Victoria House Resort & Spa

Victoria House has held its stretch of sand south of San Pedro for decades, and its formula remains the island's most graceful: white plantation-style buildings and thatched casitas scattered through coconut palms along a groomed private beach, with the second-largest barrier reef on earth running just offshore. Where much of Ambergris Caye has densified, the resort's low-rise grounds keep the old Caribbean-colonial calm intact.

Accommodation runs from casitas and suites to full staffed villas with private pools, dressed in white linen, dark timber and louvred shutters. Two pools face the sea, and the dock launches the day's real business: snorkelling at Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley, diving the reef walls, or the long-haul trip to the Great Blue Hole. Fly fishing for bonefish and permit on the flats is a further speciality.

Dining at Palmilla, the beachfront restaurant, works Belizean seafood—lobster in season, conch, snapper—into a menu that outclasses most of the island, and barefoot beach dinners are easily arranged. San Pedro's restaurants and bars are ten minutes by golf cart when wanted. Victoria House suits travellers who want the reef on their doorstep with polish and quiet rather than beach-bar bustle.