OC75

Can you help us with our 3 country 3 week intinerary??. We want plenty of beach time, a day of scuba and visit 1 or 2 mayan sites and a few old colonial towns. We will be flying into Cancun on 13th June 2011 as it the most cost effective way to get to C America. As it will be just after all the wedding mayhem we plan a total chill out in either cancun or somewhere close by for the 1st 4/5 days or so, maybe 3nights in cancun and 2 in tulum.(Should we explore more of inland mexico before moving on??) We will then travel overland prob by bus to Belize so we can go to Caye Caulker for a couple of nights. Is there anywhere else worth seeing in Belize before we head onto Honduras, again prob overland. I would like to visit Flore/Tikal too if its not too difficult or time consuming.? What is the best way to go from Belize to Honduras??, should we be stopping in Livingston or somewhere else?? our ultimate aim is to get to Bay islands (roatan) for 2/3 nights before flying back to Cancun for return flight home. Are there are other places in Honduras worth spending a day or 2 before we go back?? What about Copan?

suze

I vote no nights in Cancun. Start with either Isla Mujeres or Playa del Carmen (or that stretch of the coast heading south). I'm not saying you've got a bad plan, but getting all the way to Belize, Honduras, etc. and then back to Cancun for the return flight, you've got some 'miles' on the bus ahead of you in only 3 weeks time. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'd streamline the itinerary a bit. Maybe add in a flight rather than bus ride for the longest stretches? Or cut out some of the furthest destinations?

OC75

No problem with skipping Cancun. I had envisaged bus journeys of no longer than 8hrs and stopping over for 1 or 2 nights at each location. Flights seem very expensive compared with other countries even for short hops e.g. $300 one way. I thought one trip would take us from Tulum to Belize Border, then next day to Belize city to get a boat to island. Stay 2 nights, get boat back to mainland and go through Belize and on to Honduras travelling one day and staying for 2 along the way. Is this not feasible??

suze

Hey, I'm no expert It just sounds like a LONG way to go, with a lot of your precious time spent on a bus. I guess if you don't mind 8 hr bus rides on Mexican busses, for a 1 day stay, and then moving on... well I guess in theory thhis is feasible. To me it doesn't sound like much fun on a honeymoon. You are correct incountry flights in Mexico and Central American are not cheap. But bus rides are long. Just depends how you want to spend your time.

Personally I'd go with covering less ground, and looking for a quality experience with more down time. But that's just me.

hopefulist

Suze is being very sweet and her advice is dead on. YIKES is the word that springs to mind when I read your plans. You're right that you'll want to relax and enjoy your honeymoon after the excitement and stress of the wedding, but you've planned a "vacation" where you'll be spending as many days on the road as you will relaxing. I've traveled extensively in Latin America and know that the transition days really take a lot out of you. If you're only staying a night or 2 in each spot you'll be transitioning more than half the time, effectively cutting your enjoying in half imo.

The good news is, if you leave off Honduras you've got a great plan!! I'd spend your 1st 4 or 5 nights in 1 spot, not split it up. Isla Mujerers, Puerto Morelos, and Tulúm are all good choices imo. If you're interested in colonial cities, head to Valladolid for a few days; the beautiful, jungly ruins of Cobá are enroute from Tulúm and Chichén Itzá (not my favorite) and Ek Balam are close.

Once you head to Belize, spend a few days in western Belize in order to enjoy the jungle, hike, canoe, etc. and to see the amazing ATM cave:
http://www.pacztours.com/actun-tunichil-muknal.html

You can easily do an overnighter to Tikal, then, too. Allow time for a stop at the zoo, too.

If you want to add in a 3 or 4 night stop in a culturally interesting place, consider Hopkins Village, a Garifuna village on the coast; there's great hiking and waterfalls nearby in the Cockscomb Jaguar Reserve and the Mayflower site. Caye Caulker is a great place to land before heading north for your return flight. I think if you head over to Ambergris, you can take a boat to the Mexican border area and cut out some of the road time.

Honduras is wonderful and worth a trip of it's own, later. The only way you can head there by road is west out of Belize and down through Guatemala, then into western Honduras and another 6 or 8 hours to La Ceiba, the jumping off place for the Bay Islands. The southern route requires boat trips between Belize and Guatemala or Honduras that can be spendy and have schedules that are difficult (for me) to figure out. In effect, it would require an expensive flight or 2 or 3 days travel each way in order to spend 2 or 3 days there.

Leaving off Honduras would save money (no flight from Honduras!), and still allow for lots of adventure in addition to relaxing beach and dive time, and you'll have a wonderful, memorable trip that's more fun and less stressful than what you're proposing.

