A country you can cross in a day. Give it two weeks anyway.
Which volcano you can climb before lunch and which one takes a night on the ridge. What the boat across Atitlán costs. Whether Tikal is worth the flight to Flores. Reviews of every tour you can book in Guatemala.
Four bookings a first Guatemala trip is built on.
One volcano you sleep on, one you climb before lunch, one temple morning and one day on the lake. What each costs and what the people who went say.
01The night on the ridgeFrom Antigua: Adventure, 2-Day Hiking to Acatenango VolcanoCamp at 3,700m opposite Fuego and watch it throw lava after dark. Take the warm layers they tell you to take.
02The half-day volcanoFrom Antigua: Pacaya Volcano Tour in English/SpanishPacaya is a morning out of Antigua, walkable in trainers, and still ends on warm black rock.
03The temple morningFrom Flores: Tikal Guided Tour with TransportationTikal out of Flores with transport and a guide. Go early, while the howler monkeys are still louder than the groups.
04The whole lake at onceFROM ANTIGUA, ROUND TRIP: EXPLORING THE VILLAGES OF LAKE ATITLÁN.A long round trip from Antigua that stops in three villages on the shore. The day that sells everyone on Atitlán.
Three ways up a Guatemalan volcano, and what each one asks of you.
Thirty-seven cones run down this country and the three you can book from Antigua ask for very different days. Pick by how much of the night you are willing to spend outside.
Four towns, and the country reachable from each.
Almost everything here leaves from one of four places: the colonial town under the volcanoes, the capital you fly into, the island town in the Petén and the lake shore. Pick the base and the days plan themselves.
At Tikal the temples come up through the canopy, not out of a lawn.
Four hundred square kilometres of jungle with a Maya city inside it. Climb Temple IV at dawn and the roof combs are the only things above the trees. Most people come from Flores, an hour south, and most of them go back the same day.
Antigua is a grid of cobbles with a volcano at the end of every street.
Everything in Antigua →
Nine blocks by nine, ruined baroque on half the corners, and Agua filling the gap at the south end. Nearly everything in this country can be booked from a café table here, which is why people who planned three nights end up staying nine.
Hobbitenango, above the valley
Round doors, a swing out over the valley and Agua straight ahead. It is unashamedly built for the photograph, and the view does the rest. Take the shuttle: the road up is not one to attempt in a hire car.
A finca morning above the town
Picking, the wet mill, the drying patio and a cup at the end of it, on land that sits in volcanic ash at fifteen hundred metres. The good ones let you pulp a handful yourself rather than watch somebody else do it.
The colonial grid, on foot
The cathedral ruins, the arch, the convent that took the 1773 earthquake worst, and the street stalls that set up once the light goes. Two hours of walking on cobbles: wear something you can turn an ankle in and survive.
The days out that fill up first in Guatemala.
Every tour in Guatemala →More people take these than any other day out in the country. What each costs, how long it runs, and why it keeps filling.
1
From Antigua: Adventure, 2-Day Hiking to Acatenango Volcano
Climb Acatenango from Antigua, sleep in a basic dome camp, watch Fuego erupt, and catch sunrise above the clouds on this demanding budget trek.
From · $54
Read our review →
2
From Antigua: Pacaya Volcano Tour in English/Spanish
from $23
3
From Flores: Tikal Guided Tour with Transportation
from $20
4
From Antigua: Pacaya Volcano Trek
from $23
5
Antigua, Guatemala: Volcano Acatenango Overnight Hiking
from $90
6
Hike to Pacaya Volcano from Antigua
from $35
7
Antigua Guatemala: City Highlights Guided Walking Tour
from $25
8
FROM ANTIGUA, ROUND TRIP: EXPLORING THE VILLAGES OF LAKE ATITLÁN.
from $95
Atitlán is a drowned crater with a dozen villages on the rim.
Three volcanoes stand over water six hundred metres deep, and the only road that matters is the lancha crossing. Panajachel has the dock and the buses. San Juan has the weavers, Santiago the market, San Marcos the swimming. A day trip sees three of them; a week is not too many.
- 1FROM ANTIGUA, ROUND TRIP: EXPLORING THE VILLAGES OF LAKE ATITLÁN.from $95
- 2Lake Atitlán Sightseeing Cruise with Transport from Antiguafrom $119
- 3Panajachel: Lake Atitlan Villages ATV Tourfrom $57
What a day out in Guatemala actually costs.
