Keel-billed toucan

For anyone who has traveled in the Caribbean, the Belizean landscape is delightfully familiar, a tropical mix of palm trees, frangipani, bougainvillaea and that incredible blue water (below which lies the second largest barrier reef in the world). Yet a short drive inland is enough to make it clear that the mysterious vastness of South America is just around the corner. The forests are more lush than those of Belize's island neighbors, the trees taller than the eye can fully comprehend. In the countryside, rural houses are often built on stilts, a reminder that in rain forests, the accent is on rain; though gray and weathered, many are built of mahogany and other jungle hardwoods. The humidity, averaging 85 percent, makes packing anything more than T-shirts, shorts, and a raincoat superfluous. And everywhere, there are the birds, as jewel-bright as any school of tropical fish.

Belize's Best Birding Spots

Bordered by Mexico and Guatemala, Belize lies at the base of the Yucatan Peninsula, where the continent narrows and acts as a kind of funnel for migrants: by one recent count, Belize supports 543 species of birds, 20 percent of which are visitors. The country is largely undeveloped, and more than 30 percent is protected. Toucans, parrots, macaws, motmots, and the jabiru stork—the largest flying bird in the Americas—are just a few of the species that make Belize as enticing as the better-known Costa Rica or the jungles of the Amazon.

Bypassing the lure of both sea and culture, I get down to business—though when your business involves hiking along pristine jungle trails, canoeing quiet lakes and rivers where kingfishers shimmer and iguanas drop from the trees, or fending off the rays of a too-hot sun while friends and family shiver in northern snows, it doesn't feel much like work.