Bin List: Belize – Over-hyped and over-touristy

TL;DR: Belize is over-priced, over-hyped, and an ecological disaster area. Don’t go. Your visit is funding the destruction of one of the world’s most precious habitats.

We were both super-excited to visit Belize and see the UNESCO World Heritage barrier reef. Alongside that, you had to search hard to find any guides that were not gushing about the laid-back Caribbean culture, easy-going lifestyle, and wildlife-stuffed jungles. We spent 2 weeks there, cutting short a possible month, and found the antithesis of this. The reef is being destroyed by tourism and the massive influx of US/Canadian immigrants. This has distorted the culture and displaced it with a rapacious dark-Disney tourist industry. Nature is disappearing under the tracks of bulldozers.

A little about Belize

Belize is a tiny Central American country, and popular tax haven, which boasted (at one time) the largest barrier reef in the Northern Hemisphere; a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996. It is an ex-British colony (British Honduras as was) and English is the official first language. You will often encounter Creole and Spanish too, reflecting its cultural links to the Caribbean and the rest of Latin America.

The Belizean Dollar (BZE) is pegged to the US Dollar at a flat 2:1 rate and both currencies are accepted everywhere.

There are broadly 5 parts to the country:

1. northern Belize, which borders Mexico

2. Cayo, in the west and bordering Guatemala, where you will find jungles and Mayan ruins

3. Southern Belize, with more jungles and ruins and a long stretch of coast down to Guatemala again

4. Belize City and its environs – the country is tiny and most transport seems to go via the City or nearby Belmopan to the west.

5. The Cayes – little islands and peninsulas that are the tourist hotspot for accessing the reefs.

The Belizean economy is dependent on two main sources: tourism and agriculture. Whilst the economy is small, so is the population, and as a result Belize is actually the second wealthiest country on average after Panama (also a massive tax haven). However, wealth in Belize is very unevenly distributed and over a quarter of people are in poverty.

Tourism generates around 25% of all jobs, around 20% of GDP, and is the largest foreign exchange earner. It is absolutely critical to the economy, so there is a lot of pressure not to do anything that will risk that. We spoke to a lot of Belizeans in depth about our experiences, and witnessed a lot of reticence to talk publicly about the problems. Latin America generally has a problem with environmental protesters ending up as dead as a Caye Caulker reef, so I have waited until we are out of the country before writing this, and won’t name any of the people we spoke to.

Public services in Belize are pretty poor, and the public sector in Belize was a tiny 12.4% (in 2020). Roads are often poor, education levels are low, and women in particular face a lot of disadvantage in the economy.

Where we went

After spending three surprisingly wonderful months in Guatemala, we crossed the border into Cayo, and had a few nights at a very nice guesthouse on a working farm next to the Xunantunich Mayan ruins. So far, so good.

After that, we travelled by bus to Belize City and hopped on a boat to get to (“sleepy and laid-back”) Caye Caulker, where we stayed in a locally-run hotel to the south of the island. A few days in Caulker, then a further boat trip to San Pedro, Ambergris Caye (“more developed with lots of amenities”).

After Ambergris Caye we had options.We decided to cut the trip short and head back to Guatemala via Livingston and the Rio Dulce. We travelled by bus from Belize down to Hopkins (“a village where you can experience true Belizean culture”), where we spent a few nights. From there we bussed it again down to Punta Gorda (nobody said anything positive about Punta Gorda, so we liked it immediately as a result!), from where we could get a speedboat to Guatemala.

Reasons to tip Belize out of your Bucket List

Reason 1: You are directly destroying the country you are visiting

There is no doubt about it, Belize would sell its mother for a buck. The tourist industry worldwide is pretty corrupt and destructive, but it is absolutely on the surface in Belize.

Take one example: mangroves. Precious mangroves, which are a critical part of the ecosystem of the reefs and coastal land, are poisoned or hacked down by unscrupulous developers to make way for condos for US and Canadian immigrants. The government supposedly doesn’t allow mangroves to be cut down, but they grant permissions afterwards, so the developers just get someone to hack down a (suspiciously ‘plot of land’-shaped) rectangle of endangered swamp.

Another example, and a primary reason for going to Belize: the diving/snorkelling. Every tour to the reef is damaging it. If the tour is to a protected area, then they follow the bare minimum rules, but outside of those boundaries (and the areas are not big) they don’t give shit. Tourists are never told not touch the coral. Most day trips involve feeding sharks and rays (Shark & Ray Alley, Stingray City), which has such a negative effect that normally nocturnal nurse sharks spend their daylight hours chasing food from boats rather than taking their rightful place in the food-chain of the reefs.

