Set your sights on travel in Honduras this year.
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If you missed out on Prague in the early 90s, Thailand in the mid 90s, or Machu Pichu in the early aughts, be the first in your crowd to set your sights on Honduras in 2008. Here's why: it's gorgeous, unspoiled, and just about to explode. The sexy Brits are already there, as are the über moneyed celebs -- Cameron Diaz, Sean Combs and Claudia Schiffer are frequent visitors (Schiffer, in fact, owns property there). This Central American country has both a mainland with extensive coastline on the Caribbean Sea, as well as numerous islands in the Caribbean. The Bay Island chain includes both Roatan and Utila, both of which are on the radar of travel cogniscenti and dive lovers internationally.
Best part? You don't need to be a trust fund babe to enjoy the splendour of its numerous small islands, or the Edenic wild of its rainforest. When I went in the off-season (hurricane season, actually), it cost $1,000 return from Toronto via Continental Airlines -- it's cheaper in the high season -- and hotels range from under-$20 per night for modest dive-center lodgings on the happening island of Utila to $180 US per night at the ultra-luxe Lodge At Pico Bonito in La Ceiba, on the mainland's coast.
Want a sea, sun and sand vacation minus the madding crowds and Sandals resorts? Honduras is your place. Here's where to hit, and why.
Utila
Utila is the smallest of the three main Bay Islands, and the town of East Harbour is generally known as "Utila." The pace is slow and the vibe is young and relaxed.
Utila is also home to some of the world's best diving, and, as a result, plenty of fit young expats (particularly Brits) and visitors. Be sure to go to the Underwater Vision Dive Center for its weekly booze cruise. Forget the stilted office parties conjured up by the phrase booze cruise. Imagine a tiny tugboat filled with comp bevies, a couple dozen young dive lovers and a soul-stirring sunset instead. Back on dry land, a passable barbecue dinner is paired with more drinks and smokin' hot dinner convo with scores of twentysomething divers. Yeah, some couples, but guess what: the night I was there, single hotties outnumbered women by far.
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Try the Cabins at Nightland, at the Jade Seahorse (from $69 per night) for a boho experience like no other. Eight colourful and crazily decorated cabins (picture thrift shop décor meets Anna Sui on acid, and you get my drift) house guests, while the compound's Treetanic treehouse bar and raised walkways are a hot nightspot. Complimentary purified water and a windfall of ripe mangoes falling onto your porch for you to eat more than make up for the lack of room service and distinctly economy feel of the "amenities."
Try Munchies Café on Main Street for a cheap 'n' fresh tuna filet sandwich for under $2 US. Their porch is the perfect casual perch to watch locals, expats and visitors stroll, ATV, golf cart or moped by.
La Ceiba
A short flight or ferry ride from Roatan to mainland Honduras brings you to La Ceiba. This coastal city is home to Pico Bonito, a mountain smack in the middle of a rainforested national park. Adjacent to the park is The Lodge At Pico Bonito (from $180 per night) a luxury eco-resort with its own extensive rainforest property. Hike its extensive trails (pack lots of bug spray), or visit its onsite butterfly conservatory. Walking through the orange, cacao or banana groves, feel free to grab a fruit to nibble -- it's all organic here, baby. Besides a beautiful Balinese-meets-island-Colonial decorating style, all dark teak, clean lines, white linen and freshly cut exotic blooms, you'll find a romantic, high-ceilinged dining lounge and a yummy menu. The chocolate and coffee spiced beef puts a local spin on haute cuisine, as did a fiery chipotle-glazed pork chop.
Must do's at the resort: 1/ kicking back on your private porch hammock with the latest issue of Elle Canada, 2/ getting a massage in the candlelit, gauze-draped cabana by the pool, and 3/ donning your bikini to jump off a boulder into the emerald green Mermaid Falls, a half-hour hike from the resort into the rainforest, 4/ drawing the plantation shutters, turning on the ceiling fans and making love in the middle of the afternoon in your very private eco-chic cabin.
Cayos Cochinos
The Hog Islands, as they are known, are an archipelago of 13 doll-size islands 18-nautical miles off La Ceiba, and are accessible only by a rocky, 45-minute, wave-tossed speedboat ride (beware if you have a tendency to get seasick). But they're absolutely gorgeous, and protected as a Marine Biological Reserve due to their rich coral reefs, which form part if the Meso-American Barrier Reef system, the second largest in the world. Some islands are uninhabited, while others are home to the indigenous Garifuna villagers. On the island-village of Chachahuate (population 200), they play a part in the eco-tourist economy by selling handmade jewelry to visitors, and by preparing fresh seafood lunches (grilled yellowtail snapper, fried plantains, rice and beans) for you to devour after a grueling morning of snorkeling, sunning, or gathering seashells on the wave-tossed shores of a nearby deserted island. Multi-island Cayos Cochinos day trips organized by Turaser Honduras ($50 US per person, snorkel rental included, plus $7 US for a fish lunch) will give you a glimpse of the Carribbean that few tourists get to see.
Roatan
This larger Bay Island is hot. Claudia Schiffer has a mansion here, and other celebs sightings abound. Besides the pristine azure water and bountiful reef system, Roatan has plenty of lush, verdant hills and killer views (and killer roads to go with them: pack some Gravol for those drives!), making it a developer's dream. Accordingly, this is where you'll find the moneyed class's retreats as well as higher end resorts. Utila it's not.
For romantic dinners on restaurants built over the water, try Eagle Rays Bar & Grill, in the restaurant district of the West End. Fresh seafood such as a grilled young snapper with jalapenos, plus a couple of local Port Royal beer, come in under $15 per person. Think, pounding surf (or maybe that was just the outer bands of Hurricane Dean, which just missed us when I was there in August. Note: hurricane season is July through November), warm rain falling on the roof above you, and flickering hurricane lanterns lighting up the deck. Couldn't be more romantic if a location scout for a rom-com had handpicked it.
Stroll down the road after dinner to hit one of the souvenir stands. Locally produced Lenca pottery (graphic black and white patterns perfect for the urban loft), Honduran coffee beans, inexpensive hammocks and ubiquitous shell necklaces are all things you can bring home. (Though everything is cheaper in Utila.)
The Mayan Princess Resort on West Bay Beach (from $165 per night for a one-bedroom suite) has a great white sand beach and fantastic diving is but a few minutes away by flipper. You can rent snorkel equipment (or scuba gear) at the shop. Swim out less than 25 metres from shore to get at pristine reefs filled with Technicolor fish in their glory. What the resort lacks in quirk, it more than makes up for in amenities: air conditioning, room service (nothing beats a bowl of coconut-milk-infused spicy conch chowder followed by a whole grilled snapper and fried plantains after a sunset swim), the dive shop and beautifully landscaped lagoon pool. Hummingbirds nosedive around the lush blossoms lining the stone walkways of the resort, and exotic butterflies flutter past. The condo lodgings include full or partial kitchens, so you can prepare your own meals if you're staying for the long haul.
