We’ll soon be posting reviews for top hotels in Guatemala, but I have to say it won’t be a real long list. There are plenty of interesting, enticing, evocative inns that are great values, but still not a lot of upscale hotels that cater to picky travelers willing to pay for superlative service. Guatemala will get there in a few years I’m sure, but it wasn’t that long ago that a major civil war ended (1996) and the crowds are just now starting to stream back in. For now anyway, the predictable glossy travel mags have ignored the place, so the “hot crowd” doesn’t have this destination on its radar.

There’s really only one big hotel that shows up with regularity on any “best of” lists, the Casa Santo Domingo in Antigua. It’s nice, and worth visiting for a drink or meal if nothing else, but I was more entranced with the two best small inns in the city, Panza Verde (pictured here) and Posada de los Leones. Stay tuned and we’ll have reviews up soon.