March 2026 – Honduras

Honduras was on our radar for the island of Roatán, known for great snorkeling and diving. Once we decided to visit Roatán this spring, we started looking for other cities to see in Honduras. We found… very little! Honduras is not really known for tourism in its mainland, though we did find one interesting town near the Guatemala border – Copán Ruinas. Located near the similarly named Mayan-ruin-site of Copán, Copán Ruinas is popular for both day-trips and short stays. We did a bit of research on the ruins, found them to be quite unique, and added this mainland stop to our trip.

Honduras General

Like Guatemala, Honduras is primarily a Spanish-speaking country. Most of the locals in Copán Ruinas did not speak any English, though some of the hotel staff and others in the tourist sector did. When we got to the island of Roatán, we learned that, as a former British colony, all children learn both English and Spanish, and English is commonly spoken there.

The exchange rate during our travel was approximately 26.5 Honduran lempiras (HNL) to 1 U.S. dollar. The biggest adjustment was looking at larger restaurant prices and remembering that large numbers aren’t always a lot of money when it comes time to pay the bill (example: 700 HNL is approximately $26 USD). Most restaurants on Roatán listed their prices in USD rather than HNL.

Travel/Visa –Our 90-day visitor visa was carried over and included our time in Guatemala. There’s an entry tax of 80 HNL ($3 USD) at the border.

Credit cards were not widely accepted in Copán Ruinas, but easy to use in Roatan. Some places added a fee to use a card instead of cash. Unlike other places we’ve been recently, servers in Honduras don’t bring the card machine to the table, instead disappearing with the card like they do in the U.S.

Tipping – The guidance I found for restaurant tipping in Honduras is around 10% for ok service, 15% for great, and 20% for outstanding. The tip is not added automatically, and we were rarely asked if we wanted to add a tip. Short version – be prepared to tip 10% in cash.

Getting cash was a little tricky because there weren’t a lot of ATMs in general, and many of them weren’t shown in Google Maps. Sometimes we just found an ATM while out-and-about. In Copán Ruinas and West End, we were able to exchange larger bills at a bank. In West Bay, there weren’t any banks nearby so I would just ask our hotel to make change as we needed it.

Cell phones and sim cards – We continued to use our esims from Maya Mobile that we bought in Guatemala. They’ve been working well, and we’ll probably use them for future travels of Central and South America.

First stop – Copán Ruinas

Our travel here was all about the Mayan ruins. We didn’t expect to do much more here, so we planned a pretty short visit – 4 nights in town, giving us 3 full days. This would allow us two days for the ruins and one day for rest, travel planning, etc.

Travel –We found that a surprising number of people travel to Copán Ruinas from Guatemala, so there are a lot of tour and shuttle options from either Antigua or Guatemala City. More surprising, many of the options I came across were day-tours – crossing the border, touring the ruins, then crossing back. Our third surprise – all travel options to Copán Ruinas departed at 3:30 or 4:00am!

Whenever I plan a travel leg, I always look ahead to get a basic idea of how we’ll depart, because some routes don’t run every day. This destination was the first that got very confusing, and we ended up planning it backwards. I'll explain more later, when I discuss our onward travel to Roatán, but I ended up using WhatsApp to book a shuttle departing Copán Ruinas at the end of our trip through Berekah B&B (departing at 4am!). Next, travel from Antigua to Copán Ruinas. There were a number of options for this, but Berekah offered a competitively-priced shuttle, departing Antigua at 3:30am. The hotel sent me a payment link through Paypal, which I was uncertain about at first, but it worked seamlessly. In the end, our super-confusing travel leg was simplified by using WhatsApp to book directly with Berekah B&B.

