Two sides of Belizean island life in Caye Caulker and San Pedro

Where are San Pedro and Caye Caulker?

Caye Caulker and San Pedro are located off the coast of Belize in the Caribbean Sea and are both surrounded by the Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest living coral reef in the world.

Caye Caulker is in-fact an island, whereas San Pedro is a town on the bigger Ambergris Caye — and for those who don’t know (like us before deciding to visit), you pronounce Caye like "key". Caye Caulker is northeast of Belize City just over 30 km away and takes an hour to get there by ferry, or if you are rich you can take the 15 minute Tropic Air or Maya air flight from Belize city airport. The flights also go to San Pedro - Ambergris Caye is north of Caye Caulker and a bit further away from Belize City - which used to be a little fishing village, but now has a population of 20.000 and it's more built-up than Caye Caulker.

Northern part of the Belizean coast

Why They're So Visited and things you need to know

Natural beauty and wildlife

Both islands will give you access to the stunning Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest living coral reef in the world. The beautifully clear waters surrounding both islands are perfect for snorkelling, diving and wildlife spotting. The Hol Chan Marine Reserve is currently thinking of limiting the number of visitors as the marine habitat here is the most visited by snorkelling tours. Hol Chan is mayan for “little channel” and it’s one of the few places with a break in the reef which allows marine life to get to shallower waters. Shark Ray Alley is another popular place to spot things like sting rays, eagle rays, Caribbean reef sharks and nurse sharks—oh, and turtles!

The Great Blue Hole - “the best diving site in the world”

Well, if you google Belize, this is one of the first things you will see on Google Images. The Blue Hole is a mysterious sink-hole supposedly created during the ice age when water levels increased and caused what was a limestone cave to flood and collapse to a depth of 120 metres.

If you go by boat it’s about two hours away from Caye Caulker and about 20 minutes if you do the plane tour. You can either dive here or do the fly-over tour. Our reason to go on the fly-over tour rather the the dive were the following:

The Great Blue Hole Belize Central America

Watch out

Although the islands have a lovely atmosphere and are great for relaxing, they aren't ideal if you do not swim or aren't planning to spend much on activities. If you're visiting because you want to enjoy the beach you might be disappointed to see that there aren't very many actual beaches. This may be particularly tricky for families as lots of the tours won’t allow children under a certain age or certain height.

San Pedro is fairly pricey, with many things costing about the same as they would in the US. Because it’s remote and not easy to reach with regular deliveries, even the supermarkets have high prices. However, Caye Caulker is definitely more affordable day-to-day. Tour and accommodation prices are still quite similar between the two, but Caye Caulker has a bigger range of hostels and guesthouses.

Secret Beach is an hour golf cart drive from San Pedro, somewhere (it remains a mystery to us) you will also find a small boat to take you there. To get to Secret Beach from Caye Caulker is a lengthy journey but doable. You will need to catch an early boat to San Pedro (30 mins) and the rent a golf cart, unless you manage to find the person offering the boat rides, in which case, please contact us and let us know!

Small intro to Caye Caulker

The popular saying in Caye Caulker is "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem” - this should give you a good idea of how relaxed it is. This five-mile-long island is divided by ‘The Split’ which apparently was created during the hurricane named Hattie which widened what was previously just a small stream and obviously caused enormous damage. This area now has a photo prop in honour of its name and is used as the main meeting spot on the island, with The Lazy Lizard being the most popular bar for drinks and sunsets (this is not a night bar as it closes between 8/9pm).

What I really enjoyed about Caye Caulker is that there are no cars or tarmac, and the golf carts are limited to a very small number for shops and taxis, so compared to San Pedro, the island is much less noisy and the air is cleaner.

People living here have resisted large-scale tourism and resort development and most of the restaurants, shops and cafes are family run businesses, which have helped maintain the real character of the island. The quality of the food is also very high.

Small intro to San Pedro

San Pedro is on Ambergris Caye (Belize's largest island) and is definitely the most built-up. If resorts are your kind of thing then this is the island for you. It is generally more lively and has a good number of restaurants and bars.

The Black & White Cultural Entertainment Center is a great place to eat very good Caribbean food and listen to live Garifuna drumming. It’s a Belizean family who runs it and they invite everyone to come and discover the country’s traditions through artefacts, music and food.

