welcome to belize
visa for belize now getting one for belize is quite easy it's quite clear on
the belize immigration website if you need one or not but if you do and you hold a visa for
a schengen visa a u.s visa or a canadian visa then you don't need a visa for belize either
one thing i would say is make sure that you're not relying on the ca4 country visa because
belize is not part of it so that includes nicaragua honduras el salvador and guatemala
not believe so make sure you check separately for belize it doesn't cover those i would say
it's a generally easy visa category country so check if you need one if not just head over
let's talk about money now this is the currency of belize the belizean dollar
and what i like is it has a familiar face yes this is the queen of england so the belizean dollar is
pegged to the american dollar so you will always get two belizean dollars for one american dollar
weirdly enough on the islands they don't include gst in the prices whether that is food or that
is tours and it can add a significant chunk at the end so i would recommend you check before
you book anything especially for tours because it can add a significant chunk
although a few tour operators did mention if i pay in cash they won't charge the 12.5 tax
before you start packing your bags and head to belize you need to know what's the best time
to come here now i would recommend from late november to march that is the best time you
have good weather not too hot i see i've seen like a couple of days of rain in the entire 18
19 days that i've spent here other than that it's been absolutely amazing and the weather
is really good it's not like you know it's good to go out to the sea the water is warm
so late november to march is your best time to visit belize it's also really good for
snorkeling and there's quite a lot of stuff that you can see but if you're after whale sharks
or manatees i would recommend coming a bit later but then it is also quite hot here
let's talk about getting around in belize and the public transport so for a tiny country it's
actually very well connected by air you have a few different airports which are more kind of like
airstrips because they're so tiny and these 14c plane go there and for that reason they're
actually quite expensive so a ticket on average costs about a hundred us dollars
the other option is to use private transfers or shuttles and they are also quite expensive so
when i was checking from belize to placencia the air ticket was like hundred dollars whereas
a private shuttle was like somewhere between 200 us dollars to 215 us dollars which is ridiculous
taxis are also quite expensive and there are no taxi apps so you will have to hail them
although you can use shared taxis at a few places which is quite useful especially in san ignacio
so yeah it's a little complicated the thing i found the most fun and user friendly is the bus
so you can get on chicken buses they're easily available you just they even have timetables
and you can see the routes so it's really really helpful and i took the bus from you know placencia
to san ignacio san ignacio to belize city so take the buses if you want to drive um you
can easily do that it's actually quite safe to drive here as while the roads are really good
but you can't do a few things um like caracol because the road is actually really bad and
if it rains you will be like yeah the road is not that good so you need like a 4x4 for that
um also when you go to the cayes and all you will have to get you know tours and
water taxis so driving around i don't know how useful that is to you but if you want to do that
it's a good idea here in belize on the mainland there are water taxis if you want to go to some
of the cayes like caye caulker or to san pedro easily available water taxis so that's really
good and another reason for probably not driving is like you will be doing quite a
lot of tours there going for going to a lot of places i don't know how useful it is to actually
have a car around so these are all the options um public transport chicken buses are the best
and they are also the cheapest so i would definitely recommend them for getting around
let's talk about something you'll be spending a big chunk of your money on in belize
tours now before i tell you about this the quality of information they provide on the guided tours
here is much much much better compared to their neighbors seriously so while they're really good
they're also really expensive here so in the south i didn't see anything even half day trips
that are less than 80 85 and they don't even include any food just a bit of fruit full days
are upward of 125 so if you want to on if you're on a budget i would recommend being strategic in
the south the only place i would recommend going enjoying is moho caye the rest of them are all right
nothing special and you can do all the snorkeling later on the cayes which is much cheaper here
when it comes to cockscomb you can easily do that on your own as well
and when it comes to san ignacio i would recommend doing atm and caracal on the tours you can't do
those two i believe without a tour guide i know at caracol you can but the road is really bad when it
comes to xunantunich and cahal pech which are the mayan ruins i would honestly recommend doing
it on your own i did it on my own it was super easy and actually it was really nice to just do it
on my own after all the information i got from um caracol i didn't need a lot more but it was really
fun so you can also check belize zoo on your own again a nice bus ride from san ignacio to belize
when it comes to the cayes i would recommend coming to caye caulker um and skipping san pedro because
it's pretty much everything that you can do in san pedro you can do in caye caulker as well you can do
the blue hole from here whether it is the flights diving or snorkeling and you can also do hole
chan and the shark ray alley here as well as they have their own south channel they have their own
shark ray alley they have coral gardens everything and something really fun i found is that
caye caulker has a cave underneath so if you're cave diving certified you can look for that as
well they also have a night snorkeling here in caye caulker which i really really really enjoy so i
would definitely recommend checking that out um i would also say that you should probably check
online reviews before because there was one tour that was like absolutely rubbish in caye caulker
but the rest of them they try their utmost to for you to see everything and have a lot of fun
most of the time for full day tours your lunch is included as well as some fruits do bring your
own water bottles so they can refill it for you and i think like i spoke to a couple of guys and
if you book all your tours in one place you can also get a good amount of discount last but not
the least check with them because some of them are happy to give you a discount if you pay with cash
that's all about the tours be strategic and have a lot of fun
when you're booking tours whether you're going on the sea or you're coming to the mayan ruins
a lot of places make sure you ask for the group size otherwise this will be one of you people
so how many days for belize this is a tricky question because despite it being a small country
there's quite a lot to do so i'm talking about the mayan sites like the one i'm sitting at right now
um there is you know beautiful eco resorts which are next to beautiful waterfalls and rivers
you can also explore the tons of 450 different islands basically cayes they're called here so
i would recommend coming for no less than seven days because in that time
you can just go around and if you get private shuttles things move a lot quicker because a
