🐎 How To Get to Belize’s Xunantunich by Horseback Riding

One of Belize’s most famous Maya ruins, Xunantunich is the country’s second tallest structure at 130 feet high. Climbing to the top gives you a panoramic view and a peek of Guatemala’s borders.

I visited Xunantunich through a horseback riding tour and here, I share practical tips on the experience. This post covers:

• ⭐️ Xunantunich overview
• 🚗 How to get there
• 👕 What to expect and wear
• 🍀 My honest review of the experience

Planning a trip to Belize? This Belize guide covers things to know before getting there, including the best places to visit, how to get around, common scams and safety.

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Xunantunich at a Glance

Here is some general information on Xunantunich:

Xunantunich is pronounced, “zoo-naan-tu-nich“. My tour guide joked that you can just say “tuna sandwich” really fast if you struggle with the pronunciation.

📍Location: Xunantunich is located on Belize’s mainland, about a 30-minutes drive from San Ignacio, a popular town. It is 0.6 miles east of Guatemala’s border.

Many people visiting Xunantunich stay in San Ignacio, but some people visit through tours that leave from Belize City (a 2.5-hour drive away) and even further-away locations. This Belize itinerary shares great things to do in San Ignacio.

🚗 How to visit: There are multiple ways to get to Xunantunich, including by car, tour, taxi, horseback riding (which is what I did) and bus. See below for more details on how to visit.

💰 Cost: Xunantunich costs $5 USD for tourists to enter. A regular tour usually costs around $75 USD and a horseback riding tour typically costs $90 to $115 USD. All of these prices are in USD.

Belize is one of the most expensive countries to visit in Central America, so expect most tours to be in the $50 to $150 USD range. This Belize cost breakdown outlines all of my trip’s expenses.

🕜 Hours of operation: Xunantunich is open daily from 8 am to 4 pm.

⏳ Duration: You can expect to spend approximately two hours on a typical trip to Xunantunich.

• If you’re driving or taking a taxi, budget an additional hour for round-trip transportation.
• If you’re visiting by horseback riding, expect a five to six-hour tour that starts early in the morning (7:30 am or 8 am).
• Most standard Xunantunich tours (like this one) will take four hours, including transportation.

🚌 Tour operators: There are several tour operators that offer tours to Xunantunich. Here are some highly-rated operators that offer a horseback riding tour:

• MayaWalks, which is the one I did and had a good tour with.
• St Leonard’s Tours
• Belize Family Tours

How To Get To Xunantunich from San Ignacio

You can visit Xunantunich on your own without a guide or with a tour group. There are several ways to get to Xunantunich from San Ignacio, including by car, taxi, tour or horseback:

• By car. If you have a rental car, you can drive to Xunantunich on your own and without a guide. A mile before reaching the Maya ruins, you’ll have to cross the Mopan River by ferry, which takes ~5 minutes. There’s a parking lot at the entrance of Xunantunich where your car will be safe.

The ferry is manually hand-cranked. You don’t need to pay the ferry operator since they’re paid by the Belize government, but you can still leave a small tip if you like.

• By taxi. If you don’t have a car, you can hire a taxi to drive you to Xunantunich. There are usually shared taxis waiting at Xunantunich to take visitors back to San Ignacio and this option is very cheap (less than $3 USD per person).

• Through a tour operator. When visiting Xunantunich with a tour group, you can book in advance or at the entrance. At the entrance, before the ferry crossing, you can hire a guide, usually starting at $30 USD (the cost increases with time and the number of people in your group). If you book in advance, the tour operator will provide transportation, usually by shuttle.

• Through a horseback riding tour. For a more adventurous way to visit Xunantunich, you can take a horseback riding tour. This is what I did and here’s the horseback tour I booked.

• By bus and walking. You can ride a local bus that runs hourly to Xunantunich, but since the bus won’t go on the ferry with you, you’ll have to walk 1 mile on well-maintained roads to the Maya ruins. This is the most affordable option (the bus ride costs $1 USD).

Is Xunantunich Worth a Visit?

Whether you should visit Xunantunich comes down to personal preference, but to help you decide, here are a few reasons why it might be worth a visit:

• You can climb Xunantunich. You can’t touch all Maya ruins, but you can climb Xunantunich’s most famous structure, El Castillo, which will give you a panoramic view and let you see neighboring Guatemala.

• Xunantunich is accessible from San Ignacio. Located only 30 minutes away from San Ignacio, Xunantunich is the perfect combination of an accessible and impressive Maya ruin in Belize.

Located right next to San Ignacio, Cahal Pech is the most accessible, but it’s also very small. Caracol is arguably Belize’s most impressive ruin, but it’s also a two-hour drive away.

• Xunantunich has a long and fascinating history. If you visit Xunantunich with a guide, you’ll learn about the ruin’s ghost stories, mysterious abandonment, carved symbols, name references and more.

If Xunantunich doesn’t sound appealing to you, this Belize itinerary has a dozen other great things to do.

Is Xunantunich Worth Visiting by Horseback Riding?

If you’re deciding whether to visit Xunantunich by horseback or car, you should consider a few things:

• Do you want to see more of Belize’s nature and backroads? A Xunantunich horseback riding tour will start at a farm and take a different route that has more nature and backroads than any transportation by vehicle.

• Do you have enough time for a full-day tour? A Xunantunich horseback tour will take five to six hours, so you likely won’t have time to take any other half-day tours. All horseback tours also start in the early morning. In comparison, doing a regular tour or visiting the Maya ruin by yourself will only take three to four hours and the timing is flexible.

Xunantunich is open daily from 8 am to 4 pm, but people recommend visiting in the early morning to avoid the crowd and the afternoon sun in Belize.

