Honduras

Honduras is where the ancient Maya carved one of their most artistically sophisticated cities, where the world's second largest barrier reef drops into impossibly blue water, and where the phrase "banana republic" was literally invented. It is the second largest country in Central America, wedged between Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, with a long Caribbean coast to the north and a short Pacific outlet in the south.

The country has spent decades overshadowed by its neighbors and by its own struggles with poverty and violence, but Honduras has always had more going for it than headlines suggest. Copan is one of the great Maya archaeological sites, rivaling anything in Guatemala or Mexico for artistic achievement. The Bay Islands - Roatan, Utila, and Guanaja - sit on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef and offer some of the cheapest and best scuba diving on the planet. The Garifuna people along the north coast maintain one of the most vibrant Afro-Caribbean cultures in the Americas. Honduras is a country that rewards those who actually show up.