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Is Honduras a good travel location for backpackers? I want to know where I can find good backpacking hostels in Honduras. What are some common backpacking travel cities or towns? I am a solo male traveler and am looking to go to Honduras in November. I will be there for 2 weeks. My budget is around $1000 not counting the airfare. Preferably I would love to stay on an island or beach for a week and then go experience the culture.

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First off, welcome to Stack Exchange! We're happy to see you here. However, this question, as it is currently worded, isn't a good fit for this site. We are a Q&A site that needs specific questions with definitive answers; we are not a general discussion forum. If you provide some more details about your trip and what you're looking for (budget, how long you're going to be there, what time of year, what types of things you like to do, etc.), the community can provide you better answers. If you don't rephrase this question, it will likely be closed by the moderators. –  Laura Sep 27 '11 at 17:20
The $1000 includes getting to Honduras from what part of the world? Are you looking for partying or a bit of culture? Are you interested in diving? Do you have a PADI diving certification? Would you like to get one? I've been through Honduras twice but you have to ask a specific question. –  hippietrail Sep 27 '11 at 17:59
Those are really good questions, that I didn't even know to answer. I will have around $1000 USD to spend in Honduras. I will fly there. I am more interested in getting some culture, then to party hardy. I am not interested in diving (but have no problem going to a town where that is big) –  anton2g Sep 27 '11 at 18:12
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up vote 8 down vote accepted

Firstly I haven't been to Honduras for about five years and all this is off the top of my head:

Honduras is cheap, since you mention USD I assume you are American so there are probably fairly cheap flights.

Honduras is poor. They have beaches but they don't take great care of them, at least on the mainland. I spent Easter at Omoa and found it very dirty compared to Mexico's beaches.

There is a backpacker scene. By far the main attractions are the scuba diving in the Bay Islands followed by the Mayan ruins at Copán.

The diving courses were well known to be amongst the cheapest in the world. Many backpackers went there to get PADI certification, or to progress to a higher level.

I never went to the Bay Islands but some reports were that they weren't so great if you weren't diving. Perhaps the beaches there were also not great but many people mentioned sandflies being a problem. The Bay Islands were originally British rather than Spanish so surprise surprise - they speak English there!

I liked Copán very much even after having been to many Aztec and Mayan sites before in Mexico and Guatemala. The ruins are pretty but the town nearby was absolutely my favourite place to just hang out in Honduras. It had hostels and a backpacker scene, it's an attractive colonial town, and they seemed to be spending the tourist money wisely making it nicer. Usually I don't like tourist trap towns but I loved this one.

Honduras has one of the nicest capital cities in Central America, Tegucigalpa. Perhaps not utterly safe but safer than the neighbouring countries' capitals plus it's built in a hilly area which makes it more scenic. And there are backpacker hostels.

But if you're looking for a cultural experience my absolute number one recommendation for Honduras is to visit the Garífuna villages. They are a black skinned people descended from West Africans and indigenous Caribs and Arawaks. They have a unique culture and speak their own language. Where else will you meet people that look African and speak a native American language? They also have their own yummy alcoholic drink called "guifiti". The villages welcome backpackers and the more difficult the village is the reach the more amazing your experience will be. All the villages are on the coast with amazingly beautiful beaches. From memory there is a string of them both to the east and west of Tela and I seem to recall there are some near another coastal city in the country.

But things change fast in the world so five years is a long time and I'm sure some important things have changed. Do some research, and have a great trip!

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