One Week in belize with Kids: The Ultimate 7 Day Itinerary

ByBess Hours
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Looking for the perfect itinerary for a week in Belize with kids? Look no further! We figured it out so you don’t have! I’ll also provide our honest take on some ‘must do’ activities and destinations so you can avoid some of the mistakes we made.

I can’t wait to share my guide to Belize with kids with you. As an English speaking country, Belize is a great option for intrepid family travelers who are looking for an adventure packed destination that is English speaking with an incredible amount of culture.

Belize with kids

Why Go To Belize With Kids?

Belize is a small country that packs a big punch. From the lush rainforests and Mayan ruins of the Cayo district to the crystal clear water of the coast. There really is something for every type of family traveler. If you have one week to spend in Belize with your kids, I recommend splitting your time between the interior of the country and the coastline so you can get a mix of everything the country has to offer.

What you need to know about taking kids to belize

I’ll be honest, for a professional researcher and proud Type A planner, I did not do enough research about taking kids to Belize before our trip. I don’t want you to make that same mistake so I’m going to put all of our lessons learned up front.

Can You Visit Belize With Young Kids?

Absolutely! But this is one of the rare cases where I would recommend waiting until your kids are older. And this is coming from the woman who dragged her family to Iceland for two weeks of hiking! Outside of seeing the Mayan ruins most of the activities were adventure based: ATV-riding, caving, ziplining, etc. And almost all of those have age limits which a toddler or preschooler is not going to meet. We are used to that which is why we split our time between San Ignacio and the coast. However, I am going to be completely honest: we’ve been to better beaches/coastlines and that part of the trip was a bit of a disappointment for us. There is world-class snorkeling and scuba diving though so, again, I think Belize lends itself more to older children. Our biggest kid is 8 years old and was a perfect age for visiting Belize.

Drinking Water

While the drinking water in Belize is considered safe, it is recommended that you drink bottled water. We did that but weren’t as strict as I have been in other countries. We brushed teeth out of the tap, occasionally drank glasses of water at restaurants and didn’t verify if they were filtered, and drank a lot of smoothies with crushed ice. My reward for this lack of research? Giardia, also known as traveler’s diarrhea. Before you bring your kids to Belize talk to them about water safety and using bottled water for everything. I have to think extra hard about this with a toddler who loves to drink half of his bathtub.

Getting Around Belize With Kids

Transportation in Belize can be an adventure. I recommend bringing your own car seats (we never rent) and making use of hotel transfers and guided excursions so you can avoid renting a car. While the road from Belize City to San Ignacio (your recommended homebase) is in moderately good condition, some of the roads for excursions leave a lot to be desired. I felt much more comfortable in a large hotel shuttle bus with a local driver than I would have driving myself.

What about seat belts and car seats? We brought our car seats and were able to install them in the shuttle vans. However, I could not always find a back-latch for a toddler car seat. I’d definitely recommend bringing booster seats. Outside of our pre-arranged transportation we took two taxis. Both only had lap belts. Thankfully we only needed them for 2-3 minute drives.

Critters and Animals

Bugs. To say there are a lot of bugs in Belize is an understatement. Make sure you come prepared for itchy kids. We brought DEET, Benadryl, Zyrtec, and hydrocortisone cream. And I had it on me at all times. My big kid would take a dose of Benadryl after each excursion in an attempt to calm down her numerous mosquito bites.

Animals. I was not prepared for the stray dogs in Belize and I want you to be. We encountered more stray dogs in San Pedro than San Ignacio, but they were in both cities. I have a young preschooler who is pretty intimidated by dogs and a big kid who wants to hold all of them so I was very busy whenever we were walking around town.

Restaurants and Service

This is not a complaint, more something you need to be very aware of. It is the norm at restaurants in Belize for it to take quite a while for the food to come out. We are talking 30-60 minutes to get appetizers. At first we thought it was just us but it kept happening. On the way home we heard other tourists talking about their long waits as well. One couple said they spent three hours at a very casual dinner.

Just be aware! Once you know to bring a ton of snacks for little kids who don’t have that kind of patience you will be in a better position.

Itinerary Overview: One Week in Belize with Kids

If you are looking to spend one week in Belize with kids I recommend you divide your time between San Ignacio and San Pedro (Ambergris Caye). You’ll divide your time between Mayan ruins, adventure excursions, and underwater adventures.

Note: Is San Pedro touristy? Yes, a resounding yes. I’ve seen this debated on a few blogs and I want to say unequivocally, yes. You are going to get your fix for Belizean culture in San Ignacio, while San Pedro is full of Americans and American expats. You can definitely find Belizean owned restaurants but know there are a lot of foreign owned establishments here.

