About Colombia Travel
Colombia is one of our favourite travel destinations to date. Surprisingly tasty cuisine, friendly local people, stunning white sand beaches, lush jungle and fascinating historical sites, this is one place where you'll want to give yourself a long time to travel in.
We spent over a month in Colombia and when all was said and done, we really didn't want to leave. We met some great friends there and explored the interior and the coast, as well as some of the major cities like Bogota, Medellin and Cartagena, the latter of which remains today as one of our favourite cities in the world.
The name Colombia still conjures up images of drug trafficking and danger for many people who have never been. But once you travel Colombia, you'll realize - while there are still some places you that aren't safe - for the most part Colombia is a very easy and rewarding place to travel.
Things To Do In Colombia
Hiking, climbing, chilling on beaches and exploring colonial towns are just a few of the things on offer in Colombia. There truly is something for everyone. Whether you want to zip through the jungle on a line dangling over the canopy, or you simply want to relax on the beach with a mojito, you can keep your entire holiday as busy or relaxed as you want when you're travelling here.
Colombia travel is simple enough that you can easily plan different tours and experiences in the country and these days, with Airbnb Experiences and GetYourGuide you can meet up with locals and have them show you around their city, their cuisine or their country.
12 Best Things To Do in Medellín, Colombia
In this article, you’ll learn the top things to do in Medellín, including the best places to visit and the top attractions. Watch a football match, go hiking in a nearby park, visit the local communities, party all night, or even put down some ...
21 Best Things To Do in Cartagena
Over the past few years, Colombia has been one of the top destinations for travellers, often highlighted by the many things to do in Cartagena, a beautiful and historic Caribbean city. The city itself is colourful, safe, full of amazing food, and has a ...
Backpacking Colombia: The Ultimate Travel Guide
Backpacking Colombia was once considered dangerous, but its international stigma is slowly wearing off and more and more travellers are realizing that Colombia is one of the most diverse, welcoming and rewarding travel destinations on Earth. Medellín is no longer a murder capital, Bogotá ...
21 Awesome Things To Do in Bogotá, Colombia
High up in the Andes Mountains, you’ll find Bogotá. The sprawling capital city of Colombia is home to over 8 million people, making it the 5th largest city in the Americas. For many years, travellers avoided Bogotá (and Colombia at large) like the plague. ...
50 Awesome Things To Do in Colombia
Colombia is an exciting and diverse destination. If you’re a traveller who loves adventure, welcoming people, beautiful scenery and affordability, then Colombia is for you. We fell in love with this South American country after 6 weeks of travelling here. There are so many things ...
15 Things To Do in San Gil: Colombia’s Adventure Capital
Sometimes you get to a city and you quickly realize that you’re going to need more time. This was the case for us in San Gil, Colombia. We checked into Sam’s VIP Hostel (which was more like a boutique hotel) and asked the receptionist ...
Ciudad Perdida, Colombia: The Ultimate Trekking Guide
The Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) is one of the most challenging and rewarding treks we’ve ever been on. And if you’re anything like us, you’ll have a lot of questions when it comes to planning your jungle trekking adventure. There are many things to think about ...
The Lost City Trek – Hiking to Ciudad Perdida in Colombia
Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits. – Jerry Dunn “What do you mean we can’t use the bridge? The river is too dangerous to cross and we’re freezing!” There we were, 15 trekkers and our 2 guides arguing with a troll who was ...
Why You Shouldn’t Miss The Medellín Walking Tour
We’ve done our share of free walking tours in our day. From the visceral experience of strolling around the war-torn town of Sarajevo in Bosnia & Herzegovina, to learning about life in the former communist capital of Tirana in Albania, these tours are always ...
Canadians in Colombia – Experiencing a Football Game in Medellín
Ask any Canadian about football (soccer), and most likely, they won’t know the rules of the sport, nor will they follow any of the leagues. For most of us, it’s hockey or nothing! When living in Canada, we never watched football, but since travelling ...
