Naia Resort and Spa

Naia spreads along a mile of palm-fringed white sand on the Placencia Peninsula in Stann Creek — a barefoot-luxury wellness resort and Belize's 2023 Tourism Board Hotel of the Year. Thirty-five modern beach houses and treetop villas in Belizean hardwoods open to private verandas with direct beach access, full kitchens and air-conditioning, many with their own plunge pool, from one-bedroom beach houses through a three-storey two-bedroom Tree Top Villa of around eighteen hundred square feet to three-to-five-bedroom beach houses for large groups. The spa is the heart of it, set on lily-covered lagoon islands with five or six over-water treatment rooms and a private-island couples' suite, across around six acres, with a fitness and aerial-movement studio and a saltwater pool. Dining runs to the signature 1981, a poolside beach bar and the Waterside cafe for healthy snacks and juices, and the kitchen will cook the fish you catch. Paddleboarding, kayaking through the mangroves, diving and snorkelling, cacao-farm chocolate tours and aerial yoga fill the days. A thirty-five-minute domestic flight from Belize City to the Placencia airstrip and a fifteen-minute drive, with transfers included, brings you in, on a bed-and-breakfast base — made for wellness travellers, couples and families, with studios up to five-bedroom houses.