And a final example: perfect white sandy beaches. The Cayes do not naturally have perfect white sand beaches. That perfect white sand is just a desert where there used to be rich mangroves and seagrass. At the inappropriately titled Bliss Beach, a worker was digging boatloads of seagrass out of the water near the shore. When asked, he told us that tourists don’t like the seagrass, so they remove it. If you snorkel in the seagrass, as we just had, you will see it is home to thousands of little corals and sheltering juvenile fish. Seagrass is a vital part of the marine ecosystem and removing it directly impacts on the lifecycle of fish and corals. No seagrass = dying reefs.

Reason 2: On the Cayes, there is little nature left to see

Quite frankly, the Cayes we visited are pretty much a wasteland of construction work and traffic. Whilst there are no cars, there are US-style traffic jams of highly-polluting golf carts, the roads are hot and stinking, and nature doesn’t earn enough money for anyone to bother keeping it.

On the mainland, the reserves and the jungles that we visited were beautiful and much more enjoyable. If you find yourself in Belize, just swerve the Cayes completely. But, on balance, you will have a more impressive experience of central American jungles in Peten, Guatemala, just over the border.

Reason 3: The human culture is unpleasant in a lot of places

There comes a tipping point in many places where visitors are no longer seen as people in their own right, and just become sources of dollars to be exploited to the maximum. I am not naïve. I know as a tourist I am a source of income. But in Belize I felt that was all I was.

For example, I had people try to over-charge me, short-change me, and trick me out of money more times in 2 weeks than all the rest of my years of travelling put together. There are obvious culprits like unpriced stuff, or prices being ambiguous as to whether it is Belizean or US dollars (an opportunity to make 100% more from a transaction).

It gets to be so bad that it impacts on how you interact with others too. When literally every person who starts a conversation with you is trying to extract money from you, you start giving the cold shoulder and just saying “no” to any interaction.

It is a ridiculous contrast, but in Vietnam we felt like celebrities. Everyone we met wanted to know about us, take selfies with us, tell us about their doings, and spend time with us. There were people like that in Belize, but they were a tiny minority.

Reason 4: Belize is becoming an enclave of the USA

The culture is more gringo than it is Latino, Maya, or Garifuna. If you like sports bars, burgers, and listening to overt racism and unfounded US-centric exceptionalism, then San Pedro is probably your perfect destination.

We met dozens of families looking for, or having jut bought, homes along the coats. There are estate-agent signs dotted all over the supposedly protected swamps, saying “Your dream home here”. REMAX was a particularly prevalent estate agent (realtor) wherever there was habitat destruction to be done, so I guess they must specialise in obliterating nature for a quick profit. All along the coast, housing estates are replacing jungles and mangroves as immigrants from the US buy up land to build ugly, concrete condos.

Maybe building a big, beautiful wall was not such a bad idea.

Reason 5: Belize is poor value for money

Hopefully I have convinced you that what you get isn’t great. The real kicker is that Belize is extortionately priced as well. Because everything is so expensive, you would imagine it is better quality, right? It simply isn’t – it’s just over-priced. I would say prices we experienced in Belize were between 100% and 1000% more expensive for comparable things (from groceries to accommodation) just over the border in Guatemala or Mexico.

For example, US$15 for two lime juices and slice of home-made sponge cake in a shack. You might think “whatever” in London or Paris, but this country is more like Guatemala. That should have cost $3 or less.

Why so harsh?

So much utter BS is published online about travel destinations that it is hard even for marketing-savvy and intelligent people to unpick the truth. You also begin to doubt yourself: maybe we just didn’t get into the swing of it? Maybe we just didn’t understand the vibe?

Well… no. We met others who were experiencing the same thing. The boat trip back to Guatemala was like a mini therapy session for some of us. One Guatemalteca was in tears because she couldn’t understand how avaricious and unpleasant an entire country could be.

We have the luxury of being able to travel continuously and change our plans when stuff doesn’t work out. Belize was an expensive and unpleasant blip in an otherwise amazing journey.

But a lot of people don’t have that luxury. Money is tight and, usually, time is also extremely valuable. If you are flying from Europe then Belize might seem like an exotic destination for a couple of weeks. It will disappoint you, and cost you a lot of money in the process.