Buses in Belize
August 5th, 2009 Posted in Cheap Latin America Travel, Destination reports, Family travel, Travel adventures
If a picture speaks a thousand words, here are a few thousand words on the buses in Belize.
First up at the top is a shot of the sitting area in the Belize City bus station. This is the main bus station in the largest city —the commercial center of the country. The toilets are just as bad and you have to pay for the pleasure of using them.
Every bus but one that leaves out of here is a Blue Bird-type school bus with seats built for people the size of school-age kids. Like the other two photos you see here.
The one exception is the nicest bus to Chetumal, Mexico, from a company named Premier. They are indeed the premier bus line going to Mexico because they’re the only one with air conditioning and something resembling an express schedule. (It only stops 20 times on the way instead of 200.) It’s cheap, at only about US$8, but there’s no reserved seating and if you take more than 10 minutes to get through customs at the border it’ll leave you stranded there and you’ll have to pay for an expensive taxi ride for the remainder of the trip. If border control is backed up, too bad for you!
(Be advised that you need to spend US$18 at the border on departure taxes when you exit.)
From city to city in Belize, there are no express buses at all, even in high season. Belize seems to have spent most of its money and effort on attracting cruise ship passengers and Ambergris Caye divers, so they haven’t worried too much about pesky things like paving roads or providing a way for tourists to get around. (Yes, the roads are terrible in Costa Rica too, but at least there’s a scheduled shuttle service to get you from place to place.)
So if you are traveling around different places in Belize you either tough it out, as most backpackers do, or you give up like I did and cough up lots of money for alternatives. I had a wife and young daughter along, so we took a private shuttle on two routes (for double what it would have been in Guatemala) and took puddle jumper flights from Placencia to Punta Gorda to Belize City. If you’re on a vacation budget, that’s the best option as the flights are not all that expensive: $40 to $150 one-way on Tropic Air, with half price for kids.
So why go through all this at all? First of all, it’s a transit point. If you’re going from Mexico to Guatemala or Honduras, the easiest route is through Belize. You can easily get to Tikal in a day from Belize City and you can get to southern Guatemala or to Honduras by boat from Punta Gorda.
The adventure activities are good, the snorkeling and diving are great, and the music is better than in neighboring countries. On a vacation in one place or on a guided tour where you’ve prepaid most costs, you will have a blast in Belize and come home happy. But if you’re not a diver or fishing enthusiast, as a budget traveler you can do pretty much everything you can do here in Honduras or in Guatemala for less money.
For more on the whole region and the pros and cons of each, see Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America.
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2 Responses to “Buses in Belize”
By Mario on Aug 5, 2009
Oh that brings back bad memories. I spent two hot hours in that bus station a few years ago and it looked just as bad then. Lovely part of town to go with it too.
By marina k. villatoro on Aug 18, 2009
I took buses thru belize, at that point of my trip I was loving everything so when we broke down because of a flat tire I was in my glory, when everyone around me was bitching and moaning:) Now I would be bitching right along with them!