On to the actual trip: We woke at 3am for our super-early shuttle from Antigua. The driver arrived a few minutes early, with one other passenger already in the van. Sandy dozed a bit, but I was happy to watch the driver navigate the dark, twisty roads to Guatemala City. We stopped there for about 45 minutes, intending to pick up a 4th passenger who never showed. Then back on our route, with a breakfast stop at a roadside restaurant around 730am. We both got omelets that ended up being the size of the plate, plus beans, plantains, tortillas, and coffee, for a total of 110 GTQ ($14.50 USD) including tip. We got back on the road, and an hour later arrived at the Guatemala-Honduras border. Our driver helped us exchange currency from a man on the street with a wad of cash and a calculator. I had spent down our Guatemalan quetzales in Antigua, knowing that we wouldn’t be back anytime soon, and handed over everything I had left – 195 GTQ ($25.45 USD). I received 604 Honduran lempiras ($22.69 USD), not the best exchange rate, but it is what it is.

One big difference from our Belize-Guatemala crossing is that our van and driver would be crossing with us, so we could leave all of our luggage in the van. Another interesting difference was that both immigration desks were in the same building, no barricades, no guidance, just one line for each country. You start by waiting in the line for the country you’re leaving, complete that process, then get in the other line. Exiting Guatemala was easy – just a passport verification and an exit stamp. Entering Honduras took a bit more time. Our 90-day visa applied over multiple countries, so the agent had to confirm how long we’d been in Guatemala, then gave us the remaining 67 days for Honduras. There’s an entry fee of 80 HNL ($3 USD), which I paid in cash with our newly-obtained lempiras. Once these steps were complete, we got back in our van for a final 20-minute ride to Copán Ruinas. Total for the day: $88 USD for the shuttle, $6 USD to enter Honduras, for a total of $94 USD and 8 hours for our trip.

Lodging – With both shuttles operated by Berekah, plus our super-early departure at the end of our stay, we decided to book our lodging with them as well. The hotel was very basic, but had all of our normal amenities such as wifi, AC, queen-sized bed, plus they included breakfast. The posted rate on Booking.com was close to $65 USD, but by contacting them directly through WhatsApp, we were offered a rate of only $40 USD per night! Once we arrived to Copán, the hotel’s logistics coordinator had no problem arranging a tour guide for the ruins for us on the following day. Overall, the hotel staff were very helpful and organized throughout our visit.

Copán is a very small town – only about five blocks in either direction. Our hotel was one block from the central plaza, and it was easy to walk around for shopping or restaurants. The plaza was never crowded, but we would often see families there, with kids running around and playing. The street for our hotel was a major road in/out of town, so it was often a bit noisy with traffic, even at night. The Mayan ruins site was very close to town - about 15 minutes on foot, or 5 minutes by tuktuk.

Temps in Copán were pretty warm during our stay. Afternoons reached the upper 80s, so it was hot and humid while wandering the ruins. We worried about insects and sprayed ourselves pretty thoroughly, but had no issues at all.

Entertainment – We came here to see the ruins, so we booked a tour for our first full day in town. We walked to the park entrance, then bought a series of tickets - $20 general admission, $15 for a tunnel add-on, and $10 for the site museum, for a total of $90 USD for the two of us. We met our guide at the park entrance before heading out on a great 2-hour tour. Our guide spoke good English and really tailored the tour to our questions and interests while keeping up a good pace to move through the site. After the tour, we paid him 1,250 lempiras ($47 USD) for the tour plus tip.

Copán has a lot of unique aspects compared to other Mayan ruins. The volcanic rock in the area allowed many large sculptures and intricate carvings to survive over 1,000 years of weathering and erosion. Archeologists have uncovered aqueducts and drains, indicating highly-developed systems for water management. Tunnels have been dug into the temples, confirming that they were built in multiple phases, expanding each temple and burying the earlier structures. The extra fee we paid allowed our guide to lead us through two of these tunnels, where researchers have uncovered the walls and artwork of the earlier phases. We thought the tunnels were quite interesting and worth the up-charge.

