17 THINGS We Wish We Knew Before Visiting BELIZE 🇧🇿

Here are 17 things we wish we knew before travelling Belize. So we have just spent the last two weeks exploring this beautiful country. Can't lie, it's definitely underrated. Don't feel like many people... Massively, massively underrated in my opinion. Yeah, not many people speak about it in their Central America trip, but we absolutely fell in love with this country. And there was lots of information that we wish we had known before we went to make our trip a little bit easier. So we're going to share that knowledge with you now, so hopefully when you go you'll be all clued up and ready for the trip although i knew all this stuff no i already did i already knew all this stuff but abby's learned it so make sure you hit subscribe and also check out our playlist of Belize videos if you want more detailed vlogs etc but yeah let's get into it so number one is how to get to the islands from the airport i couldn't find much information about this online before we went but it's super super easy so we just came straight out of the airport and there's loads of taxi drivers just sat there waiting for you to essentially arrive we're used to being scammed quite often in like capital city airports but everyone was quite trustworthy there we got in a taxi with a guy it was 35 us dollars so i think the standard is 25 us dollars and then an extra 10 for an extra person so yeah he looked at your weight and was like jesus 10 pounds extra for that shut up so it's 35 usd for the two of us and we went to the belize express ferry terminal i think that's like the main one and then you can go and get the ferries over from there the cost is 32.50 for one way to san pedro to san pedro yeah and like a little bit more a little bit less depending where you go and you can buy a return that's slightly cheaper but obviously we went to San Pedro then from San Pedro to kikolka and then from kikolka back to Belize City anyway moving on to number two you don't really need to say a lot about this but the currency is Belize dollars they accept US dollars and it's just two Belize dollars is one US dollar, and that's it. So yeah, it's really easy to work it out, and especially if you're from America, you can just, essentially, just bring your money you've already got. Yeah, and then divide it by two to work it out. Tell us one more time the maths. Divide it by two. If it's 40 Belize dollars, then it's 20 USD. People don't need to know that one. Okay, number three, tours are expensive, but they're really, really worth it, so you need to budget that within your price of what you want to do for the holiday. So we did the snorkeling trip in Caye Caulker, which is like the must-do activity. That was worth it. That was 90 US dollars per person. We did Sunday Funday, which is, you know, if you like drinking, that's fun, but you don't have to do. That was 45 USD. And we did Mountain Pine Ridge, which was 65 USD. But in general, the tours in Belize are roughly around 90 US dollars, I would say. Yeah, when we were in San Ignacio, I think, number one, if I wasn't ill. and then i think if we you know weren't on the backpacker budget we probably would have done two tours number four where to stay so we used booking.com and hostel world for where we stayed and we stayed in private rooms and hostels mostly they are again a little bit more pricey than what we used to they cost anywhere between 50 to 100 pounds per night and i guess you just need to kind of plan in advance if you want to get a good deal so i think we booked our accommodation like A month. Yeah, yeah. No, we booked it about a month before. Okay, number five. If you want to get around on San Pedro, and on Caye Caulker a little bit, but mainly San Pedro, the mode of transport is golf buggies, which if you've never played golf in your life like I have, like, I was like, what the hell is this thing? And then you're like in this massive thing, like just two of you, you put your foot down and it's like, and then I was like, this is like an absolute, it's like driving a truck around. I don't know why they don't do electric scooters, but anyway. it was 45 US dollars for the day you actually needed a driving license so they were pretty on it actually in terms of like there were police checks and stuff checking it it was fun but in my opinion not about the golf buggy life it was just so unnecessary like why is it so big yeah just to drive like ten minutes ten minutes could've just gotten a scooter or a push bike but anyway that's just me moaning about being not liking golf buggies and you definitely needed it for San Pedro but for Quicoca we just walked everywhere. Oh Quicoca you don't need anything do you? Like we were even on about hiring push bikes but there's no point because it's just so compact and it's nice to walk around isn't it? Number six most people speak English of course I don't know if that's common knowledge but it was mad the fact that all the locals speak English it is so easy. That's pretty common knowledge that Belize is an English, English is the the national language. Yeah but I think like I don't know like you know a lot of countries speak English but everyone spoke English there. Super easy to speak to locals, to ask for directions, to get information and also to have a proper good chat with people. It made it easier for us to like bond with local people because you obviously speak the same language so use that to your advantage. Make sure if you're lost or you need any questions just ask local people like everyone's super friendly. Number seven is just how nice the food is in belize like i'm not gonna lie like before i went to belize i had no idea what the food was going to be like i essentially like i thought it would just be like you know barbecued stuff on the thing and like plain rice which there was like we had some really good jerk chicken we had some really good barbecue rice and beans which was amazing but we also had like belizean curry which was out of this world like we both tried it and we were like oh the coconut curry yeah that was really we both tried it and we were like did not know this was this is a thing that was unreal and fry