Belize: Broken Bridges, Brews, and Bliss

Every February, without fail, the missus and I are somewhere warm. This is not an accident. It is the direct result of marrying a woman clever enough to schedule the wedding in February, which guaranteed an annual winter escape disguised as a romantic obligation. I feel genuinely sorry for June brides. All those lovely ceremonies, and nothing to show for it but a night out for dinner every year. We discuss our winter destination each spring, and the planning begins in earnest from there. So when visiting Belize for the first time came up in our spring destination discussions, something clicked immediately. Warm, check. Caribbean, check. Relatively short flight from Toronto, check. The vote was unanimous before we had even ordered the second round.

Our regular travel crew is four: Tina and me, plus our good friends Dave and Kathleen. We have traveled enough together to have a system for picking destinations. It usually involves a long evening, a rotating cast of arguments, and eventually a consensus. For more on the joys of traveling in a group, we have covered that territory at The Beery Traveler. The Belize trip remains one of the better examples of why the group approach works. When it works.

Tina’s research is, as always, formidable. The woman treats a vacation search the way a barrister prepares for trial. Weeks of investigation. Comparative analysis. Spreadsheets I am not permitted to question. The result was the Placencia Peninsula in southern Belize: a 16-kilometre strip of land facing the Caribbean, ending at the village of Placencia itself. A private, two-storey beachfront villa in Maya Beach. Pool included. We could not wait. We should have asked more questions about the drive.

The Coastal Highway: What Google Did To Us

We landed at BZE just north of Belize City, picked up the rental car, and pointed ourselves south. The drive was supposed to take two and a half, maybe three hours. The popular inland route would have added two more hours and had us arriving after dark. The map showed a more direct option: something optimistically labelled the Coastal Highway. Shorter. Coastal views promised. We voted to take it.

That was optimistic of us.

The Coastal Highway began as a freshly paved road, which was encouraging. It transitioned to gravel, which was less so. Then loose gravel, then packed dirt, then something that felt increasingly personal. The jungle moved in on both sides. The pavement became a memory. Potholes appeared, not the kind you swerve around, but the architectural kind with their own weather systems.

Google went silent somewhere around the point the road became a track. The countryside gave way to dense jungle on all sides. We encountered every variety of obstacle a Belizean dirt road has to offer. What we did not encounter was another living soul.

Then we found the bridge.

The Bridge That Someone Had To Drive Across

It was not inspiring, as bridges go. A narrow wooden structure spanning a small but very committed ravine. Surrounding it: yellow caution tape and a piece of cardboard on a stick, written in red marker. Danger. No heavy vehicles. Broken bridge.

Nobody said anything for a moment. We all looked at the bridge, then at each other, then at the bridge again.

A close inspection revealed a broken plank along one side. Brief group deliberation produced a volunteer: Dave would drive across while the rest of us crossed on foot and guided him from the other side. This is the kind of plan that sounds reasonable when you are standing in the jungle with no signal and no other options.

Dave drove. The bridge groaned and cracked in ways that suggested it had feelings about the matter. Kathleen exhaled when the wheels hit solid ground. I made a note that Dave was either very brave or had significantly better rental car coverage than I did. We celebrated briefly, then continued, because the Coastal Highway was not done with us.

There was a wrong turn into an orange grove. A crisis of direction. She Who Must Be Obeyed retrieved a few actual oranges from an actual tree, which I thought showed excellent composure under the circumstances. Then, finally: a stop sign. Pavement. A faded sign pointing to Placencia. We had traversed the Coastal Highway and emerged on the other side as dusk settled in. Google came back to life, cheerful and entirely unhelpful about what we had just experienced. That first Belikin was going to be earned. If you are still weighing your Caribbean beach options, the Beery Traveler’s post on the best beaches for relaxation might help you decide if Belize is your kind of place.

Placencia Peninsula: Worth Every Pothole

We found the villa in the dark, which meant we did not fully appreciate it until morning. We unloaded the car, got straight back in, and drove into Placencia to find food and cold drinks. The town is a narrow strip with one paved road down the middle and the Caribbean visible on one side, the lagoon on the other. Hard to get lost. We found an open restaurant, sat down, and spent two hours retelling the impossible afternoon while food arrived and beers stayed cold. The laughs were long and loud. It was exactly what we needed.

Morning delivered the verdict. We had chosen well. The villa was generously set up: covered patios winding through palm trees, a large pool with a grill and dining area, and the Caribbean Sea right out the front door, blue and completely indifferent to our earlier trauma. We took the first morning slowly. Coffee, beach chairs, breakfast, the usual recalibration. Then we went grocery shopping. That is where we found the brewery.

