In 1987 Madonna released a song about dreaming of a place, and some years later she told Rolling Stone that she did not know where it was. San Pedro has not let that stand in its way. The town on Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize, calls itself La Isla Bonita on its signs, and a minister of tourism has credited the song with bringing people here.
They would have come anyway, for the reef. It runs close offshore, part of the Belize Barrier Reef that UNESCO listed in 1996, and it turned a fishing village into a town of about 20,000 people, granted the title in 1984, with dive shops along the front. Hol Chan Marine Reserve lies off the south of the caye, and the Great Blue Hole is a long day out by boat. Nobody here needs a car. The traffic on Main Street is golf carts.
We would sleep south of town, where the road thins out and the mangroves begin, and come in for dinner. The town is good for an evening and tiring for a week. On the way back the golf cart's headlights show you the signs again, for an island the song's author could not have found.
Explore 1 exceptional boutique hotel hand-picked in San Pedro. Click a pin to discover each property.
Belize, San Pedro
Playa De Sala
A five-suite hotel on Tarpon Bay, Ambergris Caye, with an infinity pool, a rooftop bar and a washed-up Jamaican fishing boat for a beach bar.
Price for 1 night from
€149.20
Our address is 4.5 miles south of town on Tarpon Bay. Playa De Sala has five suites named for what they are made of, an infinity pool looking over the bay, a rooftop bar for the sunset and a beach bar in a fishing boat that drifted here from Jamaica. Members book it at rates we hold for the Club. It suits anyone who wants the south of the island to themselves, and fly fishers in particular, since bonefish come through the shallows in front of it.
Hol Chan is the first boat to book, for the reef and the rays. The Great Blue Hole takes a full day and is better from the air than from the water, so go for the dive or take a flight over it. On land there is less to do, by design: the Marco Gonzalez Maya Site is a short ride from the southern hotels, and the mangroves can be paddled from the door. Bikes and golf carts cover the rest.
December to May is the drier stretch and the one most people choose. The rains come from June and hurricanes are possible until November. Lobster has a season here, and the menus change when it opens.
For the reef, which runs close offshore, and for an island you can cross without a car. Hol Chan Marine Reserve and the Great Blue Hole are both within reach by boat, the town has seafood and a beach-bar evening, and quieter hotels lie to the south along the mangroves and the bay.
