Cartagena is at sea level. Bogotá is at 2,640 metres. Same country, same week.
What the Rosario Islands boat actually costs. Whether the Comuna 13 walk is worth doing twice. Which coffee finca takes you out onto the drying beds. Reviews of every tour you can book in Colombia.
01MedellínComuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Foodfrom $18
02CartagenaRosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and Snorkelfrom $107
03ZipaquiráSalt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickupfrom $46
04Coffee countryCoffee Tour with Transport, Snacks and Tastingsfrom $80
05GuatapéGuatapé Day Trip & Boat to Pablo Escobar’s Estatefrom $64The Colombian Caribbean is warm, shallow and mostly reached by hull.
Three ways to spend a day off the coast, what it costs to board each one, and which town it leaves from.
Six bases, and the best day out from each.
A walled city on the Caribbean, a valley city that never cools, a capital in the clouds, the gateway to Tayrona, the salsa town, and the coffee slopes. Pick two or three; the country is bigger than it looks on the map.
Cartagena, Santa Marta, Medellín, Bogotá, Salento: the run most people do first.
Cartagena
Santa Marta
Medellín
Guatapé
Bogotá
SalentoMedellín sold its story to the world. Now it tells its own.
Everything in Medellín →
The city sits in a narrow valley at 1,500 metres, which is why nobody needs air conditioning and why the metro runs uphill on cables. Three tours carry more travellers than everything else here put together, and two of them go to the same hillside.
Comuna 13, and when to go up
Six outdoor escalators climb a hillside that was, thirty years ago, the most dangerous address in the country. Guides from the blocks read the murals back to you year by year. It fills from mid-morning, so take the first slot.
The Escobar tours, and what they cover
They run to the rooftop, the grave and the ruins of La Catedral in Envigado. The good ones are led by people whose families lived through it and spend more time on the city than on the man. Read the reviews before booking this one.
Paragliding over the Aburrá valley
The ridge above Bello catches thermals off the valley floor from about ten. Tandem flights run twenty minutes or so with the whole city underneath, and the operators sell the GoPro footage as a separate line.
What a day out in Colombia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Colombian days come in under the cost of a taxi from the airport.
Old-town walks, the barrio tours, market mornings and the short boat hops out of Cartagena.
The full days: the island catamarans, Zipaquirá and Guatavita, the coffee fincas, a tandem flight.
Private guides, chartered boats, the multi-stop coffee-country days and the once-a-trip splurges.
A finca morning: pick, pulp, dry, roast, drink.
The belt around Salento, Filandia and Pereira is planted on slopes too steep for machinery, so it is all still picked by hand. A farm morning walks the wet mill and the drying beds and ends with a cup from the batch you were shown. Medellín runs day trips too, if the coffee region does not fit the route.
The days out more Colombian travellers take than any other.
The rest of the catalogue →What carries more travellers than anything else in the country, and what earns each one its slot.
1
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food
Explore Medellín’s Comuna 13 by metro, cable car, and bus, with graffiti, coffee, street food, music, city views, and a drink.
From · $18
Read our review →2
The Real Pablo Escobar Tour
from $42
3
Historic Center and Getsemaní Shared Walking Tour
from $12
4
Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and Snorkel
from $107
5
Bicycle City Tour
from $19
6
Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour
from $14
7
Full-Day Rosario Islands Including Barú, Bocachica & Playa Blanca
from $88
8
Salt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickup
from $46
Bogotá is at 2,640 metres and dresses accordingly.
The old town is walkable and cold by four. Most of the rest is a day trip north — a cathedral carved out of a working salt mine, the lake the El Dorado story came from, and a cable car up Monserrate for the view back over nine million people.
Every Bogotá day out →
Four Colombian days that run on somebody else’s timetable.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four go on jeep schedules, boat departures and a wind that decides for itself.
- 01Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street FoodThe most popular thing to do in Medellín, and the small-group slots go days ahead. The first departures are also the coolest and the emptiest.
- 02Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and SnorkelThe island boats leave the Cartagena quay on one morning schedule. Miss the departure and the next one is tomorrow.
- 03Cocora Valley Shared TourThe Willys jeeps to Cocora fill from the Salento plaza on a fixed timetable, and the last one back leaves mid-afternoon.
- 04Paragliding Tour with GoPro Photos & VideosFlights are called off when the wind over the valley gets up, so the morning slots are the ones that actually leave the ground.
Cartagena runs at 32°C. Bogotá runs at 13°C.
The coast is humid all year; the highlands turn cold and wet by mid-afternoon, especially April to May and October to November. The answer in Bogotá is the same either way: go early and go indoors. Gold, emeralds, Botero, and a salt mine two hundred metres under a mountain.
Street food in Medellín, ceviche in Cartagena, fruit you have never heard of.
Half the trip happens at a table. Walk the Cartagena food streets after dark, take the Medellín tour that finishes on a Poblado rooftop, and let somebody in a Bogotá market talk you through lulo, guanábana and granadilla.
Colombia keeps three things the rest of the continent does not have.
Street art is everywhere and so is coffee. A barrio you reach by outdoor escalator, a cathedral inside a working salt mine, and a valley of sixty-metre palms are not.
Comuna 13
A hillside barrio reached by six outdoor escalators the city cut into the slope, in a district that was once the most dangerous address in the country. The murals work as a record rather than decoration: the white handkerchiefs, the eyes, the elephants. Guides who grew up in the blocks tell you which year each wall is about, and the walk finishes with an ice cream at the top.
- 1Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 9,046 reviews
- 2Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,779 reviews
- 3Comuna 13 District Tour with Cable Car Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,467 reviews
The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá
A working salt mine under the town of Zipaquirá, hollowed into a cathedral two hundred metres below the surface, with fourteen stations of the cross carved into the chambers on the way down. It is cold, it is lit in blue, and the whole thing is halite — the crosses are cut out of the rock rather than hung on it.
- 1Salt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,606 reviews
- 2Guatavita and Salt Cathedral Daily Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 615 reviews
- 3Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral and Lake Guatavita Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 551 reviews
A morning on a finca
The slopes around Salento, Filandia and Pereira are too steep for a machine, so the cherries are picked by hand, twice a season. A farm morning takes you through the wet mill and out onto the drying beds and ends with a cup from the batch you watched being sorted. The wax palms of Cocora, the tallest palms on earth, grow one valley over.
- 1Coffee Tour with Transport, Snacks and Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,357 reviews
- 2Medellín Coffee Farm Tour with Trolley and Cable Car Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 277 reviews
- 3Coffee Tour at the Finca del Café★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 213 reviews
By place — coast, cities and coffee country
By kind of day — boat, barrio, finca or market
The newest Colombian tour reviews.
Everything else just added →
Isla Tierra Bomba beach club: Day Pass with typical food
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Ecoplan on Barú, Aviary and Oceanarium in one day
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White Night Boat Party: Dinner Buffet, Dancing and Open Bar
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Tour to The Cathedral – History of Pablo Escobar and his Impact
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Tayrona Park adventure in Santa Marta: Cabo San Juan from Cartagena
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Comuna 13: Recorrido de Arte Urbano, Cultura y Resiliencia
Read our review →