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Tips for Colombia 🇨🇴

1️⃣ Food and drinks

Menu del día: Cheap lunch option. Around 18-20000 pesos (now). Contains soup, main dish, really small dessert and a normal lemonade. Perfect for budget lunch. In many places it is not on the menu, and you can choose between 2-3 options.

Don't drink tap water. (In some cities it is fine like Medellin, but better safe then sorry.)

Ice most of the time are not from tap water, so safe to get them in your drinks. (You can ask if you want.)

Don't get surprised, that they like to combine salty and sweet stuff e.g.: cheese and caramel waffle, hot chocolate with cheese, etc. (The cheese caramel thing is not that bad though.)

Sometimes salty pastry's dough is sweet.

If you book trips including lunch, usually you will get traditional columbian food. So you can use trips to also try traditional cousine. 2in1. E.g. going on the 4 day lost city trek, you will get a lot of traditional cousine, local juices and local fruits. (We have been with expotur.)

2️⃣ Accomodation

Read about bad neighbourhoods before booking in any city.

Get to know areas where not to go. You can find it online, but for a more up to date version, ask your hotel.

Downtowns are most of the time not safe at night, so book elsewhere.

Many times you can do your laundry in the hostels you live in. And many times it has a competitive price compared to Lavanderias (laundry places).

You want AC in Santa Marta and Cartagena, because they are really humid and pretty hot places.

3️⃣ Travel

Use uber. In some cities you will only find taxies on uber. Usually cheaper then taxi.

Long distance buses are good.

Local city buses are usually pretty full, so might not be a good travel option.

Medellin has a great metro system.

For longer travels you might want to consider national flights.

4️⃣ Programs

GuruWalking: Free tours in cities to learn about the cities. You pay as much at the end as you want. (30000 peso is suggested.) Really worth it. You support locals, you get some background history, and some tips what to do.

If you want to go to the Tayrona National Park, check before hand if it will be open at the time you will be there. They close for 2 weeks each year, for 3 times. (We planned our trip there when it was closed, and got to know from a taxi driver that it is closed.)

Go on a coffee tour to learn about how they make the colombian coffee.

Go to a beach and bath in the Caribian sea. It is pretty warm.

There are some really nice hiking opportunities.

5️⃣ Safety

Ask your hostel or local people (tour guides e.g.) where not to go. Usually you don't want to go into those places anyway. Maybe pass it, but then use uber.

Read reviews online (e.g. on google maps). E.g.: Going to Playa Grande from Taganga near Santa Marta is not safe via hiking. Many roberies happen there, take the boat instead from Santa Marta.

If a place or street feels sketchy, don't go there, take uber. Using uber is pretty cheap.

6️⃣ Learn spanish

It goes a long way. But local people are really nice, they even use google translate to tell you the things. So solvable without spanish.

#colombia #southamerica #travel #traveltips #backpacking