Getting to Honduras and Other Tips- *Note that US citizens need a PASSPORT to travel to Honduras and that everyone departing Honduras via airplane must pay an exit visa fee of somewhere under $35 (a 90 day entry visa is free, but have cash on hand upon departure!)*  

Honduras is barely a 2 hour flight from Miami, Florida, with the two major cities being Tegucigalpa, which is the capitol, and San Pedro Sula, largely a commercial city.  San Pedro Sula is the usual first stop on your way to La Ceiba and is accessible by four US based airlines, American (www.aa.com), Delta (www.delta.com), Continental (www.continental.com), and more recently the low-fare carrier Spirit (www.spiritair.com).  The primary Central American based carrier is TACA (www.taca.com), which flies from several cities in the US.  Over the past few years we have flown TACA, Continental, and Delta, pretty much basing the decision first on price and second on schedule.  In terms of getting to La Ceiba itself, it is easiest to fly to San Pedro Sula, with direct flights from Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and (we believe) Newark, NJ, depending on the airline, then on to La Ceiba via one of these regional airlines (about a 25-30 minute flight): Isleña (which is partnered with TACA), SOSA, and Atlantic Airlines.  Note the airport identifiers    for San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba are SAP and LCE, respectively.  There is also some option of flying to the island of Roatan and then travel to La Ceiba via regional airline or ferry, though we have no experience in doing this.

If flying from San Pedro to La Ceiba is either not practical or too costly (these flights seems to change in price for no logical reason, at times they are incredibly cheap, at other times prohibitively expensive), there are intercity luxury buses, especially the Viana and Hedman-Alas lines (www.hedmanalas.com), with routes from San Pedro to La Ceiba. These take about about 3 hours and cost from $10 to $20, and Hedman-Alas has a stop at the San Pedro airport. The website of the Central American Spanish School  (www.ca-spanish.com) also offers tips on traveling to La Ceiba and www.hondurastips.honduras.com is the on-line version of the ubiquitous (once you are down there) and extremely useful magazine HondurasTips.  Note if you need to go from the airport in San Pedro Sula to downtown San Pedro (e.g. to pick up to a bus or perhaps to spend a night in a hotel), a taxi will cost at least $11-12, however unless you have a specific reason to go to downtown San Pedro Sula, DO NOT go there: it is dirty and dangerous!  Note also that taxis taken within La Ceiba cost about $1 per person.

The unit of currency in Honduras is the Lempira, and generally exchanges at a Lempira:Dollar rate of 18-19:1, hence it takes about 19 Lempiras to equal a Dollar (i.e. one Lempira is worth a little more than a nickel).  Honduras cash (efectivo is the Spanish word for cash) comes in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, & 500 Lempira denominations, and there are pretty but somewhat annoying coins valued less than a Lempira (centavos in Spanish, similar to cents in English) which you frequently will receive as change.  There are ATM machines present in La Ceiba that seem to accept most US cards (dispensing cash in Lempiras) and credit cards are widely accepted, but we recommend everyone carry some back-up in the form of Traveler's Checks.

People at times appropriately ask us about vaccinations and malaria prevention associated with travel to Honduras.  We cannot make specific recommendations, but the CDC website discusses this and other travel health concerns at the following link: http://www.cdc.gov/travel/camerica.htm#vaccines

In case you are not familiar with the concept, there is something called Travel Insurance.  This is frequently available as inclusive packages which typically offer coverage for trip cancellation, baggage, medical, dental, emergency evacuation, 24 hour traveler assistance, baggage delay, travel delay, and accidental death. Some policies also have options for collision/damage coverage for rented cars, flight insurance, and added emergency evacuation insurance.  The cost is generally determined by your age, trip duration, and amount of coverage desired.  I'm looking at a brochure from 2002 and the cost, for example, was $48 a month for a person 30-39 years of age with a limit of $100,000.  We neither recommend nor don't recommend travel insurance, but simply want people to be aware it exists.  If interested, check out a website called www.insuremytrip.com (a website that just came up in a search for travel insurance- don't know anything about it otherwise!).

Below is a description of a trip by Melissa, a friend of my son since Middle School, who traveled to Honduras during Christmas/New Years 2006-2007:

My name is Melissa and I am a 19-year-old sophomore nursing student at Russell Sage College.  I have known Reid and Patricia for many years from whom I learned about the wonderful opportunities Honduras has to offer. Recently I went to Honduras for a month during my Christmas break (2006-2007), My little sister joined me for two weeks of the trip also.   I wanted to go for a number of reasons, such as learning more about the project, learning Spanish in the real world, and learning about health care in a 3rd world country.  I have taken Spanish in high school and college but learned more in a month there than I learned in 3 years of traditional classes.  I attended the Central American Spanish School, where I got to know it's wonderful and helpful director Rafael and had a great teacher.  I met many fellow travelers, especially from the US, Canada, and Europe, and there was never a lack of social interaction.  Our first homestay situation was not what I expected but once Rafael heard about our problems we were moved to another family (which was a typical friendly Honduran family). 

I did a few tourist type things, including river rafting through the Jungle River Lodge, spent several days on Utila Island during the New Year holiday, went hiking in the national park of Pico Bonito, and went to the wonderful ocean town of Tela.  I was able to observe and even assist a little at a clinic up in the mountains, but I regret that I never really worked in a volunteer position as I was initially planning instead focusing on learning the language and culture.  Reid and Patricia’s project, Las Sonrisas de los Niños, is not actually in operation yet, though I did go out to Cacao and meet some people there, saw the project site where I left some things in the building (things Reid asked me to take down there, such as well points and baseball equipment).  Pretty much everyone we talked with in El Cacao had heard of the project and were looking forward to its opening.  The village seemed very receptive to the project and to me appeared to need all of the help it could get. I know Reid and Patricia are returning to Honduras on March 19th with the goal of having Las Sonrisas de los Niños functioning around the end of April.