Cheap hotels in San Pedro – San Pedrano Hotel

It’s not too challenging to find out about the expensive and posh hotels and resorts on Ambergris Caye, but finding the cheap places isn’t as easy. Most of the budget places don’t have their own website, and even those that do are often hard to find in searches. So I like to highlight some low-price places from time to time to help my fellow cheapskate travelers.

I’ve not stayed at the San Pedrano Hotel, but I’d certainly give it a shot if I were headed to Ambergris Caye on a tight budget. This is a family run place with only 6 rooms and it’s located on Front Street in the heart of San Pedro, only 4 blocks from the Water Taxi pier. Their rates aren’t listed specifically on their Toucan Trail information page, but it does say that rooms go for between US$21 and US$40 per night, and other sources indicate at least in off-season rooms might be closer to the lower end of that range, or maybe even below it.

The site also says at least some rooms have air-conditioning and televisions, and I believe they all have private baths. This hotel was one of the first on the island, having opened in the 1970s, and descriptions seem to confirm that it’s basic and clean, so it sounds like an excellent deal on an island where most places start north of US$100 per night and go way up from there. There’s also a stationary store in the hotel, so if you’ve come to San Pedro to stock up on paper or pens you haven’t got far to go.

Ambergris Caye is definitely the much larger and more upscale brother of nearby Caye Caulker, so it’s not easy to find affordable rooms for backpacker-types on this island. If you are in this price range you might prefer to try a hotel on Caye Caulker instead, but Ambergris Caye actually has much more to offer as long as you can afford to stay here.

Booking a room at the San Pedrano Hotel

This is one of many budget hotels in Belize that isn’t connected to any hotel search engine. The only ways to book a room, or even find out availability, are through e-mail or by calling them. The contact information is found in the bottom right corner of their Toucan Trail page.

The Toucan Trail program

As mentioned above, the San Pedrano is part of the excellent and nationwide Toucan Trail program. This is a cooperative effort combining over 100 small hotels in Belize that offer rooms for US$60 or less, and meet criteria of being socially responsible, environmentally sound, and promoting sustainable tourism. More information is available on the official Toucan Trail site.