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  Buried temple wall, seen in the tunnels

The pyramids at Copán were in fairly good condition when they were discovered, partly because of the durable volcanic rock used for construction, and also because of the large tree roots holding everything together. Workers have restored and stabilized a lot of the structures, but in a way that blends the unrestored and fully-restored sections. Visitors are allowed to climb most of the structures, and those areas are very stable and secure.

The Mayans left many sculptures, carvings, and stelae throughout the site. The sculptures include large Mayan heads, crocodile heads, owls, and macaws. The carvings often include glyphs or Mayan characters, stacked in blocks to form larger messages or panels of words. In some areas, large macaws or jaguars were created by combining a series of smaller carved blocks to make a larger image. The stelae are large, singular blocks, often 10 ft or taller, with figures carved into them, and often with glyphs on the side or back. We noted that some of the pieces on site were actually reproductions, with the originals either in the museum on site, or in others around the world. The amount of stonework on the site is very impressive, and the size and detail of many of the pieces was quite interesting to see.

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  Crocodile head

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  Mayan head

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  Dancing jaguar

In addition to macaw carvings, there is a group of scarlet macaws living on the site. The birds were revered by the Mayans, but had virtually disappeared from the area. A local refuge in town has helped to restore the population, and site staff at Copán feed them twice per day. The afternoon feeding was around 1:30pm, which we were able to see after our tour.

After our tour and the macaws, we explored the on-site museum, with many original artifacts from the site, as well as some reproductions and recreations of some of the larger structures. It was a bit challenging matching up what we saw on the site and in the tunnels with what we were seeing in the museum. It was only by matching photos after our visit that I was able to better-appreciate what we had seen. Overall, the museum was another good add-on and worth the time to see.

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  Museum temple reproduction

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  Reproduction of the temple from the tunnels

Our guided tour was great, but we wanted to make a second visit to Copán, plus our tickets would also be good for the nearby ruins of Las Sepulturas. We grabbed a tuktuk in town (40 HNL/$1.52 USD) and headed to Copán, where we paid another $20 USD each (just general admission, no tunnels or museum). We found some statues and viewpoints that we missed the first time, plus two residential areas around the main ruins. We were glad to get another up-close look at various sculptures, plus we saw many colorful birds in the jungle around the site. Once finished with Copán, we grabbed another tuktuk and paid 50 HNL ($1.90 USD) for a 5-minute ride to Las Sepulturas. There, a guide offered a tour, but he only spoke Spanish, and we have not previously enjoyed our full-Spanish tours – too much gets lost in the translation. Instead, we self-guided, though there were only a few signs in the park. There was one celestial altar (observatory?), but most of the structures were residential and working-class. As a result, there were not many carvings or sculptures that had made Copán so interesting. Overall, we thought Las Sepulturas was just ok and not worth the extra effort based on our hour wandering the site. After our exploration, we got back out to the main road and started walking towards town. We quickly got the attention of a passing tuktuk, and our 30-minute walk turned into a 10-minute ride, for the grand sum of 60 HNL ($2.28 USD).

The town of Copán Ruinas also has a museum of Mayan artifacts, but we decided to skip it based on reviews stating it’s small and overpriced.

Another great stop near Copán Ruinas is Macaw Mountain, a bird sanctuary located north of town. It was easy to grab a tuktuk from town to the sanctuary for 30 HNL ($1.14 USD). The sanctuary has rescued many species of birds and actively breed the scarlet macaws for release at the Copán site and elsewhere. Admission is only $10 USD per person and good for two days, though it only takes 1-2 hours for a full tour.

Food – It was in Copán Ruinas that we tried our first baleada – a Honduran staple, often eaten for breakfast. The basic version, known as a “sencilla” (meaning “simple”) is a large tortilla, spread with refried black beans, sprinkled with cotija-style crumbly cheese and a bit of sour cream, then folded in half and eaten like a quesadilla. Baleadas can also be stuffed with eggs, meat, or vegetables, depending on personal preference. Regarding the sour cream – in Honduras, it’s a blend of sour cream and regular cream, resulting in a less-sour, more-liquid dressing they call “mantequilla”. Mantequilla typically means butter, but this was not butter! We thought our baleada sencilla was just ok, and better with hot sauce. Our introduction to baleadas set us back a whopping 30 HNL ($1.14 USD).

