But don’t look past Moon Belize (Moon Handbooks) written by former Belize resident Joshua Berman. He’s delivers a guide to some of the best experiences in Belize, from hiking waterfall, jungle horse-rides and diving the reefs. The guide covers the ground well and will give you all the tools and insight you need to experience the best of Belize.

The Rough Guide to Belize 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) is a comprehensive guide to the country and covers all the top attractions. The book also takes a detailed look at the region’s history, cuisine, environment and diverse culture and comes complete with maps and plans for the entire country.

Interested in diving while in Belize? Lonely Planet’s Diving & Snorkelling Belize explores 82 of the best dive sites off Belize, with full-color photos and easy-to-read maps throughout. Belize is home to the world’s second-largest barrier reef and three of the Western Hemisphere’s four coral atolls. Shallow reefs ring the more than 450 cayes and islets, while towering walls plunge into the sea. More than 400 fish species and a host of corals and invertebrates shelter in the warm Caribbean waters.

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“It is even possible to find a good bottle of French wine in San Pedro, the island’s main town.”

What starts as a holiday destination becomes a vacation homes for some.

“For foreign buyers, Belize offers many attractive features. English is the primary language, and the currency is fixed at two Belizean dollars to one United States dollar. It also makes it easy to retire there, simplifying the process for foreign citizens to establish residence and transfer possessions into the country. “

Read the full article.

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By late 2008 it will be possible to fly direct to Belize City from Europe.  This is big news for Belize and its real estate market.  The Europeans, armed with their strong currencies, will start to arrive to this English speaking country in numbers.  They will no longer have to transit through the US.

They will come for the classic Caribbean experience, the world class diving, the jungles and rainforests, the Mayan ruins, the waterfalls and rivers.  And the real estate dollars will follow close behind.

We have seen the effect of new flight routes on real estate markets before.  Dubbed the “Ryanair effect” (Ryaniar is a major European low cost airline).  Wherever Ryanair has started flying, the Irish and the Brits have followed and real estate markets have flourished.

There are also rumors that direct flights from Canada will also start.

Timing is everything in real estate and right now could be the perfect time to take a closer look at this stunning country - while property prices are still well below regional benchmarks.

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NAR is recognizing the growth of the real estate market in Belize, and there are a number of reasons for it:

English as a native language - Belize has adopted English as their native language.  The country is a former British Colony known as British Honduras.

Foreign citizen tax breaks - retirees in Belize can apply for special status that provides tax breaks on retirement income and import of household items and furnishings. This bodes well for investment in Belize real estate.

An expanding economy - the gross domestic product of Belize has grown for the last 30 or so years, with agriculture, services and manufacturing at the core.

As one can readily see, Belize is poised for more growth if the baby boomer generation recognizes the quality of life available for retirees.  And it’s not crowded either!  Belize has the lowest population density in the Central American Region, and one of the lowest in the world.  There’s room for you in Belize.

Belize is a parliamentary democracy and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.  The government is divided into 6 districts and 31 constituencies.  Belize is located between two rivers, and the Belize River flows through the middle of the country.  With a Caribbean coastline, the Belize Barrier Reef and the Maya Mountains, there is certainly a diversity of terrain and outdoor recreation.  A large area of savannas and wetlands provides a great biodiversity, both marine and terrestrial.  With the longest living barrier reef in the western hemisphere, Belize attracts divers from all around the world.

Sugar, bananas and citrus production comprise the largest segment of the agricultural activities.  Recent discoveries of petroleum deposits bring exciting new possibilities to the manufacturing and mining segments of the economy.  The government is spending millions to better the standard of living of their poorer residents.  The Belize real estate market is gaining steam.

An interesting facet of Belize is the cultural and ethnic diversity.  There is almost no friction between the harmoniously blended cultures and races.  Belize has Mennonites, Chinese, Mayan, Spanish, Lebanese, East Indian and other ethnicities.  They all get along, and there is great religious tolerance. There are Christians and Roman Catholics.  Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism exist with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It is readily apparent that the government, culture, economy and geography all combine to make Belize a highly desirable place to live.  With the boomer generation searching for interesting retirement locales that are economically advantageous, Belize is positioned for significant growth.  Make it your next vacation spot and you just might find the perfect Belize real estate for your retirement!

Contributed by Jim Kimmons, a Taos real estate broker and writer.

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How do I get set up using RSS feeds?

To get started you will need a news reader, feed reader or news aggregator - a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added.  There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, others are downloadable applications.

Two popular Windows based feed readers are Feedreader and Newsgator.  There are also a number of web-based feed readers available including Google Reader, Bloglines or My Yahoo.  Some browsers, including latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon (like the one on this page) when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier.  You can also choose to receive your RSS feeds via email.

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites such as this one that syndicate their content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks.  Then just click on the orange RSS icon to set up the feed.

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• Belize information from the CIA world factbook
• Global edge Belize country insights
• American Chamber of Commerce speech on Belize at the US Embassy in Belize
• Belize country profile from the British Foreign and Commonweath Office

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We’re fascinated by the real estate opportunities here too.

And we’re starting to get bitten by this blogging bug as well.

So put together Belize, real estate and blogging and, well, let’s just say it’s a good day.

Anyway, that is why we’re very happy with WikiHow’s “How to Buy a Private Island“. They give great advice on a whole range of areas and right at the bottom there’s a link for us.

It’s certainly well worth checking out their words of wisdom. How about this:

“You’re not just buying and island you’re buying its surroundings. There should be a village nearby where you can get supplies and an airport close at hand, for instance. In other words, what makes an island feasible is the infrastructure available to it.”

Wise words. You can check out island in Belize on our website here.

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It was set up to serve photographers not real estate investors but there can be few better ways to look around a country before you even get there.

Flickr is a photo sharing website and it’s popularity is now so wide that you can find pictures of just about everything and everywhere. Luckily for anyone serious about investing in

Belize, there’s a pool of photos from across the country, totalling over 1,800 in all. You can see them here.

The picture above is our own. I hope you like it.

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