Guatemala runs cheap against the flight it takes to get here, and the day everyone remembers is rarely the dearest one. Grouped by what you actually pay.
Pacaya in a morning, the Tikal shuttle out of Flores, walking tours of Antigua and the street-food nights.
The standards: Acatenango overnight, the round trip to the Atitlán villages, Chichicastenango on a market day.
Private guides, Semuc Champey over two or three days, and Tikal taken as a long day from Antigua.
Three things that happen in Guatemala and almost nowhere else.
Volcanoes and ruins turn up all over Central America. Turquoise pools stacked on top of a river, a market that is still a Maya ceremony, and coffee grown on the side of an active cone do not.
The pools at Semuc Champey
The Cahabón river disappears under a natural limestone bridge and runs through the dark for three hundred metres. On top of it sit a staircase of turquoise pools you can swim across, one spilling into the next. It is a long rough road in from Lanquín and almost everyone stays the night, which is exactly why the pools are quiet by four in the afternoon.
- 1From Lanquin: Semuc Champey Park and Kanba Cave Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 43 reviews
- 2From Guatemala City Semuc Champey in one day.★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 26 reviews
- 3From Antigua: 3-Day Cobán & Semuc Champey Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3 reviews
Market day at Chichicastenango
Thursdays and Sundays the whole town becomes stalls, and the steps of Santo Tomás fill with copal smoke while K’iche’ prayers are said over the same stones the church was built on. Come for the textiles by all means, but the reason to be there early is the hour before the traders finish setting up.
- 1Chichicastenango and Lake Atitlan Tour From Antigua★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 63 reviews
- 2From Guatemala City: Chichicastenango and Lake Atitlan★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 30 reviews
- 3One-day visit to Chichicastenango from Antigua Guatemala★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 23 reviews
Coffee grown on a live volcano
The slopes above Antigua sit at fifteen hundred metres in volcanic ash, which is why the beans off them are shipped under their own name. A farm morning takes you through picking, the wet mill and the drying patio, and finishes with a cup that tastes of what it was grown in. Harvest runs roughly December to March.
- 1Coffee and Gastronomic Bike Tour in Antigua★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 284 reviews
- 2Antigua ATV Coffee tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 113 reviews
- 3Experience: Organic Coffee, Avocados, Honey & More!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 101 reviews
Four Guatemalan days that run on somebody else’s clock.
Nearly everything here can be sorted from a hostel desk the night before. These four cannot. They answer to market days, to sunrise, to a weather window on the ridge, and to a road worth driving only once.
- 01Chichicastenango and Lake Atitlan Tour From AntiguaThe market trades on Thursdays and Sundays. Any other day it is a quiet highland town with a very large church.
- 02From Antigua: Adventure, 2-Day Hiking to Acatenango VolcanoThe camp holds a fixed number of tents and the good months, November to April, fill first. Cloud closes the view without warning.
- 03From Flores: Tikal Sunrise Archaeological TourThe sunrise ticket is a separate permit with a cap on it, and the gate opens long before the day tours reach Tikal.
- 04From Lanquin: Semuc Champey Park and Kanba Cave Guided TourTwo days minimum, on a road that turns to mud in the wet. Nobody does this one as an afternoon.
The rain here arrives after lunch and leaves before dinner.
May to October the mornings are usually bright and the afternoons are not. Plan the volcano, the ruins and the lake crossing for early, then hold something indoors in reserve: a kitchen, a roasting room, a market hall, a colonial street with arcades on both sides.
By place, highlands to the Petén
Airport, Antigua, the lake, the market, then the jungle.
Recently reviewed in Guatemala.
More recent additions →
From Flores: Tikal Sunrise Extended Private Tour
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Tikal from Hotel Camino Real El Remate – All Inclusive
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Antigua: Altamira and Hobbitenango Movie Themed Parks Tour
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Antigua Guatemala: Half-Day Mountain Bike Tour with Guide
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Kayak Hike Adventure. Visit Tzununa, Jaibalito, Santa Cruz
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Lower Mayan Trail: San Marcos to Santa Cruz 4-Hour Hike
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El Paredón: Traditional Cooking Class with a Local Family
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