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  The baleada, a Honduran staple

Eager to try local food, we shared a sampler plate at Casa de Todo. This platter had a mix of items, including cochinita-style pork tacos, tamales, and a local dish called loroco chicken. Loroco is a regional green leafy herb, and this dish was chicken mixed with a loroco cream sauce. Overall, a nice mix of tasty foods, for 915 HNL ($34.50 USD) including drinks and tip.

Los Asados was another good restaurant in town, featuring many types of grilled meat. We enjoyed their chicken skewer and steak for 740 HNL ($28 USD) including drinks and tip.

Last, we were surprised to find a German restaurant in this tiny town! At Sol de Copán, we had schnitzel and spaetzle, which is worth documenting because the spaetzle tasted exactly like the German-style mac & cheese that I grew up eating. Sandy enjoyed watching me reminisce during our meal, which we ate with two locally-brewed German-style beers. Our meal here was only 720 HNL ($27.50 USD) with drinks and tip.

Expats and International Travelers – We didn't stay in Copán Ruinas long enough to guess how many expats live in/around the area. We know at least one expat lives there – the German restaurant owner. I also overheard an American in line at the Copán ruins getting discounted resident admission, so that’s two…. Other than them, it felt like most of the other foreigners we saw were tourists there to visit the ruins. Many seemed to be from the U.S. or Canada, and surprisingly we saw a large German-speaking tour group at Las Sepulturas. About 1/4 of the restaurant and hotel staff that we met spoke English, otherwise most of our conversations were in Spanish.

Living Costs – Our hotel was a bargain, at $40 USD per night, plus a 5% ($2 USD) fee to pay by credit card. Breakfast was included with our hotel room, and our average spend for dinner was only $31 USD per day.

We needed more cash in Copán Ruinas than we originally anticipated. In addition to our planned tips and transportation, we unexpectedly needed cash for our tour guide (fee+tip) as well as for 3 of our 4 dinners. In total, we needed about 5,300 HNL / $200 USD in cash for our short 4-night stay.

Summary – We really enjoyed our stay in Copán Ruinas and visiting the Mayan ruins. The sculptures and artwork were very unique compared to any other site we’ve visited. We were very surprised to see so many sculptures, especially with so much detail. We also really enjoyed the opportunity to enter the tunnels to see the temples buried within the existing ruins. The town itself was quite nice. There’s actually enough to do in the area that we probably could have stayed a week or longer. That said, it’s an out of the way town, we completed our #1 objective (Copán), and are unlikely to return.

Next Stop – Roatán, West Bay

Roatán is our original “why” for Honduras – it’s a small island off the coast, and has an outstanding reef system, famous for diving and snorkeling. It’s been on my bucket-list for a while, and it made sense to include it in our small loop through Central America.

Travel – As I mentioned, this was by far our toughest travel leg to plan! There’s a ferry to Roatán from the coastal city of La Ceiba, with multiple options for carriers and departure times. We just needed to get from Copán Ruinas to La Ceiba, but I kept hitting dead-ends when researching options. Shuttle providers had gone out of business and the public bus system gets very mixed reviews. It doesn’t seem to run on time, tourists appear to have an elevated risk of robbery or petty theft, and taking the bus would require a layover and change of provider in a large city near the coast. With all these factors working against us, we crossed the public bus off our list, then looked at options to return from Copán Ruinas to Guatemala City for a flight to Roatán. The flights were in the $400-$500 USD range (per person), with some of the cheaper options connecting through Texas or Florida, which didn’t make much sense to us. Truth be told, we even thought about crossing Roatán completely off our list.

