Scenes alongside Placencia Road

Part Four:  Pursuing paradise in Placencia Village, Belize 

Call it a natural sense of adventure or curiosity, but when I have the opportunity to spend any extended amount of time somewhere new, eventually I want to get off the beaten tourist path and get a better sense of what “real” life is like for those who live there. 

So, when we went to Placencia this summer, it became clear quickly that meant spending time off the Placencia Sidewalk and on the primary paved street of Placencia Village, known more officially as Placencia Road.  

It’s the same street you take into town from the airport, and going south from there it ends where the land ends, at the municipal pier.  And the closer you get to the pier, the more you’ll see in terms of the daily buzz of activity that keeps the village running. 

Many of the village’s basic “necessities” are located on what I refer to as the northern half of town, such as a couple of hardware stores, the village’s only gas station and, appropriately for the location, a bait shop. 

Dining and drinking along the Placencia Sidewalk

Part Three:  Pursuing paradise in Placencia Village, Belize

If you spend any time touring Placencia Village, chances are you will become very acquainted with the famous Placencia Sidewalk. 

Billed locally as the “Narrowest Main Street in the World,” this concrete and crushed coral pathway runs parallel to the peninsula’s eastern shoreline from the pier to the northern side of the village, albeit slightly inland from the beach.  It’s considered Placencia’s main street in part because it really was the only paved path in town prior to the 1980s when a road was built to the village and was routed west of the sidewalk. 

As such, many older businesses in Placencia are still easier to access from the Placencia Sidewalk than Main Street, and it remains the main thoroughfare in town for most tourists and many locals.   

Scenes from Caribbean Beach Cabanas

Part Two: Pursuing paradise in Placencia Village, Belize

Normally, whenever I’m vacationing in one location for more than a few days, I begin to get restless at wherever I’m staying regardless of how much the destination has to offer in amenities and activities.  So, it’s perhaps the greatest compliment I can give Caribbean Beach Cabanas in Placencia Village, Belize, that I rarely felt like I needed to leave the resort. 

Pursuing paradise in Placencia Village, Belize

Part One: Arrival day and great expectations

When you picture a tropical paradise, what do you usually see?  For me, it’s a picturesque beachfront full of sand, waves gently crashing ashore, palm trees weighed down with coconuts and plenty of empty chairs and hammocks for watching the world go by.  Kind of like what you see below …