The link below has photo collections from lots of trips and there are blog and/or detailed travelogue links on the main page of each collection. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage. If you're even half as happy with your choice as I am after 30 years, you have a great life ahead of you!! Happy trails and let me know if there's more I can do to help.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/collections

suze

gee thanks Hopefulist.

If you strongly prefer seeing Belize OR Honduras over Mexico then go there instead not in addition. It's the *3* countries and amount of ground you are attempting to cover by bus that doesn't make any sense. Have you ever been on an 8 hour bus ride in Mexico or Central America? To spend 1 night somewhere then get on another 8 hour bus ride?

OC75

OK I will try an pin down more accurately travel times between each location.

Any idea how long a bus takes from chetumal to flores??

tacogirl

I just met a couple yesterday at Sunday Jam on the beach who did the Mexico Belize trip. I agree about not staying overnight in Cancun and doing Playa or Tulum instead then you could go see the ruins in Tulum. There are some cool cenote's in the area too.

Will you stay on mainland only for Belize or make it out to one of the islands?

Congrats on getting married and planning such a great honeymoon.

hopefulist

Check out this cool Belize transportation blog a poster calling himself john 500 keeps, shoudl be a help:
http://belizebus.wordpress.com/

The main deal breaker ground transportation-wise and budget-wise is the Honduras piece. Plan for at least 2 looooong travel days from western Belize to La Ceiba, Honduras; if you don't make it there by 4:30 the 2nd day you'd have to overnight and take the next ferry in the morning. Going or coming you could consider heading to southern Belize and catching a boat to Caribbean Honduras or Guatemala and connecting with buses from there; that would be a 2 day deal, also and would likely cost a bit more - more info on the blog site on the boat schedules. Even if you fly one way (likely $300-400 each) it doesn't seem worth the time to get there for just 2-3 nights in a slightly different place.

In the end, obviously, it's your choice. Since you wrote asking for help with your itinerary, that's what we're doing - helping you plan a trip that will be the right balance of relaxation and adventure without logging as many uncomfortable, stressful long transition days as you do days of diving, snorkeling, reading in hammocks, hiking, exploring colonial cities, and enjoying the local sights, sounds, food, and people. Good luck!

suze

landing in Cancun, heading immediately down to Playa del Carmen (or Akumal or Tulum?) for awhile, then on to Belize makes sense. Then at the end Belize back up to Cancun for the flight home. with three weeks time you could see a lot.

If you do want to make it further tha Belize, I'd really suggest looking into some way to fly home from the furthest spot or spring for a plane back to Cancun, to avoid long-haul back-tracking on the ground at the end of your trip.

OC75

Hi, we had always intended to fly back to cancun to get the flight home after the 3 weeks, is it still too much to try and do. If Honduras has nothing more to offer then we will skip it altogther and spend a few more days somewhere in mexico, belize or pop over to see Tikal.

I really appreciate the advice.

hopefulist

Honduras has a lot to offer but it's all about balance. In the balance do you want to be spending more time on buses or more time doing things like hiking, diving, relaxing, visiting ruins, etc.? A trip by bus to Honduras will eat up (even with a flight back) at least 3 or 4 days of travel for the 2/3 nights (1-2 full days) you plan to spend there; in the balance that's a no-go for me - best saved for another trip.

I usually travel for a month or so at a time and pick one country or sometimes parts of 2. This summer I'll split my month between Guatemala and Honduras but I've spent months total in each already and will just visit 1 or 2 spots in each this time around; I'm flying between.

If you do as I suggest in my 1st post that's parts of 3 countries (including Tikal in Guatemala), plenty of variety and moving around but with many days less travel time and less expense than trying to add in Honduras, too. Good luck!

OC75

OK, so if I stay in Tulum/Playa del carmen for the frist 4 or 5 days then head to Belize by bus. I plan to go to both Flores/Tikal and out to the Cayes so which direction should I head first once I reach the Mexican/Belize border at Chetumal?? Did I see that uou can get a boat to the Cayes from Chetumal?? Or would it be better to go the other direction through palenque to Flores bearing in Mind that I would like to see Hopkins as well?? Sorry for all the questions but there are so many variables.

hopefulist

There are SOOOO many variables - it's like being a starving kid in a candy shop when I start planning to visit a country for the 1st time. I don't do that very often as it turns out because I can't stop myself from heading back over and over to Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Mexico.

