The low cost of travel to Corozal is one of the best things about living or retiring in Corozal. I don’t know what the travel expenses are from other parts of the country, but from our local airport here Greenville–Spartanburg, South Carolina (symbol is GSP), we can routinely fly round trip for around US $500 per person, and you can get a direct flight from Atlanta for less than that. Sometimes you can get a direct from Charlotte for a little less than that.
My wife and I do not like cold weather, we’re tired of the cold winters in the States, and we can’t afford the kind of lifestyle we’d like to live in Florida, so Belize is the perfect answer. Properties in Belize on or near the ocean are a fraction of the cost of similar properties in the States.
Another good thing about Corozal is the friendliness of the locals / the culture. I can relate an example of something I witnessed personally that was very moving. I was coming back into town and approached the ferry over the river just outside of Corozal. The ferry wasn’t running and there were cars everywhere and a lot of activity. Even though everyone speaks English, when most of the locals they speak to each other, they speak either in Creole or Spanish, so it was difficult to understand what was going on.
A friend of mine pulled up shortly after we came to a stop, and his wife is Belizean so I asked if perhaps she could find out what was going on. She told us that an elderly farmer had pulled his truck up on to the ferry, and for some reason his truck went over the ferry and into the river. As a result, the whole community had come out to make sure that he was okay. Once everyone realized that everybody was safe, the ferry resumed running and we went on back to the hotel.
The next morning, our route took us back the opposite direction so we had to get back on the same ferry. Lo and behold, it wasn’t running again. So there are several dinghies with men in them that are going across the river with long poles trying to locate the truck. Eventually, they did locate it, and came back to shore to take out some other guys with masks and flippers, who dove down, retrieved the farmer’s wife’s purse, and brought it back up to him. A big cheer went up in the crowd when the farmer rang out the water and the money from the purse. Then another farmer came in with a big truck and they pulled the first farmer’s truck out of the river for him. A couple of weeks later, they had totally renovated the truck, and the first farmer is driving it and just as happy as he could be.
The thing that impressed me most is while we were sitting there and the ferry wasn’t running in order accommodate all these people helping the farmer getting his truck out of the river, nobody blew their horn, nobody shouted, “Hey, I’m late for a meeting!,” and nobody was antsy. One guy turned around and went back to Corozal, got a case of beer and brought it back to share with others who were waiting. It was just so refreshing to see how the members of that community put all of their personal needs aside just for a little while so that they could help that fellow retrieve his truck. I even asked my American friend Mark Leonard, who lives in Belize, “When I get back to the States, do I need to ask around, raise some money and buy that guy a truck?” Mark said, “No, don’t worry about it. They’ll have it running in a few days.” And sure enough, they did.
Being there and witnessing that, I thought that what I saw would have never have happened here in the States. Maybe in some communities around the States, it might happen, but my experience says it probably would not. It really hit me, just watching how that community in Corozal turned out to help that guy, and the fact that nobody resented it or had an issue with it interrupting their schedule or what their priorities were. It was all about “Hey that guy needs help and if my small part is just sitting here quietly and chatting with the people in line for the ferry, then that’s what I’ll do.”
(River ferry in Belize, pictured.)
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Under Portuguese law, each car needs to have a third party’s liability insurance to cover the damages that you may cause to other people in case of an accident. All risks insurance is also possible and common although not mandatory. Please note that these insurances relate to each car and not to the driver. 
