How to travel Colombia: 10 Colombia Travel Tips (Colombia Travel Guide)

[Music] after returning for my Columbia trip I thought I will use this video to share my best Columbia travel tips with you to give you all information needed to prepare your own trip to this very diverse country [Music] as you've seen in the video series I've been to

altogether five destinations my buddy David and I started off in Catalina was the beautiful colonial old town and we visited the Caribbean islands which are nearby and then we headed down to meta-gene where we learned about transformation of the country and we saw one of the most beautiful

panoramas I've ever seen then it was time to visit the capital Bogota where said goodbye to David and said hi to another friend of mine Stefan and well then I went to Cali where we learned to dance salsa we went hiking and who went tubing and finished off

the trip in Santa Marta again at the Caribbean coast where we visited the most beautiful beaches in Colombia and went hiking in the mountains around Minka so altogether this trip was about six weeks and as you've seen in the video series it's a pretty good mixture and showcases

a lot of the diversity colombia has to offer [Music] because of the location of Colombia this country is actually a year-round travel destination especially when you want to go to the Caribbean coast you can go there actually year-round nevertheless if you are really limited in the time you

have you want to be on the safe side or you want to hike the lost city trek then you should focus on the dry season which is lasting from December to March and from July to August but keep in mind the public holidays because when the Colombians have

the holidays they like to travel to the popular tourist spots and then it's really hard for you to get accommodation there and the prices in general are going up so try to avoid the Christmas time until mid of January as well as Easter and the summer holidays which

are lasting from mid of June until July my personal tip would be to go in the low season and show the season because we've been traveling actually in the rainy season from May to the middle of June this way we avoided the public holidays and we still had

fairly good weather and almost all the sea nations we've been to only in Bogota was a little bit chilly but the Caribbean coast was totally fine in the even cities like Medellin Akali where we had actually the rainy season the rain was only happening in the afternoon like

strong showers in the late afternoons so we were still able to explore most of the places being dry in matters of getting around in Colombia you actually have two main options the cheapest and most eco-friendly option is to use long distance buses here I would recommend to two

companies because they're operating throughout the whole country and they're actually the most comfortable ones and this is expresso Brasilia and believe Ariano the only problem which you will see when booking long distance buses is the travel time because of the topography the hilly tube topography of the country

it takes you long time to get from one place to the other so for example to go from Bogota to Medellin it will take you about nine to ten hours on the bus whereas it will take you about only one hour to fly there the second option therefore

is flying domestic flights are also fairly cheap not as cheap as buses so for example Bogota Medellin on the bus would cost you twenty to twenty five euros whereas flying there with checked luggage will cost you around 80 to 100 euros but the flight time is just one

hour so flying less eco-friendly but way faster once you're at a destination you can travel by taxi you can use moto taxis when you're in a more remote place or you can use uber but uber is not really officially allowed so you can use the app and you

can book your right but can't do that when you're for example in places where it's regulated for example in airports it's really hard because the police is cracking down on the uber drivers [Music] as you've seen from my trip I was actually using about one week per destination

and there would also be my recommendations so if you only have about two weeks then you should decide on like maybe two destinations to have enough time to also enjoy your time there because each destination has a lot of things to do as you've seen in the video

series so if you have about 2 to 3 weeks and you want to go to the beach you should focus on Catalina and Santa Mata Santa Marta alone you can spend about 2 weeks to do all the stuff you've seen in my video because you have Minka there

so you can go hiking and you have the beaches so you can enjoy your time at the beaches go tubing have some beach parties some nice drinks and then you can have down to Catalina see a little bit of the colonial city go to the Caribbean islands nearby

this is a really nice two to three week trip or you keep it a little bit shorter at the beach and then you do the lost city track which actually takes about ah depends on which attend where you take but it takes about four days five days maybe

six days if you want to spend more time there another two to three week itinerary would be to combine the Caribbean with the destination within the country and for this I really recommend to go to Medellin because Medina actually has direct connections to both cities to Santa Marta

as well as Catalina when you have two weeks you can spur you can stay maybe one week in Catalina and one week down in Mereen if you have three weeks you can combine it with Santa Marta or you do just Santa Marta and Medellin as you wish if

you have more time and you want to see as much of Colombia as possible I think you would need to calculate with about two to three months to really travel Colombia in depth and then you can also go to places I haven't really been able to feature because