tiny country and you can drive easily but some places you can't cut corners like i'm sitting
in caracol and you need to just do it as a full day trip you just can't do it because the road
is bad so seven to ten days for a good experience i'm spending about 16 to 17 days here and i'm not
regretting it because i still have quite a lot and there were a couple of places i just had to not
do because i was not you know i just didn't have enough time one thing i would recommend is slowing
down because things go at a chilled pace in belize and that's the best way to explore this country
let's talk about language in belize now english is spoken everywhere it was the biggest surprise for
me that you learned and everyone speaks english so you don't have to worry about translations and
things all the menus are in english there are a few languages like the mayan ones there are
i think there's three mind groups that live in belize also garifuna creole and spanish
i haven't seen a lot of people speaking spanish perhaps close to san
ignacio or a little bit on the islands but generally english is spoken everywhere so
you don't need to worry about it if you speak english all the tour guides speak english and
most of the stuff is also available in english so yay thank you belize for that
how expensive is belize very
crazy expensive especially when it comes to tours so the accommodation you could you know
do a really nice job food is a little expensive gas is very expensive or petrol out here in europe
and the most expensive thing is the tours and taxis tours and taxis are the most expensive thing
i could not find anything less than 80 dollars even if it's a half day tour and you know doesn't
include your lunch so i would recommend getting all your tours in one place negotiate a little bit
and you could get a discount but do come prepared belize is definitely not a backpacking type of
place where you could just do it a little bit yeah let's move on to the next topic
right let's talk about the people of the east now belize is a very multicultural country
there's four main groups here mestizo creole garifuna mayans and there's always present the
north american white folk now people on average are really sweet they're really friendly and they
will try their best to help you out they like to say hello to you they're friendly
so they try to make you as comfortable as possible around you and that's the day-to-day experience
the experience was a little bit different and weird when i went on tours and i don't know how
to think about it i think i need a little bit more time but i have a theory about it so apart
from one or two times every time i went to i kind of felt like the tour guides tried to be nicer and
more they're trying to please the north american or generally the white people more i think it's
because they think they have more money and they will tip them better i could be very wrong but
i got this nagging feeling the first time and then the second time and then the third time
and it just kind of went you know it just kept getting stronger and stronger so that's one weird
thing that i felt i don't like i said i don't know how to think about it but yeah that was not a very nice feeling
people in belize really like the word play between believe and belize
so you will see a lot of it like you know seeing is beliezing it's unbeliezably amazing all of this
and the best thing is everyone tells you this with a straight face like you're gonna hear it
for the first time and trust me you'll hear like at least a thousand times i find it really cute
is belize safe to travel and luckily the answer is quite simple
yes i mean compared to their central american neighbors
belize is much much much safer when it comes to visitors
i'm not saying it's completely safe because there is some violence and petty crime
but generally if you're sort of going to the more touristy i'm talking about placencia i'm talking
about hopkins most of the national parks are really well secured they had some issues in the
past but they sort of came over it so the belizean government takes the safety of its tourists
like pretty seriously the only place i had a bit of an issue after dark is san ignacio
i haven't gone to belize city so i don't really know much about it
belize is perfectly safe to travel don't worry about it too much
which sim card should you buy when you come to belize there's only two companies one is
digi which used to digicell and the other one is smart so digi had a monopoly before but
then now there's two companies honestly there's not much of a difference in terms of the prices
but it is digi that has a better coverage and i've been really surprised at how good the coverage and
the internet has been so far even in when i was you know doing the drive around i've been pretty
good so i would recommend getting either but if you definitely want more coverage digi is your
main company to go for in terms of prices it is actually quite expensive and data especially is
quite expensive so yeah getting a sim card in belize and you need to be a little prepared
for 4gb data i paid like 44 belizean dollars or 22 us dollars which is quite a lot internet has been
pretty good and really fast so if you're working remotely honestly i would not worry too much about
the internet speed i mean the water flow has been like really tricky around here
but internet speed is wow i was uploading some videos and about 18 19 gigabytes went up in like
three to four hours so you're working remotely this is a good place for that
you cannot drink tap water in belize so you need to get bottled water but please make
sure that you check with your hotel guest house airbnb resort that they provide filtered water
which is going to be amazing so you don't need to buy bottled water and use all these plastic
bottles also if you need to buy plastic bottles i would recommend bringing your own reusable one
i've seen a few tours do this where they take a big bottle and you can just you
know they can fill it up for you so bring your bottle with you is really important
there are a few things you don't want to forget for belize one insect repellent because if you're
anything like me the mosquitoes will bite you off they will kill you with all their bites
two sunscreen because the sun is pretty strong but make sure you bring the reef friendly sunscreen
not just anyone because the snorkeling here and the coral reef is really beautiful and
you don't want to destroy it with your sunscreen hats sunglasses and flip-flops really important
again if you want to do diving make sure you come certified already because belize is quite
expensive for that and discover scuba dives are as much as about 180 to 250 dollars per dies so yeah
come prepared please please please please please don't touch anything underwater or if you go to
the zoo and don't try to touch any animals it's just not a good idea it's just a really really
bad idea not because of the animals but also for you because you don't know what is dangerous down
there so the sharks can be pretty unpredictable the stingrays can kill you and when it comes to
corals you could like have severe consequences there are fire calls a few different types you
get up to second degree burns there so be careful don't touch anything underwater really important
and also you can't take anything with you especially from the reserves shells sand anything
you see there you just leave it there apart from your garbage you bring that back with you
this is brown boy travels i really hope you liked this video
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instagram and tik tok as well i do post some content there too and i will see you at another
beautiful destination in another beautiful video until then you have a gorgeous day ahead