Ultimately, I talked with Berekah B&B through WhatsApp. They said they would provide a shuttle from Copán Ruinas to the coast for $65 USD per person, but we would need a minimum of five people! Alternatively, we could reserve a private shuttle for $300 USD – spendy, but given the alternatives and the distance we wanted to travel, we decided this was our best option, and booked as I described previously.

Just like the shuttle from Antigua, we had another early start. We woke at 330am for a 4am departure and as promised, we were the only people in the shuttle. Our drive started with a lot of curvy roads and not much traffic. We had thought we might nap during the drive, but our driver kept rolling down the window, sucking on candy, or asking us questions. Worried that he might be tired, I talked with him throughout our drive, and we had no issues along the way. We stopped a couple of times, including once for a late breakfast, before heading to La Ceiba, where our driver dropped us at the ferry terminal.

We didn’t pre-purchase tickets for the ferry because I didn’t have confidence that our shuttle would arrive by a specific time. I knew that there were two ferry operators, and I knew their departure times, so we would just go with whoever was soonest. We ended up at Dream Ferries, dropped off at 1230pm, with plenty of time before their 330pm sailing. We checked our suitcases, got our tickets for $28 USD each, then paid a small 35 HNL ($1.30 USD) departure tax. While waiting for our departure, I contacted our hotel using WhatsApp to arrange for a taxi to meet us at the port in Roatán.

The ferry was very nice. Most of the seats were inside, though there was also a small outdoor area on the upper deck. We sat inside, with plush padded seats, AC, a movie playing on multiple TVs in front, and even a bar/concession area. The trip took about 90 minutes, and while the waves got a bit rough, it wasn’t bad enough that anyone had problems with sea-sickness.

Once on the island of Roatán, it took about 15 minutes to claim our luggage, then we easily found our taxi driver. It took about 30 minutes for us to get from the ferry terminal to our hotel.

Travel from Copán Ruinas to Roatán: $323 for our shuttle (including tip), $59 for the ferry, and $35 for the taxi, for a total of $419 USD and 13 hours door-to-door. A long and comparatively-expensive travel leg for us.

Lodging – Our pre-trip research led to two top spots to stay on Roatán – West Bay, with a lot of resort-style lodging and reportedly better snorkeling, and West End, a laid-back small town next to a small bay. We had a hard time deciding, so we decided to split our stay. Up first, the Naboo Hotel in West Bay.

We chose Naboo based on reviews for its rooms and pool, and because it had an on-site restaurant. Our room was a bit oversized, with a king-sized bed, AC, good wifi, and a balcony overlooking the pool area. Breakfast was included at the restaurant, and we also ate dinner there twice. We had a small mini-fridge in our room and a rack on the balcony for drying our swimwear and towels.

The hotel was set back from the beach, which helped to reduce tourist traffic and noise. It also helped that Naboo is adults-only, so no kids running around everywhere. It took us about 5 minutes to walk to the beach, which we did every day. Inland from our hotel, there was a main road with a mini-mart and some restaurants. We had originally thought we could walk that road for exercise, but it turned out to be too hilly, curvy, and narrow. Instead, we stayed active by walking the beach and swimming.

Entertainment – We had great weather while we were in West Bay. Afternoon highs were in the upper 80’s, skies were partly cloudy, and we didn’t get any rain. We came to Roatán to snorkel, and that’s what we did! Roatán has a nice reef that’s not far from shore, and it gets closer as you go west along the beach. There is a bit of a roped-off area in the bay to keep boats away from snorkelers, which was nice. Much of the reef was only 5-10 feet deep so it was easy to snorkel in and around the features and fish. The water was very clear and we could easily see 30-40 feet to the bottom where the reef dropped off. Our best snorkeling was right on this edge, where we saw the most colorful fish, and where bigger creatures swam in the deeper areas. We saw a few eels, some huge angelfish, and I even chased and eagle ray one afternoon!

