Flights to Central America are on sale
Regular readers of this blog are very familiar with the fact that I’m always on the lookout for not only the best airfares but also the best destinations at any given time of the year. Right now, as we’ve discussed so ofte, fares to Europe are extremely high. Add to that the fact that the US dollar is getting hammered as well and that’s one very expensive continent.
So where to go instead? Recently we talked about how cheap flights to Mexico City are, but some people still feel that it’s too dangerous, in spite of the fact that it’s a huge city with no drug-related violence at all. Well, if you are one of those people this might be a good time to consider Central America instead.
Off-season travel to Cental America
American Airlines is among the carriers to have specials to Central America at the moment, which results in some amazing deals. Right now they have Boston to Honduras starting at $350 roundtrip, and Tampa to Guatemala for around $400 roundtrip. To go to Europe you’d have to pay about 3 times that amount for flights of a similar length, so this is no joke. New York City to Belize is a bit over $500 roundtrip, which is still an excellent deal.
Part of the reason that fares are very low right now is that most of Central America has its off-season during the summer. It’s actually not terribly hot, or at least not as hot as you might fear. It’s more that this is the rainy season, which tends to scare most people away just by the name.
The thing about rainy season in the tropics is that in nearly all places that means that it rains about 20 days per month, but usually for only an hour or so during those days. In many cases the rain comes overnight, so visitors don’t even know about it, but more common is the pattern that sees the days being clear in the morning with clouds rolling in during the early afternoon. Rain can come hard for 30 to 60 minutes in the late afternoon, and then the clouds are mostly gone before the sun comes down.
If you’ve experienced it you know that this afternoon rain tends to be cooling, and very easy to avoid. It would be different if the rain started one day and just kept coming for a week like it does in the Pacific Northwest, but this sort of rain only requires that you pay attention and schedule your outdoor things around it, which is usually very easy to do.
Everything is cheap in the off season
In addition to the cheap flights you’ll also be finding hotels to be about half the price they are in January. Another great part of this situation is that the nicer hotels, like the 4-star resorts and such, tend to discount more heavily than the cheaper places. So for example you might find a 4-star hotel to charge $150 per night in winter, but only $75 per night in summer, while a 2-star hotel only comes down from $80 to $60 in the off season.
Keeping this in mind means you can often find amazing deals at hotels that you’d assume you could never afford, as long as you come during the “rainy season”. Belize is very popular and actually doesn’t get that much rain each month, but Guatemala, Panama, and Costa Rica are also popular in spite of the season.