Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz 
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you book or buy something through one of my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend places and services I have personally used or vetted. The best eco lodges in Guatemala are the ones where sustainability is the whole … Read more
Community tourism in Guatemala means experiences that are designed, run, and owned by the communities themselves: the coffee tour led by the farmer who grew the coffee, the weaving class taught by the cooperative that owns the workshop, the restaurant where your lunch pays for a town’s nutrition program. This guide is my list of … Read more
Responsible travel in Guatemala starts with knowing what your visit costs and what it can give back. This guide covers what ethical travel actually looks like here: what’s happening on the volcanoes, how tourism is changing the Maya communities around Lake Atitlán, how to tell real ceremonies from commercial packages, where to stay and shop … Read more
Choosing where to stay at Lake Atitlán is not as simple as picking the hotel with the best views. The villages are different enough that the wrong base can mean spending your days on lanchas getting to where you actually want to be. This guide covers the best hotels in Lake Atitlán honestly: from the … Read more
Most 5-day Guatemala itineraries try to cover three destinations and end up doing none of them well. This one doesn’t. It focuses on two places: Lake Atitlán and Antigua Guatemala. Where to base yourself, how to move between them, what is worth your time, and what to skip. Written by a Guatemalan who has been … Read more
Every Guatemala itinerary article you click sends you down the same route. Antigua first, then the lake, then back to the airport. I’ve been watching travelers do this for years, and I’ve watched them pay for it in exhausted mid-trip transit days and hours lost to backtracking. I grew up here. I spent seventeen years … Read more
Women in Santiago Atitlán still wear their beautiful huipiles embroidered with birds and flowers to buy tomatoes at the market, the same way their mothers and grandmothers did long before tourists arrived. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid growing up in Guatemala, and that detail still tells me more about this town … Read more
San Marcos La Laguna is Lake Atitlán’s wellness hub — the village with the highest concentration of yoga studios, breathwork facilitators, and retreat centers at the lake, and the home of Cerro Tzankujil Nature Reserve, where the cliff jumping platform 12 meters above the lake is one of the most exhilarating things you can do … Read more
Inside the weaving cooperatives of San Juan La Laguna, Tz’utujil women sit at backstrap looms and explain what they’re doing in ways that make you understand, maybe for the first time, what this tradition actually is. Which plant made the blue. Which insect made the red. How long her grandmother spent teaching her. I’ve sat … Read more
Before 6 AM on a clear morning in Panajachel, with the water still and the sky just beginning to lighten, the three volcanoes appear across the lake. San Pedro, Tolimán, Atitlán. All three, unobstructed. It takes your breath away. I’ve been watching this view my whole life and I still stand there for a few … Read more
