5 Things to do in San Ignacio with Kids

When we planned our family vacation to Belize, we wanted to split our time between the beach and the jungle. For the jungle portion of the trip, we spent five days in San Ignacio with our kids. Celine and I had visited San Ignacio 17 years earlier and really enjoyed it. This time we stayed at a very fun, kid-friendly jungle lodge and ventured out to enjoy the best things to do in San Ignacio with kids.

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5 Family-Friendly Activities in San Ignacio, Belize

Based on our recent 5-night stay, here are our favorite things to do in San Ignacio with kids:

1. Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM Cave) Tour

The first time Celine and I visited San Ignacio, we enjoyed a spelunking adventure at the Crystal Cave. This time around we wanted to try something similar, so we signed up for a tour of the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave with our kids.

Why the ATM Cave Tour is so Special

With a central location between Belize City and San Ignacio, the ATM Cave is one of the most popular things to do in Belize. The sense of adventure is why it is so popular… as you venture deep into the cave, you must wade through rivers, climb over limestone formations, and move carefully through the chambers.

As exciting as it is, the ATM Cave is so much more than the adventure; it’s also one of the most sacred places to the Mayan people. The adventurous journey inside the cave takes you to a preserved Maya ceremonial site. Deep inside the cave are original pottery pieces, ceremonial platforms, and even skeletal remains left exactly where they were discovered.

Getting to the ATM Cave from San Ignacio

Our tour left San Ignacio at 8 AM. During our hour-long drive to the ATM Cave, our tour guide kept us entertained with all sorts of interesting information about Belize and the area we were driving through.

Upon reaching the parking lot for the ATM Cave, we were outfitted with a helmet (with an attached flashlight) and a life jacket. As parents, we appreciated they had proper kid-sized gear.

NOTE: It is prohibited to take photos inside the ATM Cave, however our tour company was kind enough to share some photos.

Hiking to the ATM Cave Entrance

To get to the entrance of the ATM Cave, we enjoyed a 45-minute walk through the jungle. Along the way we got wet with three fun river crossings. The jungle walk was very flat and the river crossings were quite easy; the water was knee-to-waist deep, with a safety rope to grab if required.

Entering the ATM Cave

Upon reaching the ATM Cave, we all entered the stream and ventured into the mouth of the cave. This was a surprise to us! We didn’t actually know that the first half of the journey into the ATM Cave was walking upstream through a river flowing through the cave! It was so much fun!

Our guide led us through a very fun route up the cave river. There were a variety of obstacles to overcome, including rock formations, narrow passageways, and small tunnels. All along the way, he’d stop and show us the many points of interest in the cave.

About halfway into the ATM cave, our guide helped us scale a 10’ rock to get up to a ledge high above. Here we had to take our shoes and sports sandals off and continue in our stocking feet. Socks are required to protect the cave from human skin oil and unnecessary erosion.

ATM Cave Maya Ceremonial Site

The dry upper chambers of the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave are why it is considered one of the most sacred caves in the world. The chambers up here were the site of many human sacrifices by the ancient Mayans.

Today, people who venture into the cave can see the skeletal remains of many of these sacrifices, along with many artifacts including a significant amount of pottery. We could also see where they created fires, along with smoke stains in the ceiling.

The final cavern was the most interesting, with a full human skeleton lying in dancer position on the cave floor. The bones are nearly covered with minerals from the cave water, creating a surreal effect.

We loved our kid-friendly tour of the ATM Cave. It was an amazing combination of canyoning, cave exploration and history lesson. Our kids originally didn’t want to do this tour, but it was only 10 minutes into the cave before my son shouted “I love this!”.

2. Day Trip to Tikal with Kids

No visit to San Ignacio would be complete without hopping the border to visit the famous Tikal ruins in Guatemala.

Guatemala Border Crossing

As visiting Tikal from San Ignacio involves crossing the Belize / Guatemala border, we’re glad we booked a tour to help with the details. We were picked up at our amazing jungle lodge and were taken to the border.

