. Is Caulker still pretty quiet? If we stay there, I might take a day trip over to San Pedro just to see what it's like now.

I'm thinking of staying at Black Orchid our first night as an alternative to Belize City. It seems like it would be fairly convenient if we're coming from BZE and heading to Lamanai. As a matter of fact, it looks kinda cute, I might stay there 2 nights.

Decisions, decisions...

Hi, Patty -
My story is a bit like yours. Our family spent about a month in Belize in 2003 (kids were 17, 18, and 20 at the time) and most of us plus our daughter's husband will be heading back this summer. We stayed at the zoo, The Trek Stop and Macal River Jungle Camp (both near San Ignacio), Tikal, Caves Branch, Cockscomb, Sittee River Village, and Glover's Atoll.

The one place we know we're heading back to is Glover's for a week. One son and I will be in Guatemala for 2-3 weeks before we head to Belize and the others fly down. I think we'll spend our 1st few Belize nights at the Community Baboon Sanctuary, visit Lamanai from there, do the ATM cave trip and stay somewhere along the Hummingbird Highway that night, then spend a few nights in Hopkins before and after Glover's and eventually head to Caulker for our last 3 or 4 nights. I have the general framework and am in total research mode for the lodgings and transportation between. I love this stuff!! Happy trails!

I just booked Lamanai Outpost and Chan Chich for late Feb/early Mar. Chan Chich in particular had pretty limited dates available so I decided I better grab something quick!

Black Orchid is looking pretty good to me for a couple of nights at the beginning of our trip and they told me they can drop us off at the Lamanai dock saving us from backtracking. I want to visit the baboon sanctuary from there and maybe revisit the zoo.

I started looking at Turneffe Flats and that's looking pretty good too. I like the wildlife/nature focus of their atoll package. I'm just trying to decide if we'd prefer a one resort island or some place with a few other things going on. I can see advantages/disadvantages to both.

Have fun planning your trip, hopefulist!

To update, here's what we ended up with (we leave on Feb 24):

2 nights Black Orchid
3 nights Lamanai
3 nights Chan Chich
4 nights Seaside villas on Caulker

We decided on Caulker partly because we're running low on funds after Lamanai and Chan Chich and partly because of ease of travel as we can fly there directly from Chan Chich (my one small aircraft concession) whereas neither St. Georges nor Turneffe Flats had an airstrip.

Any Fodorites going to be in the same places?

The only place of those we're headed is Caulker - can't afford the rest! I'll look forward to hearing about them, though (travelogue hint). Happy trails!

I'll definitely post a report when we return!

We'll be in Belize around the same time (Feb. 28 - March 6), but our trip will I think be more similar to your first, as it's our first visit also.

We're debating between 2 nights in San Ignacio and 4 in Ambergris Caye, or spending all 6 nights in Ambergris and visiting ruins, etc. via day tours.

With under a week, we're concerned about losing to much time in transit between point A and point B if we switch mid-week... any thoughts on that?

You won't loose much time with transfers, its about 2 hrs drive from Belize City to Cayo and a 20 min flight from Belize City to Ambergris. You can stop en route between the two and visit the zoo, do cave tubing and a zip line.

I think 6 nights would be OK for a split between 2 locations, but all 6 nights on Ambergris wouldn't be too long either. There's plenty to do from Ambergris. I don't think you'd go wrong with either option (that doesn't help, does it? ).