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  West Bay, crowded with 5 cruise ships in port

Our hotel had a dive center with boats going out daily. We paid $40 USD each to join a morning dive boat – less than any other snorkel excursion we’ve taken, though without any frills. We visited two nice stops, with colorful fish and a large hungry turtle. It was a nice outing, but we didn’t see any major advantages to the boat vs. swimming out to the reef from shore. However, the tour did remind us of the benefits of fins, and we ended up renting some from the dive center for $5 USD per day for the last few days of our stay.

Before our visit, we read about lots of tourists complaining about mosquitoes and sand fleas. We stocked up on insect repellent while in Belize, including a couple of reef-friendly options. Once on the island, we had no real issues with insects, and were never swarmed or eaten up the way others had described.

We were surprised by the lack of reef-friendly sunscreen on Roatán. In Belize, there are signs everywhere advising tourists not to use regular sunscreen because the chemicals bleach and kill the reefs. We were running low on our reef-friendly sunscreen and visited multiple shops on Roatán. We only found chemical-based sunscreen, and most shop owners seemed unaware of what we were looking for. Again, a very big surprise to us.

Snorkeling and relaxing is really all that we did in West Bay. There are many other sights to see on the island, but we had plenty of fun at the beach and focused our time there.

Food – We were pleasantly surprised to discover that our hotel had a great restaurant. It was an easy choice on our first night, since we were tired from our long travel day. We had a very nice meal – Sandy had lobster and shrimp, and I had grilled red snapper. Both were great, and our total with drinks and tip was $90 USD. Later in our stay we had a nice chicken skewer and a steak, with sides, drinks, dessert, and tip for $86 USD. The hotel also provided a nice breakfast buffet each morning. We had a good selection of eggs, meats, breads, and fruit, as well as some nice strong dark coffee.

Across the main street from our hotel, we found our favorite restaurant in West Bay - Kristi’s. On our first visit, I had a BBQ rib / coconut shrimp plate and Sandy had an excellent hogfish platter. It was so good that we had to return a few nights later, when both of us had the hogfish. Prices were consistently around $85 USD for our dinners, drinks, and tip.

The other restaurants that we found in West Bay weren’t very memorable. Most were “bar & grill” type spots, with the same basic menu of burgers, salads, and pasta, with a few variations on their pizza, seafood, or tacos/nachos. All of these places were a bit cheaper than Naboo and Kristi’s, between $40-60 USD, but definitely not as good for the food or service.

My final mention: the Bananarama beach bar. It’s one of the spots on the beach with reasonably priced drinks and lounge chairs available for rent - $15 USD on busy cruise days or free with purchase on other days. We only used the chairs on free days, and appreciated the 2x1 drink specials from 3-5pm. Normal price for beers was around $4 USD, and mixed drinks ranged from $7-$11 USD, about half the price of many other hotel beach bars.

Expats and International Travelers – Um, yes! West Bay is packed with tourists, and swells on days when there are cruise ships in port. Most of the locals that we met said they lived about 30 minutes east, in an area known as Sandy Bay.

Living Costs – When we started planning our Central American loop, we knew that costs would be high in Roatán. We justified this to ourselves, knowing that we’d want a relaxing treat after 5 weeks in the interior, and before our heading back towards the U.S. Our hotel in West Bay cost a whopping $201 USD per night! It was a very nice place, the price was right for the quality and amenities of the stay, and it was a bit cheaper than many of the beachfront hotels. Breakfast was included in our rate, and we didn’t buy any groceries. Dinners averaged $71 USD per day with drinks and tips, and we also managed to consume about $30 USD per day on snacks and day-drinking.

Our total cash spend in West Bay was around 7,500 HNL ($280 USD). Most of this ($110 USD) was on our snorkel tour and fin rental at our hotel, paid in cash to get a 19% discount! Another $60 USD was for the transportation we used to get to West Bay. For daily living in the area, we only used cash for about 3,000 HNL ($112 USD) in tips at restaurants and bars, or about 375 HNL / $14 USD per day.

