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Please join us in welcoming Holly C. Corbett to The Window Seat. She is the co-writer of the blog The Lost Girls and the new travel memoir of the same name.

I’d rather spend my vacation time exploring than vegging out on a beach. Belize’s mix of lush rainforests, labyrinth of underground caves, and Mayan ruins make this Central American country the perfect place for adventure. Plus, it’s just about a two-hour flight from Miami. I wanted to go diving, hike to ancient Mayan ruins, and look for wildlife, so I headed to the former fishing village of Placencia. Located on a peninsula that’s nestled between the Caribbean Ocean and a mangrove-fringed lagoon with the Mayan Mountains to the west, it offers the best of land and sea activities.

I’m a big fan of Adventure Life, which customizes tours throughout Central and South America using local guides. Tourist dollars go back to the local community, and a portion of proceeds also go to local causes. Adventure Life offers many different tours in Belize, and I opted to be a guest at The Inn at Robert’s Grove because you can choose your own adventure. During my stay I took the complimentary kayaks out to paddle through the lagoon in search of manatees, and snorkeled on the ocean in front of the resort. If I’d had more time, I would have gone to see the jaguars in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (75 percent of Belize is rainforest and it’s also home to five different types of wild cats).

Instead, I felt like Indiana Jones when I signed up to go inland to the Mayan ruins. Lubaantun, or “The Place of Fallen Stones," is unique because the stones that were cut for the temples and terraces were laid and fitted without any mortar. It’s also rumored to be the place where the famous Crystal Skull was found in 1926.

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Much of Belize is made from porous karst limestone, and so it’s crisscrossed with underground caves and rivers. After getting a guided tour of the ruins, we explored stalactites and stalagmites as we swam through the Blue Creek inside the 8-mile long passages of the Hokeb Ha and Tiger Caves while wearing headlamps so we could see. Explorers found ceremonial altars in many of the cave’s chambers, so it was probably used by the Mayans hundreds of years earlier.

An unexpected bonus during the tour was getting to see village life as we drove to the ruins and cave. Much of the country is Catholic, and on the Sunday we drove through, many of the villages seemed to be celebrating First Communion and wedding celebrations at their local churches. Everyone was wearing their Sunday best and kids carried bundles of banana leaves, which our guide told us were used to wrap leftover food from the morning’s feasts.

Holly C. Corbett is one of three friends and media professionals—along with Jennifer and Amanda Pressner—who were hungry to break free from their predictable routines and to explore how people in other countries lived. So after nearly 18 months of planning and saving, the trio left their jobs, boyfriends, apartments, and everything familiar behind in New York City to embark on a year-long search for adventure. They’ve turned their journey across four continents and more than a dozen countries into an award-winning blog, and now, a travel memoir. The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World hits shelves in May 2010.