Places to Drive in San Pedro

San Pedro Town

Three parallel streets: Barrier Reef Drive nearest the sea, Pescador Drive in the middle, Angel Coral Street at the back. Everyone still calls them Front, Middle and Back Street.

Driving in town is slow and busy, with pedestrians, bicycles, delivery carts and dogs sharing the same space. That is normal, and the way to handle it is simply to go slowly. Nobody here is in a hurry and it is bad form to act like you are.

Park with all four wheels off the roadway. A red painted kerb means no parking, taxi zones are for taxis, and do not park within about thirty feet of a corner. Our rules and regulations page has the full list and it is worth two minutes before you set off.

Driving North: The Main Event

This is the drive people remember. Head north out of town and you reach the Sir Barry Bowen bridge over the river channel. It is a small toll bridge, one lane each way, and there is often a short queue.

Over the bridge the character changes immediately. The road opens up, the development thins out, and you start passing resorts, restaurants and beach bars with docks running out into the water. Several of them are destinations in their own right: swings in the sea, palapa roofs, and not much interest in whether you order anything quickly.

Keep going and the road eventually reaches the turn off west across the island to Secret Beach on the lagoon side, which has its own guide here because it needs one.

Do this drive at least twice if you are here a week: once to get to Secret Beach, and once just to stop at whatever you drove past the first time. The second one is usually the better day.

Driving South

South of town the road runs down Coconut Drive, past the airstrip, and on through a quieter stretch of resorts and residential development until the road runs out.

It is a shorter trip and a gentler one. There is less to stop for than up north, but it is also far less busy, and the southern end has some of the better beachfront on the east side. If the north road is heaving on a Sunday, go south instead.

This is also the run you will do on your last morning, because the airstrip is on it. Leave a little more time than you think for the bridge if you are coming from the north.

Planning the Two Runs

Two drives cover the island, and they want different amounts of time.

Parking, Properly

Parking is the thing visitors get wrong most often, and the one with actual consequences.

• All four wheels off the roadway. The roads are narrow and a cart sticking out blocks a lane.
• Not within about thirty feet of a corner. Sightlines at junctions here are poor enough already.
• A red kerb means no parking. It is painted for a reason and it is enforced.
• Taxi zones are for taxis. Blocking one is the quickest way to annoy the people whose island this is.
• Take the key. Every time, even for two minutes outside a shop. Our carts carry an anti theft lock bar, so use it.

If Something Goes Wrong

Carts are simple machines and they mostly behave, but they are also working vehicles on a salty island. If yours will not start, picks up a flat, or makes a noise it was not making yesterday, stop and call the number on your paperwork.

Do not attempt a roadside repair, and do not keep driving something that has developed a new sound. We keep mechanics reachable around the clock, and if a cart cannot be put right where it stands we bring a different one out to you. On an island this is a normal part of the week rather than a crisis.

Fuel

There are fuel stations in and around town. A golf cart tank takes you a very long way at the speeds involved: you can drive the island end to end and back without thinking about it.

Return the cart with roughly the fuel it had when you got it. That is the deal everywhere on the island and nobody is precise about it to the litre.

Driving After Dark

Use your lights. Long stretches of the road north are unlit, and there are cyclists and pedestrians on it with no lights of their own. Go slower than you would in daylight.

The other thing to say plainly: drinking and driving is treated exactly as it is in a car, and the police here do enforce it on golf carts. If the plan for the evening involves the bars on the north road, work out in advance who is driving or take a taxi both ways.

What the Road Is Actually Like

Paved in the sections that matter, packed sand in others, and potholed after heavy rain. It is fine. Carts are built for it and everyone drives at a speed that makes the surface irrelevant.

If you have hired something low slung and precious, you will care. Almost nobody does, which is part of why the golf cart is the island's actual vehicle rather than a tourist gimmick. We put the full case in the cart, car or bike comparison.