Summary – We loved the snorkeling in West Bay, but remain undecided on the area as a whole. It felt too crowded with tourists and we quickly grew tired of the beach-bar vibe. The price-point of the hotel and restaurants is also higher than we’d like for our typical travels. Keeping all of that in mind, we’ll leave the door open for a possible return.

Last Stop – Roatán, West End

West End is the laid-back, small-town, alternative to the oceanfront resorts at West Bay. Staying here for a week would give us a nice comparison to see if we had a preference between the two.

Travel – We took a short shuttle ride from Naboo in West Bay to the Lands End Hotel in West End. Total for our relocation: $18 USD for the shuttle and tip, 30 minutes for the drive.

Lodging – We found a few alternatives for our lodging in West End. Most were smaller hotels or hostels, close to town, but they didn’t offer any sort of breakfast. There were a handful of Airbnbs further east, but we didn’t want to hassle with groceries or finding transportation into town. Eventually, we chose the Lands End Hotel because they advertised waterfront access, included a daily breakfast, and were close to town.

Our room at Lands End was a typical-size hotel room, with a queen-sized bed, and all of our normal amenities such as a mini-fridge, wifi, and AC. We had a large balcony with a hammock and plenty of space to lay out our suits, towels, and snorkel gear to dry. Overall, the hotel was a little dated and worn-down, but there were no real issues, so maybe we can just call it “quaint”.

Our hotel was at the end of a small road, surrounded by other hotels and individual homes. Most of the properties had large coconut trees and colorful plants. We had a 5-minute walk to the edge of the West End business district, which is basically one main street, lined with restaurants, shops, and a couple of mini-markets. The main part of town surrounds Half Moon Bay, and there are a series of beach bars and dive shops on the coastal side of the street.

Entertainment – Unfortunately for us, the weather didn’t cooperate as well in West End. Clouds and strong winds showed up on the day we moved. The ocean got choppy, sargassum seaweed was pushed into shore, and very few people were swimming, snorkeling, or diving. This weather lasted for another 3 days, so we passed our time walking through town and exploring a few beachside restaurants and bars. The best thing about “dive bars” in West End – they are truly dive bars, as it seemed like every beach bar we found was owned by a dive shop next door. We also passed some time at our hotel, reading, researching future travel online, doing our taxes, all of that stuff that people do at home.

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  West End, with rough water and sargassum

Our one non-water entertainment was a trip to the nearby Mayan Jungle. They sent a driver to pick us up, then we spent an hour riding a series of ziplines. Following our aerial adventure, we got a first-hand tour of sloths, monkeys, and macaws. Honduran law prohibited us from holding the sloths, but we got a lot of up-close interaction. The laws for monkeys and macaws were more relaxed, and we got a bit of time with them climbing all over us and posing for photos. Our Mayan Jungle experience cost about $130 USD. The animal experience was quite reasonable at $10 USD each, it’s the ziplines that made up the majority of the expense.

The wind started to shift and the waves started to die down by day 5 of our stay in West End. The water was still a bit rough and we presumed would be pretty murky, so we skipped yet another day in the water. We had debated booking a snorkel tour to other parts of the island, but decided that we really wanted to see what was available right in the area, to give us a good head-to-head comparison with West Bay. We finally snorkeled in Half Moon Bay on days 6 and 7, and we can easily say that we preferred the snorkeling along the reef at West Bay.

Food – Our hotel breakfasts were decent, and the staff mixed up the menu a bit each day. We often some form of eggs, fruit, and beans, and occasionally had some fried plantains or tortillas. On one morning we had a nice egg and vegetable baleada, though I should add that Sandy still does not like beans for breakfast, in any form.

Similar to our stay in West Bay, we were pleasantly surprised to find a good restaurant at our hotel. We ate there on 3 of our 8 nights in town, with meals including ceviche, grilled tuna, and an outstanding spicy seafood soup. The food was reasonably priced, but we thought the prices on the drinks were a bit high. Overall, we averaged about $83 USD for food, drinks, and tips for our meals at Lands End.