jacks i was going to get i was going to get chinese right and we sat down at this like fry jack stall because we're with other people i was like i'm not going to eat much i'm going to get chinese tonight i like go and let me try one of these fry jacks yeah so like i it i was like this is quite nice and i wolfed that down and then the guy looks at me he's like you want another fry jack i was like yeah go on anyway about half an hour later i'd have eating four fry jacks. Four fry jacks in one sitting. Four fry jacks in a burrito and then i was like you're still getting Chinese? I was like absolutely not but every time the guy looks at me he was like want more? And I was like yeah go on then. Yeah so the fry jacks were really good, stew chicken was really good, jerk chicken was really good, curry was really good. You've got only a fried plantain but I'm not a fan. I like fried plantain. So number eight that you can see a lot of Belize in a short space of time because obviously it's a small country so we spent about two weeks there we did um San Pedro, Cayo and San Ignacio and we did about five nights in each location in each location but you could definitely do it faster and there's also other places to see Hopkins and there's other cities and you can go more into like the Mayan jungle side of stuff yeah i actually think Belize is is kind of like the perfect size if you wanted to do like a two-week holiday yeah because we were working as well weren't we and and chilling and stuff yeah so it's like do you not reckon it's the perfect size that you could actually see a lot of it on like yeah if you booked two weeks off you could actually really get to yeah number nine speaking of San Ignacio definitely don't forget this because obviously people think of Belize as just the island destinations and like rum and coke and you know beautiful snorkeling stuff which it is but when we went to San Ignacio we actually had one of our favorite days of like our whole trip there it was good the town itself is super super cool really friendly has loads of street food which we didn't get in Cayo or San Pedro so that was like really really exciting there's loads and loads of tours it's like the adventure capital of Belize San Ignacio there's too many tours to choose from like Gav's mentioned earlier he got sick when we were there so we only ended up doing one tour and we just picked one that would fit us both which was Mountain Pine Ridge which was like waterfalls and jumping off stuff and all of like the nature and stuff but the most popular tour to do there is the ATM cave and then you can also do tubing horseback riding pretty much anything you'd ever want to do you can do it lots lots of people start there though starting if you just do Belize they start in San Ignacio because then you do in the jungle and the trekking and stuff and then you finish on the island it's closer to the airport yeah um but obviously we're we're traveling down central america but that's just something that that it's probably worth knowing number time best time to visit is kind of november december time to may and then obviously the wet season or the monsoon whatever you call it or the hurricane or whatever it is comes but we did actually have like three days of non-stop rain in like half of san pedro half of Quichua um but i think that's because like sometimes the storms from the states blow over etc um but i think like when you're in when you're in the caribbean islands you can't ever guarantee the weather can you no when we were doing our boat trip the guy said this is the windiest that he's ever they've ever been out on like the choppiest water the windiest i think realistically if we'd have went a week later we might have had a slightly better time in Key Largo because one day it just rained the whole day the whole day we just lied in our like you know like a hammock or in our room watching netflix and we're like there's nothing else to do here so then we obviously went out drinking and got dinner and stuff but you're like if it's raining it's a bit crap isn't it yeah we were there in january which is midway through like the peak season essentially so you can't predict it but yeah the best time to go really is november to may and you're probably more likely to get better weather number 11 quickly the best way to get from each location if you're in the islands is always a water taxi and then if you're going from the islands over to like san ignacio or if you're going from san ignacio out to a different country we would recommend tourist shuttles just because number one they organize it all for you it's super easy there's loads of cheap as well it's cheap there's loads of police checkpoints and stuff you can do like chicken buses and stuff but there was literally police checkpoints the whole way through the country as we were driving to get to san So we wouldn't recommend navigating that yourself. I think it's best to just go via tourist shuttle. Number 12 is safety. So literally when you see people talk about Belize online and like look at videos and stuff, half of the stuff is like, is Belize safe? Am I going to get killed? Like- We were a bit worried when we first arrived because I feel like just the reputation online. You're more likely to get robbed than being in London. