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Dave, Chris, Sonia, and I went to Roatan, Honduras over the weekend–the goal being to add another country to our of our lists as none of us have been there, and to compare it to Placencia, as it has a lot of the same features.

Honduras gets a bit of a bad rap online as being very dangerous; the highest murder rate in the world. We did not go to the mainland for this reason; we heard enough reviews from other travelers that unless you go with someone who knows what they are doing, you might want to stick to Roatan. I can’t speak for the mainland (although I have heard it is quite inexpensive but a lot of poverty) and we will go at some point-but we only had a quick weekend so there wasn’t time for all of it.

It is a bit hard to travel around Central America in that your options are, rent a car and drive where there can be stops/roadblocks that you can’t always know to be legit (and you shouldn’t really drive at night anywhere due to road conditions and safety, take a rickety bus that is not for the faint of heart, or fly on the puddle jumpers, which is pricey. There are ferry options but when you get to the mainland you still have to find a way to the main cities which can take a full day in some cases. You need to have an abundance of time, energy, patience, and a sense of adventure for most options–we chose to fly this time for time’s sake 🙂

We flew on Tropic Air Friday afternoon to Roatan, and it was gorgeous as you fly in–it is hilly, green, and has beautiful turquoise water. The airport looked first world, few crowds due to low season right now. We got right in a cab and went to West End–there are many neighborhoods and over 100,000 people on the island alone (that is almost 1/3 the population of Belize!) on an approximately 25 mile island (about 1-2 miles wide). West End is the most touristy section–safe, you can walk to everything, a lot of fun to be had. Our main concern was being able to walk to the beach and to the fun downtown area, and I would recommend this neighborhood for that. West Bay is close by and also has a walkable area, but not as big. It has resorts higher up in the hills so the views are great, but a lot more hill walking.

**Please note, some of the pictures I used I had to snatch from google because some of my pictures didn’t turn out, but they were images that represented reality 🙂 )

We stayed at Sunset Villas, it was very nice and reasonably priced–two king sized bedrooms, two bathrooms, in a nice condo unit with a view of the pool and sea.

We all felt that the downtown area was really fun, very festive, beach-town, everything right on the shore. It has a slightly more developed feel than Placencia, more chains, everything was in English (Honduras is Spanish speaking on the mainland but Roatan was run by the English at one point, and the Kriol English stuck). I think we were expecting it to be more rustic and more exotic or Spanish feeling than Placencia, when it was far more tourist-centered. In Placencia, everyone hangs out together, there are not really tourist parts and local parts (it is a lot smaller-but gives you a more authentic feel as well). We felt safe the entire time and there were all ages hanging out together, and we explored the entire island. I cannot imagine feeling unsafe at any part of the island, we even drove right through many small towns and villages where we were told were maybe a bit rougher. One other comparison is that Roatan is thick with greenery and Northern-looking trees–in Placencia you see water, beach, and palm trees everywhere you look. Roatan had more oak and pine trees (at least that is what they looked like to me!), less water views than Placencia, less palm trees. Here are a few pictures of Sunset Villas and mains street in West End:

We swam in Half Moon Bay Beach–very clean water, no waves, in a bay (hence the name), great views of the hills around. It looks and feels very exotic, Central American/Caribbean. Placencia’s beach by comparison is much bigger/wider, we do have more sea grass problems, but we also have relatively big waves for the Caribbean, which I prefer, but everyone has their preference: