Placencia Travel Guide
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150 miles (242km) S of Belize City; 100 miles (161km) SE of Belmopan; 55 miles (89km) NE of Punta Gorda
Located at the southern tip of a long, narrow peninsula that is separated from the mainland by a similarly narrow lagoon, Placencia is Belize's premiere beach destination. With nearly 16 miles (26km) of white sand fronting a calm turquoise sea and backed by palm trees, Placencia attracts everyone from hippy backpackers to avid naturalists to hard-core divers to upscale snowbirds. The whole peninsula has been booming in recent years, and there are actually several sections of it being developed, including Maya Beach on the northern end of the peninsula and Seine Bight Village in the middle.
Placencia itself is a tiny Creole village of colorful clapboard houses mostly built on stilts. Once you settle into the slow pace and relaxed atmosphere, it's hard to move on. Placencia is the definition of laid-back. For years, the village's principal thoroughfare was a sidewalk, although the recent construction and development boom have made the main road through town (called "the Back Road") actually busy most days. Once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the narrowest street in the world, the sidewalk still runs through the heart of the village parallel to the sea.
On October 8, 2001, Placencia was devastated by Hurricane Iris. The eye of this Category Four storm passed right over the tiny village of Monkey River, just south of Placencia. The destruction was massive. Nonetheless, almost everything has been either rebuilt, or leveled and cleaned, and it's almost hard to tell the hurricane actually passed through.
