Guatemala Holidays

Roaming agreements exist with most international mobile phone companies and coverage is good. We suggest checking with your network provider before travel. Please consider other guests when using your mobile phone and when in poorer areas. Phones are available at all hotels and at most, if not all, restaurants.

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Guatemala is six hours behind GMT and does not observe daylight-saving time.

Anyone wishing to visit Guatemala has a choice of flying via Madrid, or Miami dependent upon the airline. We suggest flying via Madrid as this offers the most reasonably priced airfares and good connections. If you would prefer to travel via the US with Virgin/British Airways and American Airlines, do note that you will need to pre-purchase your ESTA visa waiver.
The flight to Guatemala City departs from London Heathrow and takes approximately 15.5 hours, via Madrid with the longest sector of the journey being Madrid to Guatemala City just over 11 hours. Via the US, the journey time is slightly longer, as you need to allow sufficient time to clear immigration.

Chicken buses are multi-coloured camionetas, which are converted school buses from the U.S. They are quite an experience should you wish to travel on one and you may need to sign a disclaimer before you do so. We can arrange a tour visiting a chicken bus factory with a ride out to a nearby school in Antigua if you would like to experience these. The name derives from being packed on like livestock but this is not a form of transportation for farm animals.

At the larger sites such as Tikal, you can expect to see other tourists but this is not on such a scale as say Machu Picchu or Chichen Itza. Our guides will take you along paths rarely used by the daily visitor and aim to take you at less busy times. We can offer the option to camp around Uaxactun where you can have practically private access into the ruins. Whilst Chichicastenango market is the ‘must-do’ in Guatemala, we prefer the smaller more authentic Comalapa or Solola markets.

We should have discussed this with you and if this is of particular interest, then do ask and your travel consultant can arrange this for you. In short, fiestas revolve around religion. Semana santa ‘Easter Week’ in Antigua offers an incredible procession with carpets of flowers paying homage to Jesus – it is a real spectacle and as a result you will need to book up early to avoid disappointment. In addition to this, the country offers various fiestas with Ladino towns offering fairgrounds, processions and beauty contests, whereas in the Mayan highlands traditional dances with musicians fill the festival.

Guatemala’s staples are black beans, guacamole and rice with tacos. A typical breakfast consists of frijoles negros (stewed black beans), banana, eggs, guacamole, rice and tortillas — a Central American fry up. Guatemalans eat tortillas some three times a day and you will often see and hear women clapping their hands baking these.

Guatemala has many volcanoes and you can expect areas at altitude. For travel to Lake Atitlán and to nearby markets, altitudes reach around 1,500-2,400 metres. Some people experience symptoms, whilst others have none at all and we advise contacting your GP before travel if you have any concerns.

It is always best to pack light and while casual dress has become more acceptable in recent years, Latin Americans tend to devote great care to their clothes and appearance. We find that a good fleece, waterproof jacket, layers and zip-off trousers work well for the chilly mornings followed by warm afternoons in the highlands.