Once our driver had helped us with Belize immigration, he introduced us to our new Guatemalan driver and guide, who took care of us for the rest of the Guatemala portion of our tour. It was nice knowing we were in good hands on both sides of the border.

Why The Tikal Ruins Are So Special

The Tikal ruins are one of the most important ancient Maya cities ever discovered. At its peak between 200 and 900 AD, Tikal was a powerful city-state with towering temples and massive plazas. It was a political, military, and religious centre, which shaped the history of the Maya world for centuries.

Will Tikal Be Boring For My Kids?

Let’s face it, many ancient ruins can be kind of boring for kids who don’t understand the history and importance of these sites. For example, our kids were quite bored during our family trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Tikal was different… getting to climb on many of the pyramids helped keep our kids engaged, as did the adventure of walking through the deep jungle of Tikal National Park.

Tikal National Park Wildlife

Our guide made our tour of Tikal a lot of fun for our family. When he discovered that we liked wildlife, he went out of his way to find a wide variety of wildlife for us.

Tikal is home to a large number of spider monkeys, and we saw a ton of them during our tour. Spider monkeys are one of the most fun monkeys to watch in the wild as they are very playful, swinging from branch to branch.

We also had a thrilling howler monkey experience. We were walking along a remote hiking trail when a howler monkey roared and made us all jump in the air.

If you’ve never heard a howler monkey, they sound terrifying! It sounded like what you’d imagine a hungry, angry lion would sound like. Before long other howler monkeys joined in and were howling and the sound came from all directions. It was a thrilling jungle experience we won’t soon forget.

Another exciting animal encounter at Tikal was when a band of coatimundi walked right past us on the hiking trail. They are so cute; like little raccoons with long pointy noses! We also saw several parrots and heard a toucan.

Exploring The Tikal Ruins

As for the ruins themselves, there were several memorable moments from our Tikal tour with kids.

One of the first areas we visited was Tikal’s Central Acropolis, where I got to sit on a throne high above my family in the Palacio de los Cinco Pisos (Palace of the Five Floors). It was a really funny way to start our tour of Tikal. Our guide took us on a fun route through the ruins where the kids got to climb on the structures.

From there, we made our way through the jungle to the amazing East Plaza area. This is likely the most fun area in Tikal for kids, with several structures close together, many of which you can climb. Our guide gave us some free time here, so we climbed up the Pyramid of the Lost World which gave us an excellent view of the entire plaza.

The last major structure we visited was Temple IV, one of the tallest structures at Tikal. It took us nearly 200 steps to get to the viewing platform near the top, but it was worth it. From here we could see sweeping views of the other pyramids; with their tops poking out over a seemingly endless jungle.

Fun fact for kids: Temple IV and Tikal were featured in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.

3. Cave Tubing at St. Herman’s Blue Hole National Park

Cave tubing is a very popular excursion for cruise ship passengers from Belize City. Whenever possible, we try to avoid cruise ship crowds, so we were super happy to discover the cave tubing tour at St. Herman’s Blue Hole National Park.

Getting to St. Herman’s Cave

Our private cave tubing tour began by getting outfitted at the main entrance to St. Herman’s Blue Hole National Park. We appreciated the kid-sized equipment for this tour.

Once we were all geared up, we carried our tubes and ventured into the jungle for an easy 10-minute walk to the cave entrance.

Once inside the cave, we walked on land for another 650 feet (200 m), with the river flowing through the cave below us. Our guide stopped occasionally to talk about the interesting points in the cave, until it was time to put our tubes in the river.

Upstream Tubing in St. Herman’s Cave

The first half of the St. Herman’s caving tour goes upstream into the cave against the current. Although the current was very gentle, our guide instructed us to create a chain by holding on to the handles of each other’s tubes.