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's like anywhere. Like if you go to the roughest neighborhood in the capital city and like, you know, you're doing dodgy stuff then you're more likely to get in any trouble but if you're just a tourist in the main locations i think for me personally i felt more sketchy like yeah walking home from a night out in manchester than yeah than i did like i felt absolutely fine yeah so number 13 budget so we spent 87 pounds or 110 us dollars a day per person per person so to put into context what kind of travelers we are we are medium mid-range backpackers so we stay in private rooms in hostels but we ate out every single meal so we didn't cook we drank quite a lot when we were there i was gonna say you have quite an alcohol problem don't you like you always drink expensive alcohol well i drink nicer drinks yeah so no local beers for abby only cocktails yeah i think maybe because we're saying we're mid-range mrs cocktail only cocktails though no but like we're not like high-end we're not in hotels we're in we're in private rooms and hostels and we ate out all the time and we drank quite a bit so obviously that's a higher end of budgets but we didn't do that many you know like tours etc compared to like other backpackers who wouldn't have been working and would have been doing stuff every single day so i think that's probably quite a good gauge of how much you should budget when you go to belize but you can definitely do it cheaper yeah but we just like an easy life number 14 if you're crossing the border from belize to Guatemala then you have to pay a 20 US dollar exit fee yeah charge me an entry fee man yeah but if you're flying out of Belize say if you're flying back to your home country etc that cost is usually absorbed into your flight ticket so you don't have to pay that but that's just a quick one in case you didn't realize number 15 is the party scene so yeah there is there is like a really really good kind of cool cool there's like a good party scene so So if you did want to go out for a drink and go to like a party or whatever you can, we went to Sunday Funday in Caye Caulker, which is meant to be like one of the top things to do. And like all of this stuff online is like, this is crazy. Like it was, it was good, but it's not like, do you know what I mean? It's not like mental, is it? It's just like any other backpacker party. Like it's, you can go there and drink and enjoy it. You can go there and not drink and enjoy it. but like most of the time the events had like free rum punch yeah every single tour we did had free rum punch like there wasn't anywhere open late but you could always have like sunset happy hour beers and like there was karaoke and places to go so there was there was a decent party scene to be fair but it wasn't i don't think it was like over the top like geared towards party and it was kind of like there if if you wanted to there wasn't really a party scene in San Ignacio though well didn't really look for it but it didn't feel like it was no it was more like an adventure scene yeah more like an adventure scene and the one thing that did surprise me about the partying in Belize was obviously the food and drink and transport and etc is a lot more expensive than like other areas in Central America but they still keep their alcohol pretty cheap so if you want to get a rum and coke or a rum punch it's still going to only cost you like one pound fifty there's two quid maybe yeah so they keep the alcohol cost down even though everything else is a bit more pricey obviously if you get cocktails it's a bit more money yeah like a beer it's like five or six Belize which is like three US dollars really yeah so it's decent number 16 top activities you definitely need to do when you go so if you do go to San Pedro you need to hire a golf buggy and you need to drive to Secret Beach now if you've seen our vlog on this video we had really really bad weather so our opinion of Secret Beach wasn't the best but that's just because it was raining and it's meant to be like a really cool laid-back area where you can get like drinks out in the water and nice food and sunbathing and all that kind of jazz so that is like the top thing in San Pedro. In Quicoca it would be the snorkeling tour that we did to the 90 USD we did a full day snorkeling tour for 90 USD that was epic you swim with sharks you swim with stingrays you see so much turtles you see so much marine life that was like an absolute bucket list moment was the snorkeling tour and then in San Ignacio it would be the ATM cave but our personal recommendation would be to do Mountain Pine Ridge as well because we literally were on cloud nine. That was more like just chilling wasn't it like waterfalls swimming yeah like good scenery yeah so that was really really fun so the top three activities we'd say like if you're going to each location do not miss them off your list okay and number 17 how to avoid food poisoning so me and Gaz about two three years ago now went to Mexico for two weeks and we got the worst food poisoning of our whole entire lives like we were hallucinating and obviously that was kind of from similar-ish foods like you know corn we had corn nachos with meat on it and anyway it scarred us for life so I feel like we've done pretty well now doing 19 months on the road and we barely ever get food poisoning so a few tips for Belize as well so first of all be only eat at busy restaurants or street food stalls because then the food you know is good and also it's being turned over quickly so it's like not the first time you want busy street food stalls don't you you don't want one that's dead yeah so always look for a big line or a crowd of people or like restaurants that have got lots of reviews etc number two don't eat fresh salad etc unless it's from a good restaurant so i wouldn't just rock up to a shack on the side of the street and order a salad but i would order it from like a restaurant that's got like 200 reviews kind of vibe just because you know that like the food preparation is better number three which is controversial but we still do is we don't brush our teeth with tap water anywhere in the world we always use bottled water don't we yeah and that's just more of a precaution we probably would be fine if we did use the tap water but we just don't want to get sick so we just always use tap water yeah anyway that is the end of our 17 things we wish we knew before we traveled to belize we really hope this video is helpful for you guys obviously we've got a massive playlist of videos from belize where you can see all of this in a lot more detail which will be really helpful if you want to see anything you know in more detail obviously i'll leave that links down below if you've got any questions let us know in the comment section make sure you hit the subscribe button and give us a thumbs up and we'll see you in the next one, yeah, and enjoy your trip to Belize because obviously you're thinking of going so definitely go enjoy it, yeah, and uh yeah, bye. Why do you sound I'm so hopeful. Bye. Bye.