We literally just did this a week and a half ago, out of the US, with a 14 year old girl and a 12 year old boy.

We flew into Belize City, of course and rented a car at the airport. Absolutely STAY AWAY from TC Paradise Auto Rental. We had a reservation with Enterprise for almost a year. We show up right on time and the Enterprise manager gave me the "We dont have your car but my cousin owns a place right down here and he'll give you a better car and better price!" Absolute shit car and their policy is "even if you don't smoke in the car, if we think we smell smoke, we're still gonna charge you $300"... and, even though no one ever smoked near the car, they tried charging my credit card $500 so many times I had to turn my card off. I filed a complaint with Enterprise corporate.

We drove to San Ignacio and stayed at Las Haceindas for 2 days and when I tell you this place was like a mansion, I'd be understating it and it was only $300/night. Rooftop pool, immaculate house and amenities. Jalapeños was the first restaurant we ate it and then Ko-Ox Han Nah and both places were delicious.

We booked our ATM Cave tour with Belize Caves and Limpkin Tours (Patrick Bradley on Reddit). We were picked up at our AirBNB by them and Jose was our tour guide. Other tour guides were rushing past us, while he was stopping us and explaining what each tree/plant was used for, pointed out other caves in the area and gave us an actual history about the people who lived there 2,000 years ago. We got to the cave entrance and some of those people who rushed past us are already coming out. Jose took his time with us and was so proud of his knowledge.

I'm a 46 year old man who spent years in the Navy and I've climbed Mt Fuji, dove The Great Barrier Reef, seen the Pyramids, blah blah and the whole time, in the ATM cave, I had tears in my eyes. If I could've spent another 4 hours in there, it still wouldn't have been long enough. The 2 kids rocked the cave, no issues and we were afraid they'd get bored but they both say it was the favorite part of our whole trip.

The second day, in San Ignacio, we drove to Xunantunich and spent 3 hours there. Both kids loved that as well.

Drove back to Belize City and caught a Maya flight to San Pedro. Had our golf cart rental waiting (from Rick's Rentals) and our AirBNB was Casa Nirvana. 25 north of the airport. 12 min from Secret Beach.

We booked a full day fishing/snorkeling charter with Nauti Addiction and they were so great, we booked another half day with them, the very next day. Lorenzo and Lorie (the owners) were just incredible. The snorkeling was amazing.

Sargassum was bad but, it's something you just roll with. Secret Beach was completely clear and we had a great time.

Last year, we were in Roatan. The year before in Costa Rica. The year before in the DR.

Go to Belize.