Puerto Barrios Airport

Puerto Barrios Airport (IATA: PBR, ICAO: MGPB) serves Puerto Barrios — Guatemala's principal Caribbean port city and the commercial gateway of the country to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Honduras. At just 7 meters above sea level on the flat Caribbean coastal plain of the Izabal department, Puerto Barrios is Guatemala's primary container port and the historical headquarters of the United Fruit Company banana empire — a role that shaped the city's architecture, ethnic composition, and economic character throughout the 20th century.

Puerto Barrios is not a conventional tourism destination but serves as the logistical hub for the extraordinary natural environments of the eastern Izabal region: Punta de Manabique Wildlife Refuge (one of the most important coastal wetland and coral reef systems in Guatemala), the ferry connection to Livingston (the country's only Garífuna community, accessible only by sea), and the connection to the Río Dulce river system that connects Lake Izabal to the Caribbean.

The Amatique Bay (Bahía de Amatique) in which Puerto Barrios sits is one of the finest sport fishing bays in Guatemala — roosterfish, barracuda, tarpon, and snook are caught in the bay's channels year-round, and offshore sailfish fishing in the Caribbean is productive from October through May.

For travelers arriving from Belize — Puerto Barrios is connected to Punta Gorda, Belize by ferry service (twice weekly, approximately 1.5 hours) — PBR provides the most direct entry into Guatemala from the Belizean Caribbean coast, and the most direct access to Livingston by the triangular route Puerto Barrios → Livingston → Río Dulce that has been the standard Guatemala Caribbean itinerary for independent travelers since the 1980s.