The wildlife on both islands is great, you will see iguanas and pelicans everywhere and if you don’t or are keen to see even bigger iguanas you should probably visit the Iguana Eco Sanctuary where you will see real whoppers.

There are two busy streets where you will find everything you need, i.e. supermarkets, cafes, diving schools, golf caddy rentals and tour agencies.

What you will find on both islands

Water activities are easily accessible from both islands. Snorkelling, diving, paddle-boarding and kayaking are all very popular. These islands are also visited by fishing enthusiasts, but we don’t know much about that.

Both islands are very flat so it's easy to get around by bike. Some places will have bikes you can just borrow, otherwise you will easily find somewhere to rent them. Just ask your accommodation.

The Belize Chocolate Shop has a shop on each island and it sells very high quality Belizean chocolate as well as having information on how cacao beans are cultivated and turned into chocolate.

There are hourly ferry trips to and from the mainland and between the two islands. Both places have small airports and are quite busy for their size! Because Caye Caulker is slightly closer the ferry takes one hour to get there from Belize City and will then go to San Pedro, which takes another half an hour. The ferries always stop at Caye Caulker on the way back too (see more under ‘How to get there’).

Centre of Caye Caulker with sandy roads and wooden houses

Which island to choose?

Both islands offer lovely stays with places you can relax in, but just to make sure you go to the right island:

Choose Caye Caulker if you're looking for drift wood beach bars, colourful wooden houses and a more rustic island experience. Perfect if you prefer walking and have a smaller budget.

Choose San Pedro if you prefer resorts and high-end hotels with more space near the sea.

Beaches and swimming areas

San Pedro and Caye Caulker used to be covered in mangroves, some areas still are and you can see what they used to be like by looking at the small uninhabited islands around the Belizean coast. This type of vegetation really helps during storms and hurricanes, acting like a natural barrier by absorbing wave strength thanks to the mangroves’ roots. These plants also manage to break wind speed during storms and hurricane seasons.

So if you’re looking for loads of sandy beaches, you won’t find them. The whole beach experience here revolves around relaxing under palm trees and diving off one of the wooden piers. However, you will find a few small beaches dotted around.

Caye Caulker Beaches

There aren’t any traditional beaches on the main part of Caye Caulker (south of The Split) but there are some on the west coast of the north part of the island. They are usually part of a resort, so you will need to order a drink or something to be able to use the beach.

Despite this limitation, The Split is where lots of people go for a dip. The Lazy Lizard and Dip ‘n’ Sip are two bars which offer a similar experience to Secret Beach, but on a smaller scale. In fact, much smaller as they only have one table each, but it’s definitely worth it.

There is a “beachy” beach at Iguana Reef where you can walk into the water from sand. Lots of people flock here at 4pm when the sting rays are most active. Unfortunately this is because they are fed by the hotel and the hotel guests, but you can decide to ignore this activity and go for a swim or lie in the water hammocks—you need to shuffle and be careful not to step on these enormous marine pancakes!

Pier at Lazy Lizard

San Pedro Beaches

Secret Beach - on Ambergris Caye - is definitely not a secret, despite its name. It takes an hour to get there by golf cart but it's worth it as it’s fun and nice to just sit on the half-submerged picnic tables and eat a delicious lunch. There are various restaurants, but we preferred going to the more rustic looking one, Blue Bayou — strolling through the ones further north you could see they had all the water activities and games etc, but it felt a bit gimmicky.

If you don’t want to go far from the centre of San Pedro, Ramons is the best place to go swimming. It’s another resort, but out of all of them it's the one which looks the nicest because the buildings are covered by palm trees so you would almost feel like being on an untouched tropical beach.

Blue Bayou at Secret Beach

Nightlife

Both places have good food and nice places to hang out at night. San Pedro’s nightlife is a bit livelier and goes on further into the night as there are no proper clubs on Caye Caulker where places tend to close quite early.

San Pedro has themed nights and beach parties often for hotel guests and non.

Our favourite places to hang out at night in San Pedro were:

Caye caulker nightlife (or rather, evening life):

Bars like Salty's host events such as live music, trivia, and poker nights, providing a taste of local island life.

The best part: Food

We are big foodies so we were relieved to get to Caye Caulker where the food was cheaper but also on another level compared to San Pedro. You could stay here a week and not go through all your options.