We like doing the island bits last, so I'd head to San Ignacio for a few days from Mexico. Do the ATM cave at the very least. Lots of lodging options in the area from jungly to in town to out-of-town budget. We've loved everyplace we've stayed in that area:
www.belize-camp.com
www.aguadahotel.com
www.thetrekstop.com

For more options check out the Toucan Trail and Lan Sluder's great accommodation download.
www.toucantrail.com
www.belizefirst.com

Then do a night or 2 in Guatemala to visit Tikal. It's worth the splurge to stay in the park imo; my favorite hotel there is the Tikal Inn. If you're lucky, naturalist/archaeologist Roxy Ortiz won't be away on a dig - her early morning tours are fantastic.
www.tikalinn.com
[email protected]

From there shuttle or bus to the border and on to Belmopan where you can change to a bus heading to Dangriga and onto Hopkins. That will be a long day, but doable. In Hopkins we really loved Hopkins Inn. Again, a bit of a splurge, but cheap compared to flights back from Honduras!
www.hopkinsinn.com

Don't miss an evening of Garifuna drumming at the Labeha Center.
www.lebeha.com

Day trips to the Cockscomb Reserve and/or the Mayflower site would be good if you like to hike. We enjoyed a guided night hike with Gregorio Chun when we were at Cockscomb in '03 and I'm sure there are Hopkins-based options, too.
http://mayacenter.com/

From there you can head back to Belmopan, onto Belize City, and across to one of the cayes before heading north.

With this plan you'd have 4-5 nights in the Riviera Maya, 3-4 in the San Ignacio area, maybe 2 at Tikal, 3-4 in Hopkins, which leaves a week or more between the cayes and the return trip north.

This plan doesn't include any colonial cities. If you want to do that you could either cut a few days out of the Playa and cayes parts or leave off Hopkins in favor of Valladolid and a few area ruins.

Happy planning! Happy trails!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/collections

OC75

This is the best travel forum I have used and I have used many. Thanks for the prompt responses.

I would also like some scenic villages somewhere less commercial, is heading towards Palenque too long to be worth the hassle?? is there enough to satisfy us near Valladoid?

hopefulist

I wouldn't head clear to Palenque with the time you have. If Valladolid doesn't do it for you, Merida is another 2 hours away from the coast. There are 2 really important Maya ruins withing a half hour of Valladolid as well as some great cenotes; we thought it was a really nice place.

You might want to consider Isla Mujeres or Puerto Morelos for your down time instead of Playa del Carmen or Tulum - they're a little more laid back feeling.

Keep us posted!

OC75

It appears that we can not go direct from Playa del carmen/Tulum to Fores/Tikal without going through Belize City. So rather than travelling the same route twice we were considering going around the other way via San Cristobal.

Is there a direct bus available? San Cristobal sounds fantastic but is it too much to try and do in the time we have??

Also any ideas about getting from San Ignacio to Hopkins direct?? or would we be best to skip it and just go to belize city and get boat straight to caye caulker??

JeanH

I think from San Ignacio to Hopkins, you will change buses in Belmopan and get off the bus in Dangrgia. Not much bus service to Hopkins, maybe once or twice a day. You may need to cab the last leg.

hopefulist

Definitely leave something else out if you're going to try to get to San Cristobal. There are night buses and you could do an overnighter to Palenque. If you head to Chiapas, I'd leave Belize out completely. Lots of photos and info from my 2 weeks there last summer:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/collections

OC75

OK all advice considered, unfortunately I will have to leave san cristobal this time. Here is my draft itinerary. Your thoughts would be appreciated, particularly on smooth way to get to cockscomb forest and from there to caye caulker??

13 Jun - Arrive cancun airport stay playa del carmen
14 Jun - stay playa del carmen
15 Jun - stay playa del carmen (visit chitzen itza)
16 Jun - stay playa del carmen
17 Jun - bus to Tulum (1hr) stay night
18 Jun - bus to chetumal on border (4 hrs) bus to Belize City (3hrs) stay night
19 Jun - bus to san ignacio cayo & stay
20 Jun - stay san ignacio (visit ATM caves)
21 Jun - stay san ignacio (do zip line)
22 Jun - bus to flores (2 hrs) stay in flores)
23 jun - stay in Flores (visit Tikal)
24 Jun - stay in Flores
25 Jun - bus to dangriga (7 hrs) bus to hopkins (stay night)
26 Jun - stay in hopkins or cockscomb forest (TBC)
27 Jun - bus to drangriga and ferry to caye caulker
28 Jun - stay caye caulker
29 Jun - stay in caye caulker
30 Jun - stay in caye caulker
01 Jul - boat to corozal and bus to cancun
02 Jul - stay in cancun
03 Jul - stay in cancun (visit merida)
04 Jul -fly out of cancun