Day by Day Itinerary: One week in Belize with Kids

Day 1 – Arrive in Belize City

I do not recommend overnighting in Belize City. Instead arrange a car with your hotel and head straight from the airport to San Ignacio. Depending on the weather conditions and time of day, you can expect this drive to take around two hours.

If you’ve arrived early in the day, enjoy some relaxation time at your hotel pool.

Day 2 – Explore San Ignacio

Your first stop of the day is the Green Iguana Conservation Project at the San Ignacio Resort. This quick 45-60 minute tour will be a highlight for young children. You’ll walk through the jungle that borders the hotel, which allows for an opportunity to see iguanas in the wild, before you enter into the conservation area. There your guide will teach you about iguanas and give kids an opportunity to hold adult iguanas and new babies. This was definitely a highlight for our kids!

In the afternoon visit a small Mayan site, Cahal Pech. This site is just 2-3 minutes up the hill from the San Ignacio Resort so you can easily make a day of the iguanas and Cahal Pech by having lunch at the hotel in between. Cahal Pech is a much less visited site so you could easily have the place to yourself. Plan on spending 1-2 hours here depending on how much your kids enjoy running around and acting like explorers. My kids loved all the ‘secret passageways’ at Cahal Pech. Since this is your first Mayan ruin of the trip, I recommend doing some reading before you get there so you can share some of the history with your kids.

Day 3 – Day Trip to Tikal

This recommendation is for intrepid travelers because the day trip to Tikal from San Ignacio is a long one (that starts very early!). From San Ignacio it is approximately 2-2.5 hours to Tikal and you’ll have to cross the border into Guatemala. What that will look like is taking a hotel shuttle to the border, going through customs, and switching to a new vehicle. Not too bad for adults but if you think about the fact that you’ll have car seats it is a little bit of a pain!

You’ll have 3-4 hours at Tikal which will go quicker than you think because this Mayan site is huge! It houses up to 60,000 Mayans after all! A tip for getting around Tikal is to take the Safari shuttle from the entrance to the interior of the site. This shaves off a little over a mile of walking which is great for keeping little legs fresh. However, it is BUMPY. And towards the end of the day you might find yourself uncomfortably packed in.

Tikal is fantastic and young travelers will enjoy running around the open spaces between the ruins and learning about Mayan culture. My big kid in particular loved learning about the games they played. Unlike Mayan sites in Belize there are modern stairs and hand rails for getting to the top of temples.

Day 4 – Choose Your Own Adventure

If you are traveling with young kids or are a huge fan of Mayan temples, I recommend visiting Xunantunich. This was our favorite Mayan site, we even preferred it to Tikal! To get to the ruins you’ll cross the river on a hand cranked barge that can take four cars at a time. It was such a fun way to arrive at the ruins. Plan to visit Xunantunich early and you can have it almost to yourself. I can’t recommend that enough!

If you are traveling with older kids or are in the mood for some adventure, I recommend going caving and head to ATM cave. ATM cave is the most popular cave in Belize and for good reason. It’s believed that the Mayans used the ATM cave to conduct human sacrifices as part of their sacred rituals. You can only visit the ATM cave with a guide for safety reasons so plan on booking one early. These do book up. We got lucky and were able to send my husband due to a last minute cancellation. The kids and I opted for Xunantunich in the morning and our hotel pool in the afternoon.

Other activities for adrenaline junkies include ziplining and ATVing.

Day 5 – Travel from San Ignacio to San Pedro, Ambergris Caye

This is a somewhat long day. You’ll take a car from San Ignacio either to the Belize City airport where you will hop on a 15 minute hopper flight from Mayan air or to the San Pedro Belize Express Water Taxi dock. The water taxi to San Pedro takes about 1.5 hours. Once you arrive in San Pedro you’ll need to take a taxi or car service to your hotel.

Most people will recommend you stop at the Belize Zoo on the way and while I’ve heard great things about the zoo but that sounds exhausting. We chose to do a car service and then the water taxi and by the time we arrived at our hotel we were ready to do nothing but lounge in the hotel pool. Two or three hours at the zoo would have done us in.

Day 6 – Snorkeling and Splashing

You can’t head to the Belize coast without getting in the water! It’s what you came here for, right? If you are traveling with young kids I recommend looking into a private tour so you can get 1:1 attention from a tour guide. Especially if you aren’t an expert snorkeler yourself. We booked through Tuff e Nuff tours and had a good, albeit pricey, experience.