I was just simply running out of time good news is Colombia's one of the cheapest destinations you can travel to in South America it is not as cheap as Bolivia but I would still consider it being a budget destination but as for many other countries in Latin America

it is always dependent on where you go so really popular tourist destinations such as Cartagena have the way higher price tag than off-the-beaten-path destinations like for example are in condemn are and that means especially when you look into accommodation the prices are almost double if you go to

the expensive destinations within the country so for our example of rain condom on Catalina you would pay for a double a privates double in Catalina you would pay about 50 euros whereas in Lincoln then I would only pay about 22 euros the same goes for dorms where you

spend 7 euros for a bet in a dorm in places like a rink on you would spend about 12 euros for a place in a dorm in Catalina so you really need to find a good balance if you are on a budget if you want to eat out

you need to calculate with about 4 to 10 euros for eating in a restaurant again depending on where you are eating out [Music] speaking of the food the Colombian cuisine is also very regional so if you go for example to the Caribbean coast you should really look into

eating fish with coconut rice whereas when you go to places like Medellin in the Antioquia already region you have more hearty meals like there for example is the bandeja paisa which is a pure heart attack because this is what people used to eat when they were really hard-working

at the farms so you should always look into the regional cuisine depending on where you are and the food is really good what is amazing everywhere in Colombia is fruits like this is probably one of my favorite parts of the country is just the the sheer variety of

delicious fruits and this is also the reason why it wasn't really eating lunch that often I actually just got some fruits at the market or got a coconut from a street vendor and that was basically my snacks throughout the day so when you come to Colombia eat the

regional food try the street food if you're on a budget stick to the street food and maybe go shopping in the supermarkets from time to time and in matters of drinks alcoholic drinks of course beer is what everybody likes to drink also in Colombia and there I would

recommend trying to craft beers from trace Cordilleras and from the book water via company a pretty good and if you're not so much into alcohol you should definitely try all the juices because the same reason you have amazing variety of fruits so the juices there are cheap and

they are really good and delicious other than that of course you should try the Colombian coffee and if you get a chance to visit a coffee farm best to try it there [Music] one of the topics which is still holding many people back from visiting the country is

safety but as I told you in the video episode from Medellin the country went through big transformation process and nowadays the country is as safe to visit as it is to visit for example countries like Chile Peru or Argentina but it still is not on a safety level

like Scandinavia or Germany so you should of course follow general safety rules which I actually wrote down in an article which you can find up here and you should use your common sense if you do this and if you inform yourself at the destination when you arrive in

your hostel on in your hotel and you ask which set areas are safe to visit at which time of the day then chances are high you won't get into any trouble traveling through the country this being said is always a good idea to have travel insurance just in

case because of the diversity of the country it is always depending on where you go in matters of what you pack I made a whole packing list for South America and also for Colombia which you can check out here apart from the packing lists I would say the

most important items you should take when you travel to Colombia is for me it was board shorts definitely take board shots because you can use them for swimming but also throughout the day a rain jacket because I was visiting in the rainy season thin pants especially for hiking

in the jungle and the fleece jacket for colder nights [Music] last but not least let's talk about where to sleep as I said the touristic infrastructure in Colombia is constantly improving so at the touristic hotspots you have wide range of accommodation options you can choose from you have

the traditional hotels as well as family-run bed and breakfasts and more and more really cool modern hostels you can stay at you can find all my recommendations in a list which I linked up here and it is a good mixture of everything in each destinations have been –

I tried to stay in budget friendly places as well as normal bed and breakfasts or hotels to actually show Kate both options all right this is it I hope this video answered a few of your questions you had preparing for your trip to Colombia I have many more

tips and recommendations which you can find in a big Colombia travel guide I wrote on the block this you can find it here I'll link it here if you've been to Colombia yourself don't be shy and share your travel tips for colombia in the comment section below you

can also leave a comment if you like this video and don't forget to subscribe to this channel for new travel videos every Thursday and I see you on the next one thanks for watching ciao [Music] throwing it [Applause] beach town full of backpack [Music]