• Are you budget-conscious? A Xunantunich horseback tour costs at least $90 USD (and usually $100+ USD) whereas a standard tour is closer to ~$75 USD. Without a tour, you’ll just need to pay the $5 USD entrance fee and transportation.

• Do you want to ride a horse through a jungle? If you enjoy horseback riding tours or have never done one before, riding one to Xunantunich is a safe environment to do so. Note that it is a long tour; expect to be on the horse for three to four hours, which can make your muscles feel sore the next day if you’re not accustomed to riding horses.

You don’t need any prior experience to visit Xunantunich by horseback, but most tours will make efforts to match horses to visitors based on experience level.

Overall, I’m glad I did a horseback riding tour to Xunantunich. I found the ruin itself underwhelming after having visited the famous Machu Picchu a few months earlier, so the horseback riding aspect made the tour more fun and interesting to me.

If you want to do something more adventurous, consider visiting the ATM cave, one of the world’s top sacred caves that requires climbing, hiking, swimming and spelunking.

What To Expect on a Horseback Tour to Xunantunich

The following is based on my experience with the horseback riding tour I booked. Other Xunantunich horseback tours will be very similar, but may not be exactly the same.

• Transportation. The tour will pick you up from your accommodation or downtown San Ignacio and take you to where the horses are located.

• Saddle up. Once you get to the horse farm, the guide will get you fitted with a helmet, ensure your bag (you might want to bring one) can clip to the horse’s saddle and pair you with a horse that matches your horseback experience.

• Ride through Belize’s backroads and jungle. For the next two hours, you will ride your horse through Belize’s backroads and jungles.

At the Mopan River crossing, your horse will momentarily share the road with vehicles and your guide should instruct you on how to minimize the chances of your horse getting spooked. This is important; one of our group’s horses got spooked and it’s important for the rider to remain calm.

• Ride the ferry. Before getting on the hand-cranked ferry, you will dismount your horse. Both your horse and you will take the short five-minute ferry and then you’ll remount your horse for the last 1-mile trek to the Maya ruins.

• Get a tour of Xunantunich. Near the Maya ruins, your guide will tie your horse near water and trees and give you an hour-and-a-half tour of Xunantunich. You’ll learn about Xunantunich’s fascinating history and climb up El Castillo to get a panoramic view. If you’re lucky, you may get to see some howler monkeys.

Xunantunich’s visitor center will have water for sale and bathrooms. As noted in the packing list below, make sure to bring TP as the bathrooms may run out of them.

• Ride back. In the last two hours, you will go back the way you came.

What To Pack and Wear for a Horseback Riding Tour to Xunantunich

Here’s a packing list for Xunantunich if you plan to get there by horseback.

• Sunglasses. Most of the route will not have cover, so you’ll want sunglasses if you happen to be facing the sun for over two hours during your ride. Only one person in our tour group didn’t bring sunglasses and she regretted it. I brought my athletic sunglasses.

• Mosquito repellent. As you ride through the Belize jungle, you’ll run into mosquitos. I get bitten a lot and find that this insect-repellent lotion works better than the spray alternatives.

• Sunscreen. With the Belize sun and the lack of cover, make sure to apply ample sunscreen. You might want to bring extra to reapply since the tour is over 5 hours long. I brought my sweat-resistant sunscreen and had to reapply before the ride back.

• Closed-toe shoes. You’ll want to wear closed-toe shoes as your horse can walk very close to a bush or tree trunk. These shoes should also have decent traction as you climb the uneven steps of Xunantunich. For reference, I wore my running shoes and was fine in them.

• Pants (not shorts). Ideally, wear long pants for some protection in case your horse walks near a bush or tree trunk. Most people wore leggings or loose pants.

• Athletic top. Wear something comfortable and breathable as you’ll likely sweat when riding through the humid weather with little shade.

• Water. The guide will have some water for you, but it’s recommended that you bring extra water for yourself. I brought my insulated, reusable water bottle which kept my water extra cold for the entire ride.

• A small bag. You’ll need a small bag to carry your water, sunscreen, cash and sunglasses. I brought my Fjallraven mini bag, which was both great and not-so-great. It was the perfect size and had a handle that could easily be tied to the horse’s saddle, but it isn’t water-resistant.

• Rain jacket or poncho. Even though Belize has a wet and dry season, it’s a tropical country so rain can fall at any time of the year. The rain can be brief, but sudden and hard, so it’s best to carry a light rain jacket at all times. I tied my light rain jacket around my waist and put it on briefly when it rained on us. For something that’s lighter and easier to carry, these transparent rain ponchos also work well (you don’t want to wear ponchos with dark colors since those can scare the horses).

• Cash. Bring some cash to tip your tour guide at the end.

In Belize, tipping is welcomed and appreciated, but not mandatory. A 10-15% tip from tourists is fairly standard. This Belize travel guide has other pratical tips on visiting the country.

• Toilet paper. You might want to consider bringing some folded TP in your bag. Xunantunich is a popular attraction and when I visited it during the low season, the bathrooms ran out of TP.

The Belize trip planner below has this packing list in a downloadable Notion.

Belize Trip Planner

To make your travel planning easier, download the trip planning template below and use it as a starting point. The template has country-specific travel information as well as an itinerary, packing list and map with recommended places pinned.

The template is built on Notion, which is what I use for all my travel planning (I’m not paid to say this; I just like the tool). If you don’t have Notion, creating an account is free.

If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

🧋 This site is run entirely by me, Lukiih. I spend hours writing each article to ensure its accuracy and conciseness. If you find my site helpful, you can say thanks by buying me bubble tea!