Guatemala 7 Day Itinerary: Antigua, Lake Atitlan and Tikal

Free to walk the square, 1 hour, right after check-in. Antigua sits an hour from La Aurora airport and the whole city fits in twenty blocks, with the Agua, Fuego and Acatenango volcanoes closing off the streets.

The white facade of San Jose Cathedral is only the rebuilt part: behind it lie the ruins of the colonial cathedral brought down by the 1773 earthquake, which is what remains of the old capital of Spanish Central America.

Free, 20 minutes, 300 metres from the square. The yellow arch from 1694 linked two convent buildings so the nuns could cross the street unseen. The shot with the Agua volcano at the end of the road works best before 8am, when no car is parked underneath.

Free, 1 hour with the climb, 900 metres from the arch. Ten minutes of slope and a staircase take you to the stone cross, from where Antigua appears whole, lined up with the Agua volcano.

There is a tourist police post at the top and the climb is safe by day. Do not walk down after dark: take a tuk-tuk back, which costs a few quetzales.

Around 100 quetzales entry plus the tour, 6 hours in total with transport, leaving Antigua at 6am or 2pm. It is 1h30 by van to San Vicente Pacaya and two hours of trail there and back, a steady climb with nothing technical.

The top is a solidified lava field from 2010 and 2021, where guides still toast marshmallows in the hot cracks. Bring a jacket, it is windy, and prefer the morning departure: afternoons tend to close in cloud. Anyone with two extra nights swaps Pacaya for Acatenango, which camps facing the eruptions of Fuego.

A cheap ticket for the cloister, 45 minutes, on the way back from the volcano. The yellow 1767 church was built low and thick walled on purpose, to survive earthquakes, which is why it is one of the few in Antigua still in use.

Pay for the ruined cloister next door: in the middle of it stands the largest fountain in Central America, 27 metres across, shaped like a water lily.

40 quetzales for foreigners since January 2026, cash only, 1 hour, open 9am to 5pm, 400 metres from La Merced. It is the best preserved convent in Antigua, from 1736.

The part nobody expects is the retreat tower: a ring of eighteen cells around a courtyard, with a circular chamber underneath that amplifies any sound. Step in and speak quietly to understand why it exists.

3 hours by shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, plus 30 minutes on a public boat, around 30 quetzales. San Pedro sits at the foot of the volcano of the same name and is the practical choice: the 4am viewpoint vans and the boats to the other villages all leave from here.

Free to walk, 2 hours, ten minutes by boat from San Pedro, around 10 quetzales. The main street climbs from the jetty between painted houses under coloured umbrellas, and it is the tidiest village on the lake.

The Tzutujil women cooperatives demonstrate natural dyeing with bark, leaves and cochineal, and sell direct, with no middleman. That is the difference between buying textiles here and buying them on Calle Santander in Panajachel.

Around 100 quetzales with transport and guide, 4 hours, leaving at 4am from San Pedro or San Juan. The viewpoint, known as the Indian Nose, stands at 2,100 metres and takes 40 minutes to climb from where the van stops.

It is the one thing on the lake that forces you to sleep on the western side: public boats do not run at 3.30am, so anyone staying in Panajachel cannot get there in time. Bring a jacket, because it is 8 degrees up there before the sun.

Free, 1h30, 20 minutes by boat from San Pedro. The village turned into a yoga and meditation centre in the 1990s and keeps that air. In the Cerro Tzankujil reserve there is a seven metre rock platform to jump into the lake from.

Free to walk, 2h30, 25 minutes by boat from San Pedro, on the southern shore. It is the largest village on the lake and the most Tzutujil of them all, with a daily market and embroidered dress that women still wear every day.

In the colonial church a plaque marks where Stanley Rother, an American missionary, was murdered in 1981 during the civil war. A few blocks away stands the house of Maximon, a folk saint who smokes cigars, drinks liquor and moves house every year: entry costs a few quetzales and a photo costs a few more.

Free, 1h30, 45 minutes by boat from San Pedro. Calle Santander is the craft corridor of the lake and the place to settle your shopping before the airport. The shuttle to Guatemala City takes 3 hours.

Free, 2 hours, a 1 hour flight from Guatemala City with TAG or Avianca. The island sits in Lake Peten Itza, joined to the mainland by a causeway, and you can walk around it in twenty minutes.

Houses are painted in strong colours and the restaurants face the water. Save the late afternoon for the malecon: sunset over the lake is the only programme on the island, and the next day starts at 4.30am.

150 quetzales entry, plus 100 if you go in at 4am for sunrise, 6 hours in the park, 1h30 by van from Flores. The park opens at 6am and closes at 6pm, and by 8am the tour buses have arrived.

The 47 metre pyramid is the tomb of Jasaw Chan Kawiil I, finished around 734. You cannot climb it, but Temple II across the plaza has a wooden staircase and gives the head on view of the Great Jaguar.

Included in the ticket, 45 minutes, 600 metres southwest of the Gran Plaza. The central pyramid is an astronomical observatory built some 700 years before the temples on the plaza, and almost nobody comes here in the morning.

Included in the ticket, 1h30 with the walk, another 500 metres west. It is the tallest pyramid at Tikal, 70 metres, and the wooden platform on top is the only point in the park above the forest canopy.

From up there the roof combs of the Great Jaguar and Temple III break out of the green, and that image appeared as the moon Yavin 4 in the first Star Wars, in 1977. Stay quiet for ten minutes: howler monkeys carry for kilometres.

Around 80 quetzales, 3 hours, 1h30 by van from Flores, with the last 11 kilometres on dirt. More than 500 structures stand in a city that was once a rival of Tikal, and on a normal day a few dozen visitors turn up, against thousands next door.

Climb the North Acropolis and Temple 216, the tallest at the site. Leave early: the Peten heat lands hard after 11am and the flight back to Guatemala City usually leaves mid afternoon.

Included in the ticket, 40 minutes, inside the site. From the top of the ruins you look over the green lagoon ringed by jungle, and from the jetty below boats leave for Topoxte, the island complex in the middle of the water. From there it is 2 hours back to Flores airport.