Then he got into the water and walked upstream, gently pulling us along the way. With no effort required, we could sit back and enjoy the novelty of cave tubing in the dark, using only our torches for light.

At the end of the upstream, we got out and walked to see where the explorable portion of the cave ends. Rocks had collapsed blocking the way, but water still rushed through, creating the river we were tubing on.

Downstream Tubing in St. Herman’s Cave

Once back on our tubes, we could begin the really enjoyable part of our St. Herman’s caving tour; floating downstream on the gentle current. Our guide told us to just relax and let the tube take us wherever the current wanted us to go. It was so fun and relaxing! If we needed a course correction, he would come and give us a nudge in the right direction.

At one point, we all turned off our helmet torches so we could experience complete darkness. Such a rare opportunity, everyone should experience complete darkness at some point in their lives; it’s amazing!

All told, our St. Herman’s cave tubing tour was a lot of fun for the whole family. It was a beautiful cave with lots of interesting formations. And the gentle river was just perfect for a family-friendly cave tubing tour in Belize.

Swimming at the Inland Blue Hole

Our St. Herman’s caving tour concluded with a swim in the nearby inland Blue Hole. Not to be confused with the very famous Blue Hole in the ocean, this is Belize’s second Blue Hole, an inland one!

A massive sinkhole, the inland Blue Hole is a large freshwater cenote surrounded on all sides by lush jungle. It’s a beautiful setting for a swimming hole, so we all got up the nerve and jumped in.

The water in the Blue Hole is chilly at first, but you quickly get used to it. It’s a pretty short swim to the far side, where you can stand on a rock and look down at how deep the sinkhole actually gets; it’s really deep!

We stayed and swam with the curious little fishes for a while, before deciding it was time for lunch.

An El Salvadorian Lunch!

Our guide took us to an amazing El Salvadoran restaurant in the nearby town of Armenia, Belize. The restaurant was a little hole in the wall on the side of the highway, but the food was amazing!

We really enjoyed our family-friendly cave tubing tour in St. Herman’s Blue Hole National Park. It’s about 90 minutes from St. Ignacio, and about 90 minutes from Belize City, so you can arrange transportation from either location.

In fact, we arranged for our tour company to transport us from the Sweet Songs Lodge in San Ignacio to the ferry in Belize City, with our cave tubing tour in the middle! This allowed us to get to the ferry port to begin the next phase of our family trip to Belize: three days in Ambergris Caye with kids.

4. River Tubing, Canoeing, Night Walks and More

If you are looking to enjoy some of the best jungle-based family-friendly activities in San Ignacio, consider staying at a jungle lodge. For example, we stayed at an amazing jungle lodge just outside of San Ignacio with tons of complimentary family-friendly things to do in the jungle. During our 5-night stay, we enjoyed river tubing, night walks in the jungle, canoeing, hiking, bird-watching, family bonfires by the river and more!

For more information, check out our Sweet Songs Lodge review for families.

5. Xunantunich Ruins

No post about the best things to do in San Ignacio with kids would be complete without mentioning the Xunantunich Ruins. I have it last on my list simply because we didn’t do it. Our original plan was to visit Xunantunich, but after going to Tikal, we felt like we’d seen enough ruins for one trip.

Xunantunich is one of the easiest and most rewarding Maya sites to visit from San Ignacio with kids because it feels like an adventure from the very beginning. On your way there, you cross the Mopán River on a hand-cranked ferry.

The star of the Xunantunich Ruins is El Castillo, a 130-foot (40 m) pyramid you can climb for huge views over the Cayo countryside and, on a clear day, into Guatemala.

For those who don’t want the all-day trip to Tikal, Xunantunich is just a few minutes away from San Ignacio. It can easily be done on a half-day tour from San Ignacio.

We hope that you enjoyed our things to do in San Ignacio with kids. We thoroughly enjoyed our 5 days in San Ignacio during our family trip to Belize, and we hope you do too!