Juan Manuel Galvez International Airport (RTB) serves Roatan, the largest of Honduras's Bay Islands and a popular Caribbean diving and beach destination, and a rental car is a genuinely useful way to reach the island's spread-out resorts, dive shops and beach towns rather than relying solely on taxis. The airport sits near Coxen Hole, the island's main town, with rental counters from international and local operators, and the compact terminal makes for a fast pickup after a short flight or a ferry connection from the mainland.
From RTB, the resort strip of West Bay and West End, on the island's western tip, is roughly twenty to thirty minutes away along the island's main coastal road, while the quieter eastern communities toward Oak Ridge and Punta Gorda lie a good deal further, often forty-five minutes to an hour given the winding, single-lane character of the road as it threads along the coast and over low hills. Roatan is a long, narrow island, so most driving here follows one central route with occasional spurs down to individual beaches and marinas.
Driving is on the right, as throughout Honduras, and Roatan's main road is paved but narrow in stretches, with speed bumps common through the small towns it passes and occasional potholes after heavy rain. Traffic is generally light outside the West End and West Bay tourist corridor, though those areas can see congestion during peak cruise-ship days when several thousand extra visitors pour onto the island at once. Fuel stations are concentrated near Coxen Hole and French Harbour, so it is sensible to fill up before heading toward the island's quieter eastern or western extremes. Tropical downpours are common outside the drier months of roughly March through May, and a compact car suits the island's modest distances and narrow lanes well, since nothing on Roatan requires much more than that to get around comfortably.