Places To Visit in Colombia
Colombia has plenty of cities, villages, National Parks and colonial gems to explore. If you're planning a trip to the country, consider trying to tick a few of these places off of your Colombia travel bucket list. Also keep in mind that while buses are affordable, there are also some great value domestic flights, so if you're travelling to many of the places to visit in Colombia, then you may find it more cost and time-effective to fly rather than taking the long bus rides.
Captivating Cartagena – Too Touristy or Justifiably Popular?
“Cartagena is nice, but way too touristy.” This is what we kept hearing for the 5 weeks of travelling around Colombia before finally making our way to the seaside colonial town of Cartagena. Because we typically love off-track destinations, this not-so-flattering description had our hopes low ...
Costeño Beach Paradise – The Alternative Tayrona National Park Experience
After our long (and difficult) trek to the Lost City, we came down from the mountain and had our driver drop us off at Costeño Beach. This is where we planned to visit the famous Tayrona National Park, but we were doing things a little bit ...
Relaxing in Salento: A Highlight of Colombia’s Coffee Region
As coffee lovers, it was a no-brainer that Salento in the Quindío region of Colombia should be firmly planted on our Colombian itinerary. After one week in the bustling city of Medellín, we were ready for some peace & quiet in the mountains, and Salento sounded like it ...
Backpacking Medellin, Colombia: A Beginner’s Guide
When we were planning our backpacking trip through Colombia, we decided to fly into Medellin first and start our journey from there. This was our first time in Colombia, and actually, our first trip to South America. Medellin is a city that we were very excited to ...
Colombia Travel Information
Colombia is a fast-growing travel destination, but there's still not a lot of Colombia travel information found online. When we visited, we knew very little about the country, but we were amazed at how much we liked it. To this day it's one of our favourite places in South America.
Below you'll find some posts that will help you plan an epic trip to Colombia. There's a lot to know about this country, so take your time in the planning process and get ready for an amazing time.
Colombia Travel Guide
Colombia is one of our favourite travel destinations to date. Surprisingly tasty cuisine, friendly local people, stunning white sand beaches, lush jungle and fascinating historical sites, this is one place where you'll want to give yourself a long time to travel in. We spent over a ...
Our Colombia Travel Blogs
We travelled around Colombia for about a month and we still felt like we needed more time to explore! This country has so much to offer that you could definitely return time and time again. We even considered setting up a base and living in Medellin or Cartagena at one point.
Below you'll find all of our Colombia travel blog posts. These are our own personal experiences in the country. Hopefully by reading them, you'll get a better idea of what Colombia travel will be like for you.
A 5 Month Round Up of Central Asia & Iran: Highlights Of Our Journey Through The Least Touristed Region On Earth
Wow, I can’t believe it’s over! Nearly 5 months of overland travel from China, through Mongolia, Russia, The Stans and Iran. What a trip! Even though we knew this journey would be intrepid, we could have never imagined just how adventurous it would be. We had ...
Travelling On The Trans-Siberian Railroad: Ulan Bator to Irkutsk
After a wonderful 30 days of traveling Mongolia, we were on the move! We had already been on part of the Trans-Mongolian portion of the train journey, but now it was time to check out what the rest of it had to offer. We were on the ...
Mongolian Memories – A Roundup Of 30 Days Of Travel
As our time here in Mongolia comes to a close, we’re both shocked and unsure of where exactly the whole month went?! It feels like just yesterday we arrived in Ulan Bator after a 30 hour journey on the Trans-Mongolian Train. We made it! Arriving in ...
A Quick Trip From Ulan Bator – Terelj National Park
After our 6 day tour of the Mongolian Desert and our Epic 8 Day Trek Along The Chulut River, we were running out of time on our 30 day visa in Mongolia, so we decided to check out Terelj National Park before our time was up. We ...