Hobbs Brewery: The Best Discovery We Made All Week

Not every great travel moment involves ancient ruins or dramatic scenery. Some of them involve stumbling across a local craft brewery while looking for provisions. Hobbs Brewery in Placencia is exactly that kind of find. The staff welcomed us, walked us through the full brewing operation, and made sure we sampled the product in a thorough and responsible manner.

We made purchases. Dave left with a Hobbs Brewery T-shirt that he wore for the remainder of the trip with the satisfied look of a man who has found exactly what he came for. Hobbs Brewery is the kind of local operation that reminds you why leaving the resort actually matters. If you are visiting Belize for the first time, find it early.

We returned to the villa, stocked for the week, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the correct manner: pool, beach, conversation, cold beer, and no obligations whatsoever. Some of us went to bed with a pleasant hum that evening. No names.

Xunantunich: A Mayan Pyramid With a View Into Guatemala

Belize has Mayan ruins scattered through its jungle, and we came to see them. Xunantunich sits about 70 miles from Belize City and requires crossing the river on a hand-cranked cable ferry. This detail does not go unappreciated when you are standing on it mid-river.

The pyramid rises above the jungle canopy. From the top, you can look directly into Guatemala, which is a genuinely peculiar thing to stand and contemplate. The boss photographed everything within reach. I managed the climb without triggering my acrophobia in any meaningful way, which I count as a personal achievement.

Xunantunich has a quality that ancient sites often lose when they are overrun: it feels real. Busy enough to be alive, quiet enough to feel like you are somewhere that matters. The jungle presses in on all sides, and the scale of what people built there, without any of the tools we take for granted, makes the long drive feel completely irrelevant. Worth every kilometre.

Cave Tubing: The Activity We Recommend Without Hesitation

If you are visiting Belize for the first time and can do only one adventure activity, make it cave tubing. You float through a system of ancient underground river caves on an inner tube, wearing a hard hat with a lamp, guided by someone who knows exactly when to turn all the lights off. It is simultaneously ridiculous and unforgettable. For some thoughts on pacing trips like this without burning out, the Beery Traveler’s post on slow travel and quietcations is worth a read before you build your itinerary.

The site is near Frank’s Eddy, roughly three hours from Placencia. Guides were waiting when we arrived. Equipment distributed, we hiked 30 minutes through the rainforest to the first caves, passed through two dry caves, and then reached the water’s edge. Clear, cool, shallow. Tubes tethered together, guides at the front, and then we were floating into the dark.

Some caves run straight through the rock and you can see daylight at both ends. Others wind and curve, and those are the ones where the guides stop and kill all the lights. You are not prepared for how complete that darkness is, even when you know it is coming. The cave walls are smooth where the river has carved through them over centuries. Small stalactites. The sound of moving water. The tour runs about two hours including the hike, and ends with fried chicken and rice on site.

Dave and I had cold Belikins for the three-hour drive home. The travel companion drove. Perfect afternoon.

Breadfruit, Waterfalls, and Ending Things Properly

Not everything remarkable requires a dangerous bridge. One morning, Tina fried breadfruit for all of us after spotting it at a local market stand. None of us had eaten it before. She served it alongside eggs and fruit: golden and crisp on the outside, fluffy and warm inside, tasting somewhere between fresh bread and potato with a slight nutty quality. Seasoned with salt. Genuinely excellent. If you encounter breadfruit, do not walk past it.

Our last full day took us to Mayan King Waterfalls outside Dangriga, about an hour from the villa. Two cascading falls, natural swimming pools, clean clear water, and more photographs than any other stop on the trip. We swam, we stayed longer than planned, and we accepted quietly that the week was ending.

That evening we found a second-floor patio restaurant in Placencia with a garden view. Good food, good wine, good company, and the quiet satisfaction of a trip that delivered more than it promised. Belize earns its reputation. The people are warm, the landscape is varied and extraordinary, and the experiences stack up in a way that makes a return trip feel inevitable.

Should You Visit Belize for the First Time?

Yes. Without hesitation. Belize is a genuinely beautiful country, warm and welcoming in a way that rewards curiosity. The infrastructure is still developing (the Coastal Highway remains a category of experience entirely its own), and prices at tourist-facing establishments reflect how discovered it is becoming. Neither is a reason to stay home.

If you are putting a Belize trip together and want help from people who know their way around a Caribbean itinerary, the team at Boarding Pass Travel can sort you out properly. Just take the inland route.