Here are the ones we though were the best restaurants, in San Pedro:

Supermarkets and veg shops:

Here are our favourite in Caye Caulker:

Supermarkets and veg shops:

The best pupusas and quesadillas on Caye Caulker

How to get there and transportation on the islands

You can fly or you can catch the Water Taxi. Flights are run by Maya Air and Tropic Air and take about 20 minutes from Belize City airport, whereas the water taxi takes 1.5 hours to San Pedro (it always stops in Caye Caulker first) and 1 hour to Caye Caulker. You can also get here from Mexico as there is a daily ferry to and from Chetumal. This will be dependent on the weather.

It’s very easy to do island hopping to see both places during your Belizean adventure.

As previously mentioned, if you’r staying in San Pedro, you may need to rent a golf cart to get around easily, but as both islands are so flat, it’s very easy to get around by bike. It will also be much cheaper as a bike is about 15 Belizean dollars per day and a golf cart is 65 US dollars.

Accommodation and prices

As usual, we were rather late in booking and found it difficult to find cheaper places, so I would suggest to book with at least 5/6 weeks in advance if you know you’re going! Having said this, we managed to find two really lovely places. Diana’s The Feathers on San Pedro and Shipmates Berth (Shipwreck Cove) on Caye Caulker which had bikes we could use whenever we wanted. We would definitely recommend these places as we really enjoyed our stays here.

San Pedro’s accommodation is by far more expensive. Caye Caulker on the other hand has more places which would suit backpackers’ budgets and lifestyle.

Things to do on Caye Caulker and San Pedro

Snorkelling Tours

Both islands are a great place to see the Belize Barrier Reef. You can book a snorkelling tour from Caye Caulker that includes visits to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley. These tours usually leave at 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and include lunch onboard, equipment and opportunities to see Green, Hawksbill, and Loggerhead turtles, Nurse sharks, eagle rays and stingrays and sometimes West Indian manatees. We did this with Ragga Sailing who do all of their tours with a catamaran.

Davide relaxing on the sailing trip

Scuba Diving

Most diving schools usually do barrier reef dives (just 5-10 minutes from shore), night dives where you can see bioluminescence and full-day trips to the iconic Great Blue Hole. For more experienced divers, trips to Turneffe Atoll (about 2 hours away) offer the chance to explore the largest and most biologically diverse atoll in the Americas. We decided not to do the Blue Hole dive and go for the Esmeralda dive spot with French Angels on Caye Caulker, although we thought they were great and professional, we were surprised to see Esmeralda didn’t have much marine life, so maybe a trip to the atolls might be better.

Yoga Classes

We enjoyed going to Ceiba Yoga at Weezie's Oceanfront Hotel where there is a hardwood platform just a couple of meters from the sea. These are donation-based classes (minimum recommendation of 10 USD) and they do accept walk-ins. If I remember correctly there are two lessons a day: 8:00 and 9:30 or 7:30 and 9:00…probably best to check!

Great Blue Hole Visits

The Great Blue Hole is accessible from both islands. From San Pedro, SunBreeze Hotel's dive shop offers day tours that begin at sunrise and include visits to the Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye, and Long Caye.

Fishing

We were surprised to see so many people keen on the fishing tours, but there are many operators providing both full and half-day fishing trips (Weezies Oceanfront Tours is one of them).

Paddle boarding and Kayaking

Reef Break Surf Shop on Caye Caulker rents paddle boards starting at $15 US for one hour or $85 US for 24 hours. However, we didn’t see anybody on kayaks or paddle boards and were wondering if the wind was affecting this.

The Seahorse Reserve and sting rays at Iguana Reef Inn

The Seahorse Reserve is on the side of at Iguana Reef near the sting ray spot. Here you can see seahorses for free in their natural habitat. They are quite difficult to spot, so you will need some patience and be prepared to look out for a while before actually seeing one.

Stingrays gliding through shallow water in Caye Caulker

Tarpon Feeding

The tarpon feeding dock is at Calle La Posa and is Caye Caulker's most affordable attractions. It costs 5 Belizean dollars to get a bowl with five sardines to feed the tarpons.

Tarpons are massive saltwater fish that have become accustomed to being fed by visitors. They actually jump out of the water to take fish from your hand!

There are two ways to feed them:

A few more tips