Is Placencia, Belize Worth Visiting? My Honest Take After a Disappointing Week

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After reading lots of wonderful reviews and seeing amazing Tik-Tok videos about Placencia, I showed up with high hopes of beaches filled with palm trees and a sleepy fishing-village vibe.

What I found instead was a pricier, more tourist-centric strip with underwhelming beaches and sky-high hotel rates. Below is everything I wish I’d known before spending a week (and cutting it short) in Placencia, plus where I think your limited Belize days are better spent.

Where is Placencia, and how do you get there?

Placencia sits on the tip of a long, skinny peninsula in southern Belize, about 220 km south of Belize City. You can choose to fly there, take a shuttle or the local bus. Both flying and shuttle is insanely expensive, and the public bus is not direct so you would need to plan for a full day of travel and bus switches.

I decided to rent a car in San Ignacio and drive the beautiful Hummingbird Highway and end up in Placencia. This ended up being the cheapest and best option since we could leave the car in Placencia.

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Pros and Cons about Placencia

Even if I personally didn’t love it there, you might. So I will do my best to give the most accurate picture of Placencia as I can, both the good and the bad.

Pros of visiting Placencia

One of the best things about Placencia is that you can take a ferry to Honduras from here. So if you, like me, are backpacking through Central America, this town might come in handy on your way to Honduras. I ended up taking the ferry over and it was a really easy way of getting to Honduras.

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Another positive side to Placencia is that there are lots and lots of luxury hotels. So if you’re looking for a stunning resort where you can relax in the sun, and have drinks by the pool you will probabilistic have a great time here.

There is also a kind of cute «sidewalk» around the city with small shops in different colors. It’s very touristy, but at least its charming to look at. There are also some really great restaurants here so you will definitely find some amazing food to enjoy.

Cons of visiting Placencia

This almost feels weird to write, but it felt like the city was dying. I’ve never been to a place where there were so many «For sale» signs on the houses. It seemed like everyone was selling their vacation homes. I later learned that this is because of the number of retired people living here and sadly not all of them are with us anymore.

This takes me to my next point, Placencia feels like a place for retired Americans and Canadians. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, it’s just not the vibe I wanted when backpacking through Belize. I never read about this from any of my research, which is one of the reasons I decided to create this blogpost. So if you decide to visit, at least you’ll know what you’ll get.

Another big con of Placencia are the prices. Don’t get me wrong, Belize is expensive no matter where you decide to go, but in my opinion it was harder to find a nice place to stay for the same price as we did on Caye Caulker or along the Hummingbird Highway for instance.

How are the beaches in Placencia?

The water is Caribbean-blue, but the shoreline is thin with lots of sea-grass piled up. The sea-grass is natural so I don’t feel like I can complain to much about that, but many places the beach was just filled with garbage and it was not possible to swim at all. At least I as put-of from swimming after seeing all the rubbish on the beach.

There was one beach where its decent to swim, but I wouldn’t come all the way to Placencia to swim there. I’ve also heard that some of the best stretches of beach are fronted by the private resorts. However, since I didn’t stay there I can’t confirm or deny it unfortunately.

My advice is to head to Caye Caulker if beaches are your priority.

Better Belize base camps (My favorite picks)

If you're heading to Belize, which I highly recommend you do, I have some other tips to where to go instead of Placencia.

Caye Caulker

If you want to relax in a hammock, have drinks while watching the sunset or do some absolutely amazing snorkeling, this is where you should head to in Belize.

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The Complete Travel Guide to Caye Caulker - Where to Stay, Best Places to Eat & The Top things to Do

San Ignacio

If you want to explore some ancient Mayan ruins and have come epic jungle adventures, then San Ignacio is an amazing base.

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San Ignacio Travel Guide: Best Things to Do, Where to Stay & How to Get There

Hummingbird Highway

This is a pretty untouched part of Belize and you can hike to stunning waterfalls, sleep in the middle of the jungle or make your own chocolate. I absolutely loved our days driving along the Hummingbird Highway.

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Travel Guide to The Hummingbird Highway - Including The Best Stops you don’t want to miss

Final Verdict: Is Placencia worth visiting?

For most travelers on limited time? My personal opinion is no. Belize offers prettier beaches, more authentic villages, and better value elsewhere.

Unless Placencia fits a specific need like taking the boat to Honduras or if you’ve gotten a great deal on a luxury resort, I’d skip it and invest those days in Caye Caulker, San Ignacio, or along the Hummingbird Highway instead.

I hope my honest experience saves you some Belize-planning headaches (and dollars).

If you have any questions about Belize or travel in Central America, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on social media. I would love to connect and help put!

-Ingrid

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