Guatemala is one of the most underrated travel destinations in Central America. Volcanic lakes, Pacific coastline, indigenous villages, artisan culture, and a pace of life that makes you wonder why you ever rushed anywhere. And yet most first-time visitors barely scratch the surface.
Ítaca is a collection of hospitality spaces built for the travelers who want to go deeper. Here are five of our featured places from Ítaca, each different in energy and landscape, all of them sharing the same quiet belief: that the best travel isn’t about where you end up. It’s about what happens along the way.
Here’s where it takes you.
The Driftwood Surfer, El Paredón Buena Vista, Guatemala
El Paredón has a different energy entirely. The black sand, the heavy surf, the air that smells like salt and something faintly wild. It’s become one of the best surf destinations in Guatemala, and The Driftwood Surfer is at the center of it.
Built for people who wake up early and stay up late. Surfers, wanderers, and digital nomads in Guatemala who’ve traded the office for a view of the ocean. The long communal table fills up at golden hour with people who arrived as strangers and leave as something closer to family. There’s a rhythm to life at The Driftwood Surfer that takes about half a day to find and then you can’t imagine living without it.
And if you’re lucky, you’ll be around for a turtle release. The conservation work here is part of what the space is, not a footnote or a marketing angle, but a genuine commitment to the coast and everything living on it.
Luna y Sol, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala
Then the landscape shifts entirely.
Lake Atitlán is consistently ranked one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and for good reason. Three volcanoes rising from the water. Mornings so still the surface looks painted. Villages on every shore, each one with its own personality and pace.
Luna y Sol sits on this lake and leans into everything that makes Atitlán magnetic. It’s a space built for people who want to stay longer than they planned, which, if you’ve ever been to Atitlán, you already know is inevitable. Co-living and co-working at Lake Atitlán, community dinners, slow mornings with the lake stretched out in front of you. The kind of place that draws long-stay travelers and remote workers who’ve realized that working from a lake beats working from an office.
San Pedro La Laguna is one of Atitlán’s most social and well-connected villages, making it an ideal base for exploring the lake while still having access to great food, community energy, and easy lancha connections to the rest of the shore.
Traveling With Intention
Conscious travel isn’t a marketing term for us. It’s a practice.
It means sourcing locally, hiring from within the communities we live inside, and taking seriously what it means to build something in a place as extraordinary as Guatemala. The volcanoes, the lake, the Pacific coast, the people who cook in our kitchens and know the names of the birds and the best time to be on the water, they’re not the backdrop. They’re the reason.
We’re guests here too. We try to remember that.
El Gato Perdido Bistro, San Pedro La Laguna
San Pedro is one of the best towns to stay at Lake Atitlán for travelers who want a social scene without sacrificing substance, and El Gato Perdido Bistro is one of its best reasons to linger.
The food here is the kind that takes its time. Artisanal, house-made in ways you can actually taste, with a menu that reads like someone cared deeply about where things came from and how they were put together. Because they did. Plant-forward too.
Come for dinner. Stay for the conversation. The bistro has a way of turning a table of strangers into something that feels like a dinner party by the end of the night. If you’re looking for restaurants in San Pedro La Laguna that go beyond the tourist trail, this is the one.
El Gato Perdido Deli, San Juan La Laguna
Just across the water, San Juan La Laguna is one of Atitlán’s most artisan-rich villages, known for its weavers, natural dyes, and slower pace even by lake standards. It’s the kind of place that rewards wandering.
El Gato Perdido Deli fits right in. It’s the kind of spot you find on a morning walk and end up returning to every day for the rest of your trip. Good coffee, good food, good energy. If you’re exploring the villages around Lake Atitlán and looking for a place to slow down between lanchas, this is it.
Los Pelícanos, Monterrico, Guatemala
Monterrico is one of Guatemala’s Pacific coast gems, and one of the most overlooked stops on any Guatemala itinerary. Most travelers blow past it on their way somewhere else. That’s their loss.
Los Pelícanos is where you go when you want the coast mostly to yourself. Unhurried, broad, the kind of beach where you walk for a long time and don’t feel the need to turn back. The food is the kind that makes you wonder why you ever ate anywhere else on this coast. The horizon feels genuinely endless and the only thing on the agenda is whatever you decide.
The Through Line: Conscious Travel in Guatemala
What connects all of these places isn’t a logo or a loyalty program. It’s a feeling, and a philosophy.
Sustainable travel in Guatemala isn’t a marketing term for Ítaca. It’s a practice. It means sourcing locally, hiring from within the communities these spaces live inside, and taking seriously what it means to build something in a place as extraordinary as this. The turtle conservation work on the Pacific coast. The relationships with local farmers and producers whose work ends up on the table. The commitment to making sure that travel here gives something back to the places it moves through.
Guatemala’s volcanoes, lakes, highland villages, and Pacific coastline aren’t backdrops. They’re the reason. And the people who live here, who cook in these kitchens and know the names of the birds and the best time to be on the water, they’re the ones who make Ítaca what it actually is.
That’s kind of the point.