Epic 8 Day Mongolian Trekking Adventure
Six months ago we began planning a trip which would revolutionize our travel style. We wanted to plan our own trek, away from the normal routes, truly off the beaten path. I started by seeking out rivers in Mongolia which were on flat terrain. The rivers ...
Experiencing The Naadam Festival In Mongolia
The Naadam Festival is the time of year in Mongolia when everyone gets together to show off their skills and compete in different events: wrestling, horse racing, archery and ankle-bone shooting. This festival is like Christmas to the Mongolian people. It’s the time of the year ...
Ulan Bator & Tsetserleg: Chanting Monks and Haunted Hotels
It felt so good to shower after getting back from our Gobi Desert trip! As soon as the 6 of us walked into our hostel the owner told us we all stunk like camels and goats. After washing away our stench, we all hung-out, relaxed and ...
Our 6 Day Tour: Good Times In The Gobi Desert – Part #2
…continued from Good Times In The Gobi Desert, Part #1 Day 4: The day started with some rock-hard, stale bread that actually had mould on it. Which wasn’t exactly the way we all wanted to start our 7.5 hour driving day! Once again, we hopped in ...
Our 6 Day Tour: Good Times In The Gobi Desert, Part #1
After spending a day in Ulan Bator, the capital city of Mongolia, we were ready to set off into the great outdoors and experience all that this awesome country has to offer. We met up with 4 other like-minded backpackers about the same age as us, and began ...
Our Trans Mongolian Railway Journey: From Beijing to Ulan Bator
It was like Christmas morning, only better. The day we had been planning and anticipating for months had finally arrived! We were up at 6:00am for our Trans Mongolian Railway departure day. We were both so excited that we couldn’t sleep the night before and even ...
Planning Our Independent Trek In Mongolia
There are a lot of things going into our next trip through Mongolia, Russia, Central Asia & Iran. Perhaps no part of this journey am I more excited for, than the 5-8 day expedition we’re planning in Mongolia! We plan to trek from the Chuluut River, ...
Travel To-Do List: Central Asia
Depending on which country we travel to, we have a different To-Do List. Some of the items remain the same (getting vaccinations, budgeting for the trip, buying travel gear, etc.), but for this particular trip, which will take us through Mongolia, Russia, Central Asia & Iran, ...
Travelling to Central Asia: Pressures Of The Planning Process
We have 3 months left before our teaching English contract here in China is up and we’ve officially started planning for our next trip! It’s turning out to be quite the process. We knew that travelling to one of the least touristy regions on the planet ...
Our Next Trip is Central Asia: The Most Epic One Yet?
We’ve been living in China for 7 months now and we’ve started getting The Travel Itch. We need to get going again. We need to get on the road and experience new things. There are people in the world who can live their lives, working all ...
THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT
When To Travel To Colombia
The Best Time To Visit: December - February
Any Time.
The great thing about backpacking Colombia is that you can pretty much visit any time of the year. We travelled to Colombia during the some of the rainiest months of November & December and while we did get a fair amount of rainfall, it didn't usually last for more than a couple of hours (except when we got soaked for 7 hours straight on the Ciudad Perdida trek!).
Colombia's Amazonian climate means that it can be rainy all year round, but generally the driest months are between December to February. Keep in mind that peak season falls around Christmas and New Year's (and again around Easter). During these times hotel prices go up considerably and many tours and activities can also be booked up.
Low-Season is technically just in October & November when flash floods can sometimes wash out roads and the Ciudad Perdida trek becomes even more difficult. This is also a good time for budget travellers however as many hotels offer discounts in these months.
Another good time to visit (possibly the best) would be shoulder season between March and September, but if you're planning to visit Bogotá, Medellín or Cali during this time, it's worth noting that they suffer a secondary rainy season in April and May.
If you love whale-watching, July to October is the best time to spot these giants on the Pacific Coast.
Cartagena gets mostly sunshine all the way through April, but starts to see some pretty heavy rainfall in May.
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