Lighthouse Reef Adventure

Arrive at Belize City International Airport and meet your local representative for a 20-minute transfer to the Belize Biltmore Plaza Hotel. Check in, settle into the new surroundings, and rest after your journey. Dinner is available at the hotel restaurant and is at your own expense. Prepare to meet fellow travelers in the lobby the next morning.

*This is a base camping experience. Accommodations consist of wall-to-wall tented cabanas, spacious safari-style tents set on raised wooden platforms. Each tent offers ample headroom and features real wood-framed beds with 6-inch foam mattresses. Tents can be arranged with either double or single beds, and all linens are provided.

 

Meet a representative in the Biltmore Plaza Hotel lobby for a mid-morning departure. After a quick stop at a local shop, you transfer to a private motorboat for the 56-mile / 90-kilometer crossing to Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize's most remote island group, passing mangrove ranges and white sand cayes along the way. The crossing takes around two to three hours. On arrival at Half Moon Caye, your guide team welcomes you with an orientation and helps you get settled into camp, followed by a late lunch and an introductory walk-in snorkeling session at one of the local reefs.

Due to its isolated location from the mainland, the waters of Lighthouse Reef offer exceptionally clear views, boasting abundant fish populations and colorful coral reefs, making it one of the best spots for sea kayaking, snorkeling, and scuba diving in Belize.

Throughout your stay, you have ample opportunities to learn from your guides about the marine reef ecology, local flora and fauna, and the island's coconut and littoral forest, which is unusual for a coastal area. Half Moon Caye, a stunning 45-acre nature preserve, is home to a colony of red-footed boobies and a rookery of magnificent frigatebirds. You visit viewing platforms built by the Belize Audubon Society to observe nesting sites on the island.

Over the coming days, you can also explore a disappearing shipwreck just north of the caye. Activities are tailored daily based on weather conditions and group preferences. Alternatively, relax in a hammock with a good book and a cold beverage.

Later in the trip, you also visit The Aquarium, one of the reef's standout snorkel sites, before journeying to the world-renowned Great Blue Hole, a massive collapsed sinkhole adorned with soft and hard corals of various colors, made famous by ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. You reach this perfectly circular formation by traveling 6 mi (9.5 km) by motorboat, paddle, or sail within the Lighthouse Reef atoll.

Continue exploring deeper into the atoll with extended fishing trips, visits to new patch reefs, or downwind paddle trips on SUPs, all chosen by your guides to suit the day's conditions and your interests.

On the final night, enjoy a special dinner prepared just for you by the cooks. Following dinner, immerse yourself in a cultural presentation featuring drumming and dancing to celebrate your last night at Half Moon Caye.

*Due to the remote location of the Lighthouse Reef Basecamp, the activities on the reef portion of this trip are weather-dependent and are subject to change.


*Due to the remote location of the Lighthouse Reef Basecamp, the activities on the reef portion of this trip are weather-dependent and are subject to change.

The choice is yours for your last morning at Lighthouse Reef. Snorkel your favorite reefs, walk the island trails, swing in a hammock, or beachcomb along the immaculate island beaches. After lunch, a motor charter arrives to take you back to the mainland. This journey takes you through Turneffe Atoll, across the Great Barrier Reef, and you arrive at the Belize City Biltmore Hotel by late afternoon. For travelers leaving Belize after this trip, we strongly recommend spending a night in Belize City. International connections out of the country require a departure the following day.