Your tour will include a trip out to the Hol Chan Nature Reserve which is a pretty spectacular experience. There is a floating entry gate which I found charming. From there you’ll tie your boat up and hop in. Our tour included 45-60 minutes of time at the reef. This was excellent snorkeling for young kids. The water is crystal clear and there are a variety of fish they’ll recognize. It was so fun to hear my 3-year old yell out, ‘look mom it’s Nemo!’.

After Hol Chan Nature Reserve, you’ll head to Shark and Ray Alley, named for it’s inhabitants: nurse sharks and sting rays. Your guide will start tossing fish guts overboard and the nurse sharks will start swarming your boat. You are welcome to continue snorkeling in this area or stay on the boat.

I’ll be honest, I’m not completely sure how I feel about this attraction. I’ve read some negative things about chumming to attract any kind of marine life which this certainly was. Our guide also had to yell at a ton of tourists to back up because you are supposed to give the nurse sharks at least 5 feet of clearance. While nurse sharks are docile you can find a few entries online of people who claim they were bitten (they do have very small teeth). We decided to just enjoy the nurse sharks from our boat but I am left wondering if the chumming was a good practice.

Day 7 – Head Home

Regardless of how you got to Ambergris Caye, you are going to want to take a hopper flight from Mayan air home. The flights are quick and painless, unless you are terrified of flying like I am. One thing to be aware of is these are small planes with strict luggage restrictions. We ended up having to pay extra and almost couldn’t get our carseats on board. You’ll book a flight time but the flights appeared to be first come first serve so if you show up 20 minutes before you flight like our hotel recommended, you’ll leave 20 minutes late. We made our flight home just fine but there were a few people at the airport who seemed to be nervous.

Where to Stay In Belize with Kids

San Ignacio

We recommend staying at the San Ignacio Resort if you are visiting Belize with kids. There are a few other 5-star hotels in the area but San Ignacio Resort has something they don’t have – an iguana conservatory! We loved being on site for our tour to the Iguana Conservatory but that’s not just it. The hotel has a fantastic concierge service and they will arrange all of your transports and tours for you. The guides at San Ignacio Resort are all star and fantastic with children, I can’t recommend them enough.

We ran into minimal issues at San Ignacio Resort but if I had to give a con it would be that the service isn’t a reactive as I’d like them to be. We had an issue with one of our beds squeaking terribly and despite them promising daily to address it, they’d didn’t during our four day stay which was a disappointment. Other well-reviewed properties in the area include Ka’ana Resort and Spa and the Lodge at Chaa Creek.

Ambergris Caye

We opted to stay north of San Pedro at Coco Beach Resort and that was definitely the right choice for our family. We heard from a few people at restaurants that Coco Beach was notorious for having the best pools on the caye. What more can little kids ask for?

I’ll be honest the pool is entirely why we booked the resort and we weren’t disappointed. There is a warm gradual entry pool overlooking the water that is perfect for little kids. After that there is a cool pool surrounding the hot tub and then a heated swim up pool bar which is adults only. The last pool is separated from the rest by a restaurant and has a kid-friendly water slide. The pools were all different temperatures and the gradual entry pool was more our style. The rest were a bit cool for our liking but the area had an unseasonable amount of rain while we were there.

Where to Eat in Belize with Kids

We didn’t do much eating out in San Igancio, instead we stuck to eating at the resort after a long day of activities. We did venture out more in San Pedro and can recommend the Truck Stop for lunch or dinner with kids and the Farmhouse as a great option for breakfast. Both can get criticism for being too ‘American’ but the food was delicious and there were multiple things my kids would eat so I take it as a victory!

Did Our Family Love Our Time In Belize With Kids?

If I am being honest, no. There are so many blog posts raving about family trips to Belize and we just didn’t have the same experience other people did. I think we would have been able to enjoy more that San Ignacio had to offer if we hadn’t had a 3-year old with us, hence my recommendation to go with older kids.

The second thing we didn’t love about Belize were the beaches or lack thereof. While Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker have amazing snorkeling they don’t have much by way of beaches. The more popular beach towns, Placencia and Hopkins, aren’t necessarily world renown beaches. If you are looking for bucket list worthy beaches, I would recommend against Belize.

Overall, our family gave the entire trip a 5/10 with San Igancio being a 7/10 and San Pedro being a 3/10. Does that mean you shouldn’t go? Not necessarily! Travel is so personal, I’ve done my best to outline the things we didn’t love about Belize so you can book your trip feeling well educated. If you are looking for more honest reviews check out my Instagram stories highlight.

Not sold on heading to Belize with kids after this review? Check out my blog post about Iceland. Definitely our favorite family friendly adventure trip EVER!

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