Belize Essentials

I am self-aware of my personality quirks; I knew that one of my biggest challenges when moving to San Pedro, Belize, was going to be the lack of instant gratification.

Like most Americans, I reveled in the ability to have a meal delivered from any restaurant at my whim, groceries dropped at my doorstep when I was too busy (or lazy!) to shop myself, and have any item my heart desired brought to me—often within hours—from Amazon Prime.

In the previous five years, I can count on one hand how many times I purchased clothing “in person” at a brick-and-mortar store. I had cat food and heavy cat litter delivered, rather than struggle getting a 40-pound bag into my trunk. I even dabbled in pre-made meal delivery systems to make meal-planning and dinner preparation less stressful.

I knew that moving to an island—Ambergris Caye—in a developing Central American country—Belize—would remove most of these possibilities. Most, but not all.

Our new home town, San Pedro, has a thriving delivery and errand-running service—they will pick up meals for you, go to the bank, run paperwork on your behalf… any kind of busywork tasks that could be delegated, they will take on, for a nominal fee (starting at $3.50).

Some small local stores have pre-made meals in their freezers to take home and save for a rainy day, or when you don’t have all of the ingredients for a proper meal. The selection is limited and inconsistent, but it’s a start.

As for shopping? “Instant gratification” is a phrase no longer in my vocabulary, but “eventual gratification” is coming on strong.

Amazon Prime was my favorite crutch back in Arizona. In 2023, I placed 116 orders, or about one every three days. Unfortunately—or fortunately for my pocketbook—Amazon does not deliver to Belize. I don’t even have a physical mailing address or postal code here.

However, I can still shop at my favorite stores online, like Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Chewy, and more. How…?

Two words: Freight Forwarders.

A Freight Forwarder is a company that you can route online shopping deliveries to. They will consolidate your packages into a larger box (some do this for free, and some charge a small fee to consolidate, be sure to ask) and ship them to Belize.

Depending on the company, they may ship as often as every week, or as infrequently as once per month. Many of them increase their shipments around the holidays to accommodate the rise in shopping and demand.

To find a Freight Forwarder, simply search online for, “Freight Forwarder Belize”. Many options will populate. They are predominantly located in cities with international shipping ports, like Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami. Rates vary, so do shop around.

Most Freight Forwarders will charge a flat rate based on the cubic size of the box they send you, and that price will include customs and duty charges. The weight does not matter; the value of the goods inside—for the most part—does not matter.

The exception to that rule is for phones, tablets, computers, office equipment, electronics, appliances and vehicles; those items are priced per item for declaration and duty clearance.

Before you purchase those types of items, I suggest sending a link of the object to the Freight Forwarding company and ask what the charge would be.

The company I have been using charges $30 for a box that is 14” cubed, and the cost goes up from there. It is not inexpensive, so I try to be strategic in what I order to ship down versus what I can find on the island. If it is an item that is tough or impossible to find here, then I’ll ship it down.

Most objects are more expensive in Belize than the U.S. as they are imported, so you have transportation costs plus duty factored into the sales price.

What items do I commonly ship down?

• Dry cat food. We have two senior cats plus a younger one, and finding quality cat food down here is a struggle. Even lower-quality foods aren’t consistently stocked, and cats are not fans of changes to their diet. I did ship wet cat food in aluminum cans, but ten percent of them burst in transit and arrived with a massive maggot infestation. I strongly suggest buying those locally, even though they are expensive!

• Personal care items. Razor refills, shampoo bars, allergy medicine, reef-safe sunscreen, and more—either tough to find in San Pedro, or prohibitively expensive.
• Specialty light bulbs. You can find basic ones in all hardware stores, but when our outdoor flood light bulbs burnt out, I visited six different hardware stores and was only able to find one bulb rated for outdoors. In the wet, salty tropics, an outdoor-rated bulb is a non-negotiable.
• Sliding door hardware. We have four sliding-glass doors on the water-facing side of our home. They rust out over time, and oddly enough, are not stocked locally. We keep extras on hand.

• Bed sheets and towels are available on the island; however the quality is low and the prices are not.

• Special treats. Snack foods as we know them in North America are not common, unless they were imported. $10 for a box of Cheez-Its or $12 for Oreos is the norm. When you are craving something from home, sometimes you can justify a “special treat” to keep your spirits up!

The Freight Forwarder I use has an app, and they upload photos of my packages when they arrive to their warehouse so I can track that delivery occurred.

They post an invoice which is due before the package or packages are released, and I can pay via credit card, bank transfer, Zelle, wire, or PayPal. From the time that packages leave their warehouse, to the time they arrive to port in Belize, is typically two weeks.

They ship to Belize City, and from there, the Customer designates how to ship them to Ambergris Caye—this can be via a barge service, or a water taxi as cargo. I recently learned that the water taxi is considerably less expensive, although they cannot take packages that are extremely large (like a sofa), or over 150 pounds.

When my shipment arrives, it feels like Christmas morning. It has taken three to four weeks from the time I placed my order online until my goods arrive to San Pedro. Sometimes I have forgotten all of what I ordered!

While it’s not instant gratification, it’s still gratification—receiving items we enjoy that we can’t purchase locally. The waiting makes us appreciate the purchase more.

With the holidays coming up quickly, it’s nice to know that if I need a gift for family or friends, with a little advance planning, I can get pretty much anything delivered.

Sincerely,

Sharon Lord
Contributor, Overseas Opportunity Letter