Belize to Guatemala | Crossing Borders..

With each country that we visit, it seems to get harder and harder to leave, and Belize was no exception! The friendliest of greetings is matched by the wishful of goodbyes, the laid-back way of life and infectious atmospheric character of the Belizeans will stay with me fondly! However, as hard as it was to leave, we now had to swith our attention to the land of volcanoes, Guatemala!

But how did we get there..

There are quite a few ways to enter Guatemala from Belize, depending on which part of the country you are in, whether it be crossing by boat from Punta Gorda to Livingston or by bus from San Ignacio to Flores. We chose the latter! Well, after considering the money that we spent in Caye Caulker, we actually decided to skip San Ignacio and the ATM caves and head straight over to Guatemala to explore its magnitude of volcanoes and jungles! With us already having a return boat to Belize City, we decided to book a bus from one of the many tour agents circling the tourists at the port in Belize City like vultures around prey, direct to Flores, Guatemala. This was very easy to arrange, the hardest part was batting the not so lucky rejected tour agents away!

After waiting around for what seemed an age in Belize City, and a sweaty bus journey we made it to the border! This was a straightforward border crossing, with no real issues (apart from the air conditioning!) and after the formalities of getting our passport stamp and bags checked, we were then on our way to Santa Elena before then getting into a pre-arranged shuttle to our hostel in Flores, while stopping off at a all important cash machine on the way (there are no cash machines on the island of Flores)! Apart from waiting for quite a long time in Belize City and our bus not having any air conditioning (Yeah that wasn't ideal!), everything else went smoothly!

There are alternative ways of crossing the border for a lot cheaper, you can catch a chicken bus from San Ignacio to Benque Viejo and then walk to the border and then catching a collectivo to Santa Elena, before finally getting a tuk-tuk to Flores.

As with most border crossings there will be lots of opportunities to exchange any of your left over Belizean Dollars here for Guatemalan Quetzal, just make sure that they do not rip you off. Always have a rough idea of how much you should be getting in return. We always use the XE Currency app to work out what the exchange rates for each currency is!

Journey Time: 6-8 hours.

Bus Company: The bus we took was Mundo Maya, but there are lots of competition at the ferry port in Belize City, so shop around! (You will get hassled by each and everyone of them anyway!)

Price: $40 BZD / £15 / $20 USD (You can do this a lot cheaper via chicken bus, collectivo & tuk-tuk)

Exit & Entry Fee: $20 USD Exit fee but luckily there is no entry fee to Belize for UK citizens.

Visa: You receive the CA-4 visa for up to 90 days which includes visits to neighbouring countries of El Salvador, Honduras & Nicaragua.

Border Efficiency: Very easy process, no queues or complications and each bus change was dealt with smoothly.