GORGEOUS GUATEMALA Under 40s favourite

After landing in the country’s capital, Guatemala City, you’ll be met at the airport (GUA) by one of our team and transferred to your hotel in Antigua. Once checked in, you’ll have the afternoon to check out your surroundings – the scenic central plaza is just around the corner. Come evening, it’s time to get to know your fellow travellers over a welcome dinner and drink – before hitting the hay.

This morning, after breakfast at your hotel, you’ll be met by one of our Local Insiders for an expert tour of Antigua. Wander its grid of cobblestone streets, lined with brightly painted barocco antiqueño buildings (an earthquake-resistant adaptation of baroque architecture, pioneered in Antigua), churches and monasteries. Stop in at craft shops selling vibrant ceramics, textiles and traditional costumes, and catch cooking wafts drifting from open windows. After lunch, you’ll be driven to Pacaya volcano, to trek along trails through humid forest to the summit – where sunset views of Antigua below, encircled by smouldering volcanic cones, are your reward. Oh, and pizza slices and singed marshmallows cooked over molten lava.

Today you’ll be swapping the city streets of Antigua for the shores of Lake Atitlan, a flooded volcanic crater. But first, breakfast, followed by a traditional Mayan ceremony among the ancient ruins of Iximche – a normal morning with Culture Trip, then. An hour or so from Antigua, Iximche was an important pre-Columbian Mayan city, evidenced by the still-visible remnants of its plazas, pyramids and ball courts – and it still is for the area’s contemporary Mayan population. After a tour of the site, you’ll witness a ceremony to set important dates, offer thanks and to ask for health, work and wisdom. After lunch, you’ll arrive at Lake Atitlan, where you’ll be free to spend the rest of the afternoon kicking back, or sign up for a heart-thumping zipline ride over the water.

Today is all about exploring Lake Atitlan, which is best done from the water. After breakfast at your hotel, you’ll be zipped across the lake to Santa Cruz la Laguna, where you’ll gear up for a kayak tour of the lush gardens that fringe the lakeshore. Afterwards, it’s back onto dry land for lunch, and then up into the hills to San Juan la Laguna, an eccentric place populated with artists and craftspeople. Galleries and workshops line the town’s steep streets, and are the perfect place to pick up something to remember your trip by.

Today’s the last day of the trip, so enjoy a slow breakfast at your hotel this morning. After you’ve finished, you’ll be transferred – along with your new travel buddies – to Guatemala City airport, where this particular trip concludes. Where you go next – home, or on to explore the rest of this fascinating country – is up to you.