Guatemala

Guatemala offers a variety of settings as film locations - Spanish colonial architecture, Mayan archaeological sites, tropical forests, highland deciduous forests, desert scrubland, the modern Guatemala City and a very varied landscape encompassing mountains, volcanoes, lakes, rivers, black sand Pacific beaches and Caribbean mangrove shores. There is an excellent highway structure and one of the advantages of film here is the proximity to the USA with two ports - one on the Atlantic coast and one on the Pacific - with container ships coming and going from the USA weekly. Also major airlines such as United Airlines, US Air, American Airlines, Spirit, Continental, Mexicana and Delta serve Guatemala from most major cities in the USA e.g. Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas and New York.

Survivor Guatemala and Looking for Palladin were both filmed there. In addition, documentaries for the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Sony, PBS, BBC and CNN have used it as a filming location.

The Guatemalan Tourist Commission can arrange for filming to take place without visas on a temporary basis and for the importation of equipment on a temporary importation basis as well. Permits to film at archaeological sites can be requested for a fee.