CanadianRedneck

Hi all,

Let me know your thoughts! Long way away but I am very excited! Dates are December and January.

28-San Pedro Sula airport-uber to bus station and bus to to D&D Brewery- Lake Yojoa
29-D$D Brewery- Waterfall hike-
30-D&D shuttle to utila
31-utila-snorkeling
1-Utila-spear fishing
2-jungle river Lodge la ceiba-arrive by bus from port
3-jungle river lodge la ceiba- Waterfall hike
4-arrive by bus to copan
5-copan-ruins tour
6-Arrive by chicken bus greengos semuc champey
7-greengos-semuc champey
8-lake atitlan-san pedro
9-lake atitlan-hike san pedro volcano
10-lake atitlan-tzunal waterfall hike
11-antigua-
12-acetenango
13-antigua
14-catch flight at 2am

hopefulist

Hi there -
In my opinion that's way too much to cram into 16 full days. In theory it could be done, but with 8 places to sleep in 16 nights you'll be transitioning about half the days of your trip and at least 4 of the transitions will be long, full days. When I'm planning my trips I take a good, hard look at what my travel priorities are. What do I want to be doing with most of my time? Generally the last thing on my list would be 'sitting on my backside looking through grimy bus windows'. If you're averaging less than 3 nights per spot, that's what you'll be doing for ~half of the days of your trip. In other words, you'll be doing that more than all your other travel interests combined. That is bad trip math in my opinion, especially since the transition days can be surprisingly long and tiring in that part of the world.Lots of folks feel like they want to cram in as much as possible in the time they have. By trying to see too many places and moving on every few days, or by choosing places that are geographically distant and require long bus times, you'd actually be diluting your time to explore and enjoy. If you really want to pack nearly every day full of cool adventures, in my opinion you need to pick a smaller geographic area and/or fewer stops.
Some of the long distance shuttles haven't started up regularly since covid reduced the number of tourists around so you might have some unhappy surprises re: your ability to get where you want to go in one day. If you've traveled in Central America before, you know that it's unusual for every transition of a budget traveler to go as planned; I figure most trips will take 2 or 3x as long as you'd expect. I'd leave at least one thing out and the low hanging fruit is Semuc Champey.

Have a great trip, whatever you decide!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stacey...n/collections/

Pelon2

You remind me of the old song;
Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
-----------Feeling groovy-------
If you're just after the experience of seeing all these places, and being able to say you're been there, done that, fine.. But how about taking the time to enjoy where you are, and what you're doing? The only memories you'll have will be how tired you were, packing and unpacking, running to see this and that. Spend some time exploring the places you visit, enjoy the food and culture. You'll also find that the local transportation isn't always reliably on time, thereby upsetting your carefully crafted schedule. So, as the song said; slow down, you got to make the morning last.
Last, but not least, most of us speak from experience. I know I do, having learned to cut way back on scheduling, realizing there'll (usually) be another time.

CanadianRedneck

Thanks for the great advice. I think cutting Semuc Champey out is the right move. As nice as it looks 2 full travel days is just too much to justify. Updated itinerary- I am looking to switch my arriving flight to Roatan on Delta to reduce travel time so I'm not backtracking haven't found a good flight from Ottawa yet but lots of time. As much as I want to do Acetenango I'd rather spend time on the lake than in Antigua.
28-Roatan
29-Utila
30-Utila
31-utila
1-jungle river lodge
2-jungle river Lodge
3-jungle river lodge
4-D&D brewery
5-D&D brewery lake yohoa
6-D&D brewery lake yohoa
7-copan ruins
8-copan ruins
9-copan ruins
10-antigua
11-lake atitlan
12-lake atitlan
13-lake atitlan
14-catch flight at 2am

Faedus

I looked at your original itinerary and found myself agreeing completely with the first two comments; but as it seems you got the hint I’ll just move on to a couple of issues with your new one. (By the way, I recall you from my Guatemala trip report — I don’t know how I came to overlook your original posting above.)

Mainly, unlike in your first itinerary, it’s not clear on which days you are actually travelling (always by public transporation, I’ll assume). For example, the trip from the jungle river lodge (La Ceiba I presume) to D&D Brewery could take most of the day; you’ll be losing one full day at the one destination, or the other. (And I would not omit a great place like D&D from your itinerary.)

There are several other such points in your itinerary, but you probably get the idea, and you still have a long time to work it all out. But I want to call your attention to the detail of 31Dec/1Jan. I recall from my own late-December visit to Utila -- and I admit my recollections are a little vague from that trip long ago -- that at that particular time of the year (late Dec.) the seas could get rough in the late afternoon — and indeed my own late-afternoon crossing to Utila was properly rough (though the return trip a week later was fine). In fact on your travel day there may only be morning launches, which, depending on which day it is, could basically eliminate one of your Utila days. (My Utila visit was many decades ago, and I’m sure a lot has changed — but probably not the general seasonal sea conditions.)

hopefulist

They likely still give out dramamine if you ask when you purchase those Utila ferry tickets - I've had a few afternoon crossings that were memorably horrible, even with it, so that point is well taken. In general it's a good idea to start any transition in Central America early in the day. That way, if your first choice is cancelled or delayed or breaks down or is slowed by a funeral, bike race, procession, accident, protest, or strike, you've improved your chance of still arriving at your next stop by nightfall.

Re: flying into Roatán, if the prices don't come down (unlikely during the holidays in my experience), you could consider flying into SAP and taking a hopper to Roatán - the combination might be cheaper than a direct flight to Roatán. There used to be flights, at least a few days/week, to Utila but I don't know if anyone still offers that.

This itinerary seems way better but, sadly, you've left very little time for Guatemala. Assuming you're planning to spend 2 nights so you have a full day for Antigua, that means the 11th and 13th are transition days to and from Lake Atitlán and you only have one full day there. You might consider adding a few days to Honduras and saving Guatemala for another trip if you'll only have one full day in Antigua and one on the lake to show for all of that time on the road. Or maybe squeeze a day or 2 from Honduras to expand your time in Guatemala a bit. Or add a few days to the trip?

Happy trails!