Cart, Car, Bike or Taxi?

The Options Side by Side

Why Cars Do Not Make Sense Here

There are cars on Ambergris Caye, mostly belonging to businesses and residents. As a visitor rental they are the wrong shape for the problem.

The island is long and thin with essentially one road. Nothing is far, speed limits are low, a good part of the surface is packed sand, and the town is built around vehicles the size of a golf cart. A car gets you to the same places, more slowly through town, with worse parking, for more money. The saloon car experience is simply not what this island is for.

Bicycles

Genuinely good in and around town, and plenty of people who live here use one for everything. Cheap, easy, no licence, no fuel.

The limits show up quickly, though. The road north is long, exposed and has almost no shade, and doing it at midday in this climate is a slog rather than a pleasure. After dark, unlit stretches shared with cart traffic are a real risk. And you cannot carry a cooler, four beach bags and a snorkel set.

Best treated as a supplement. Several visitors rent a cart for the week and use hotel bicycles for short runs, which is a sensible combination.

Taxis

Taxis work well and the drivers are usually excellent company. For a single trip into town, or for the night you all want to drink, they are the right call.

Two things to know. Agree the fare before you set off, because meters are not the norm. And understand that availability drops off exactly when you want one most: late at night, in the rain, and a long way north.

The arithmetic is where it turns. Two trips a day for five days, from a hotel north of the bridge, will generally cost more than a cart for the same five days, and the cart was also available at every hour in between.

Walking

San Pedro town is three streets and you can walk all of it comfortably. If your hotel is in or near the centre and you are here for a few nights, walking plus one or two taxis is a perfectly good plan and you will save money.

We would rather tell you that than rent you a cart that sits outside your hotel for four days. It happens, people are mildly annoyed about it, and they are right to be.

So When Is a Cart Right?

When you are staying outside the town centre, when there are more than two of you, when you want to go north to Secret Beach, when you are here for more than about three nights, or when you simply want to be able to leave somewhere at the moment you decide to leave.

That covers most visitors, which is why the island runs on carts. But it does not cover all of them, and the honest answer for the rest is a pair of shoes and an occasional taxi.

Running the Numbers Yourself

Rather than quote taxi fares that change, here is the arithmetic to do before you decide. It takes two minutes and it settles the question properly.

1. Count your trips. Be honest. Breakfast out, the dock for a boat, dinner, and back. That is four taxi journeys in a day, not two.
2. Price one of them, from your actual hotel to town. Ask the hotel, or ask a driver on arrival.
3. Multiply by trips, by days. That is your taxi cost for the week.
4. Compare against the multi day cart rate on our rates page, and add a little for fuel.

For a couple staying in town for three nights, the taxis usually win. For four people north of the bridge for a week, it is not close, and the cart also solves the ten at night problem that taxis do not.

What to Check at Handover

Whoever you rent from, five minutes at pickup saves an argument at drop off. Any decent company will expect you to do this.

• Walk round it and photograph the damage that is already there. Every cart on this island has scrapes. Yours should be recorded before you drive away.
• Note the fuel level. You return it as you got it.
• Check the lights work, including brake lights, if there is any chance of driving after dark. There is.
• Find the lock bar and understand how it works before you need it outside a shop.
• Save the emergency number into your phone rather than leaving it on paper in the cart.
• Ask what happens if it breaks. The answer should involve somebody coming to you, not you pushing it.

Licences, Age and Deposits

A valid driving licence from your home country is required, and you should carry it whenever you are driving. This is checked more often than visitors expect, particularly on the road north.

Everybody who is going to drive needs one, so if you plan to swap drivers, bring both licences. Minimum age and deposit arrangements vary by company; ask before booking rather than at the counter with your luggage on the ground.

Full detail on how ours works is on the rental terms page.

Four Seater or Six Seater

Capacity is a legal limit, not a suggestion. Four people in a four seater, six in a six. Everyone seated, nobody standing on the back.

Four seaters suit a couple, or two adults with two small children. Six seaters are for larger families and groups, and the extra room matters as much for beach gear and coolers as for people. Full detail on both is on the 4 seater and 6 seater pages, and current pricing is on the rates page.

Before You Drive Anything

Whatever you end up on, read the island driving rules once. Drive on the right, carry your licence, keep to the speed limits through town, and do not drink and drive. Belize enforces that last one on golf carts exactly as it does on cars, and visitors are consistently surprised by it.