Fly into Guatemala City, not Antigua
Antigua has no commercial air service. Your flight lands at La Aurora International Airport, code GUA, south of the center of Guatemala City. The ticket may be sold as the start of an Antigua vacation, but the plane is finished in the capital.
Nonstop flights reach GUA from several US cities, among them Miami, Houston and Los Angeles. When you search, the code to type is GUA.
The ride to Antigua depends on the landing
Shared vans run between La Aurora and Antigua. You can reserve a seat online and meet a driver in arrivals holding a sign with your name, or arrange a seat after landing in the arrivals hall. A shared van waits for enough passengers to sign up. It may call at several hotels, while some operators leave passengers at a designated point in town. There is no public bus running straight from the airport to Antigua.
I’d confirm the actual drop-off when reserving, particularly if I were carrying a substantial suitcase. The town is compact and walkable, but Antigua’s cobbled streets are not especially sympathetic to delicate luggage wheels. Bringing something you can carry solves a problem that the airplane never mentions.
A private car takes your party without waiting to collect other passengers. Its driver can also meet you with a name sign. For a late landing, I’d book the private ride or spend the night near the airport rather than count on a daytime shared departure.
A side trip does not reset your stay
US citizens do not need a visa for a tourist visit to Guatemala of up to 90 days. But the immigration officer determines how long you are actually admitted for, and that permission needs to cover your plans beyond Antigua.
Guatemala belongs to CA-4, a regional visitor-stay agreement with neighboring countries. Honduras and El Salvador are part of it. Nicaragua participates as well. Days in a participating neighbor come out of the same visitor allowance as the days you spend in Guatemala.
Say you intend to spend time in Antigua and then visit Honduras. The Honduran days come out of the stay the officer gave you at La Aurora. A stamp and an ambitious itinerary are not interchangeable paperwork.
You can request an extension from Guatemala’s immigration office. I would not build an itinerary around getting extra days without settling that question in advance. I’d also check the passport rule applied by the airline: Guatemala asks for a passport valid on entry, while some carriers expect more remaining validity.
One form is not optional. Before the flight in, and again before the flight out, fill in Guatemala’s free traveler declaration online on the tax authority’s site, SAT. Customs scans the QR code it gives you. Use the official site; copies that charge for it have appeared.
Make the onward ticket leave the region
An airline may ask you to show onward travel when you check in for Guatemala. Immigration can ask as well. A bus ticket into El Salvador takes you out of Guatemala, but not out of the shared region. If I were adding that visit, I’d want the itinerary to end with a departure from the region within the time I was admitted for.
The distinction is small on a booking screen and large when somebody asks to see the exit plan. The word “international” on a ticket is doing less work than you might think.
Book the return van while you are in Antigua
Agencies near Antigua’s central park sell seats for the ride back to La Aurora. Book the day before the flight. For a morning departure, vans leave Antigua very early, and the lines at the airport can be long. I’d give the departure room rather than choose a pickup that looks tidy beside the flight on a screen.
A longer trip can cover more ground without earning more time. I like a return ticket that leaves space for the places I want to visit, but respects the clock I actually entered on.