Our favorite restaurant in West End was Sandy Buns. Our first visit was to try their infamous cinnamon rolls, which were large, sweet, soft, and gooey, as any cinnamon roll should be. We returned to Sandy Buns twice for lunch. On our first visit we had a giant buffalo chicken sandwich and a pulled-pork burger. On our second, we had a giant brisket sandwich and a brisket burrito. Sandy Buns also had great prices - $3 USD for a cinnamon roll, $35 USD for our 1st meal with tip, and $38 USD for our 2nd meal with tip.

Another great spot in town was The Drunken Sailor. At first glance, we thought this was a dive bar, but far from it. We had very good Italian food, served by a young Italian couple, and Sandy thinks she overheard them call the chef “Mom”. Our two dinners, each with a nice glass of wine, plus dessert and tip, was $76 USD. The place is a bit small, and it’s very popular, so reservations are required.

Expats and International Travelers – Still yes! While most of the cruise ship tourists go to West Bay, many still come to West End. We did feel that the beach was bit more mixed between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking (Honduran?) tourists. In West End, we also saw more beach-goers with coolers, 6-packs of beer, pizzas, or food in to-go boxes. It’s definitely a more laid-back and local feel, rather than the luxury beach clubs and resorts of West Bay.

Living Costs – Our stay at the Lands End Hotel was $159 USD per night. This was comparable to other hotels in the area, but we thought it was overpriced given our “quaint” room. Breakfast was included, which we appreciated, since we didn’t have to walk into town each morning. Dinners in West End (including drinks and tips) ranged from $35-$87, averaging $66 USD per day. Similar to West Bay, we also had some bar/snack tabs, though less-often and less expensive, averaging $21 USD.

Many restaurants in West End didn’t take credit cards, but they often had signs up inviting diners to pay with Venmo or Paypal. The first time we saw this, we found it odd and chose to pay our bill with cash. Once we realized these options were commonplace, we started using digital payments for our meals, but still tipped in cash. We also paid cash at the Mayan Jungle because they offered a 19% discount!

Our total cash spend in West End was around 8,300 HNL ($313 USD). Our one cash meal was 1,940 HNL ($73 USD) and the Mayan Jungle was 3,415 HNL ($128.50). Another 468 HNL ($17.50 USD) was for our transportation from West Bay to West End. For actual daily living, we really only needed cash for about 2,520 HNL ($95 USD) in tips at restaurants and bars, or about 360 HNL / $13.50 USD per day.

With a few unplanned cash payments and some oddly-low withdrawal limits, we visited ATMs quite a bit, racking up $44 USD in withdrawal fees! This is one reason we like Charles Schwab for our banking – they rebate all of our ATM fees at the end of the month, though I admit I feel a little guilty when the charges are this high.

At the end of our stay, our hotel was nice enough to buy back most of my remaining lempiras, leaving us only a small amount that we used to get coffee at the airport when we left the island.

Summary – We enjoyed our stay in West End, though we were disappointed by the snorkeling. The weather made it difficult to snorkel for half of our stay, but we weren’t that impressed once we were able to get in the water. We really liked the small-town feel of West End compared to the resorts of West Bay, and the town wasn’t nearly as overrun by cruise ship visitors. We don’t think we’ll be returning to West End, but if we do, it will be for the great sandwiches and cinnamon rolls at Sandy Buns!

Final Summary – We enjoyed our three-week race across Honduras. The Mayan ruins at Copán were very unique, and we’re happy that we were able to spend two full days at the site. Roatán lived up to its hype. The snorkeling at West Bay was really nice, especially considering we could just swim out from the beach. With the trip behind us, we’re still torn about our stay on Roatán – we preferred the small-town lifestyle in West End, but the snorkeling at West Bay was far superior. Debating back-and-forth, we think if we return to Roatán, we’d choose West Bay, and would likely stay at the Naboo hotel again. We would also consider another split-trip, with some time on another part of the island, or perhaps on the smaller sister island of Utila to the west.