Colombia, day by day.
Which Guatapé trip actually climbs the rock. Which Rosario boat stops where. What a Comuna 13 morning is really like. Every bookable day in Colombia, reviewed.
Six days Colombian itineraries are built around.
A boat to the Rosarios, the escalators of Comuna 13, a cathedral cut into a salt mine, the rock above Guatapé, wax palms in the Cocora, and a morning on a working coffee farm. Book these first and plan the rest around them.
The tours travellers to Colombia actually take.
All Colombia reviews →Boats, rocks, murals and coffee. The days that fill first across the whole country, and what each one is worth.
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 local insight.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food
from $16
3
Guatapé Tour: Piedra del Peñol with Boat Tour, Breakfast, Lunch
from $39
4
Cartagena Island Hopping: 5-Stop Rosario Islands Tour with Lunch
from $67
5
Bogotá Bike Tour
from $25
6
Hike for 4 days to the Lost City, Santa Marta
from $580
7
Day Trip To Guatapé with ,Breakfast, Lunch and Boat Ride
from $36
8
Comuna 13 Graffitour knows the urban art district of Medellín
from $28
9
Historic Center and Getsemaní Shared Walking Tour
from $12
Cartagena, Medellín and Bogotá are three different holidays.
One is a Caribbean walled city at 2 metres. One sits at 1,495 metres and never leaves 22°C. One is at 2,640 metres and needs a jumper in July. Most trips take two; the tours are nothing alike.
CartagenaWalled streets, island boats, and heat that decides your timetable.
- 1Cartagena Island Hopping: 5-Stop Rosario Islands Tour with Lunchfrom $67
- 2Historic Center and Getsemaní Shared Walking Tourfrom $12
MedellínCable cars up the hillsides, murals, paragliding, coffee within the hour.
- 1Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Foodfrom $18
- 2Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Foodfrom $16
BogotáColonial La Candelaria, gold and emeralds, a salt cathedral to the north.
- 1Bogotá Bike Tourfrom $25
- 2Bicycle City Tourfrom $19
In Cartagena the boat leaves at eight, whatever your plans were.
Inside the walls it is churches, balconies and one more juice from a woman in a striped skirt. Outside them the Caribbean starts: the Rosarios, Barú, Playa Blanca, and a mud volcano an hour up the coast. The good boats go early and come back sunburnt.
Medellín is a valley you see from above.
The Metrocable climbs out of the valley floor to neighbourhoods that built their own escalators. Paragliders launch from the eastern ridge most mornings. Guatapé and its rock are two hours out, and a working coffee farm is closer than that.
Bogotá keeps its best rooms underground and its best view at 3,152 metres.
La Candelaria is the old town: painted doors, the Gold Museum, graffiti with politics in it. Monserrate is the climb everybody does on a clear morning. An hour north, Zipaquirá cut a cathedral out of a working salt mine, and Guatavita is the lake that started the El Dorado story.
- 1Bogotá Bike Tourfrom $25
- 2Bicycle City Tourfrom $19
- 3Zipaquirá: Salt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickupfrom $46
The coffee region hides behind six small towns.
Salento, Filandia, Pereira, Manizales, Santa Rosa de Cabal: no single name carries the region, which is why travellers miss it. What is there is a green valley of wax palms 60 metres tall, jeep rides to trailheads, and farms that will hand you a basket and expect you to pick.
All coffee region tours →
What a day out in Colombia costs.
Every reviewed tour sorted by price. A good Colombian day starts at less than a taxi to the airport.
Walking tours, graffiti mornings, coffee tastings, a tejo night with the beers included.
The full days: island boats with lunch, Guatapé and the rock, Zipaquirá and Guatavita together.
Private guides, the four-day walk to the Lost City, charter boats and diving weeks.
Three things you can only do in Colombia.
Beaches and old towns are everywhere on this coast. Gunpowder in a clay ring, a cathedral inside a salt mine and a valley of 60-metre palms are not.
Tejo
Tejo is played by throwing a metal puck across a court at a clay ring packed with folded paper triangles of gunpowder. A hit goes off with a bang. It is the national sport, it is free to play if you keep buying beer, and every court in Bogotá will happily take a table of visitors who have never thrown one.
- 1Bogota Food Tour with over 12 Tastings & Tejo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 454 reviews
- 2Tejo and Beer Tour in Bogotá★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
- 3Tejo Tour in Bogota★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 27 reviews
The Salt Cathedral
Under the town of Zipaquirá, an hour north of Bogotá, miners carved a cathedral out of a working salt mine roughly 180 metres below the surface. The stations of the cross run down a tunnel in near darkness before the nave opens up around a cross lit from behind. It is cold down there, and it stays about 14°C whatever the month.
- 1Zipaquirá: Salt 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
The Cocora Valley
The Quindío wax palm is Colombia's national tree and the tallest palm in the world, reaching about 60 metres. They grow in a cloud-forest valley above Salento where nothing else stands that high, which is why the photographs look wrong. Jeeps leave the Salento square from early morning; the loop takes four to five hours and the mud is real.
- 1Cocora Valley Shared Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 246 reviews
- 2Private Cocora Valley, Salento & Coffee Farm Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 202 reviews
- 3Cocora Valley, Salento and Coffee Farm Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 129 reviews
Colombia is not one temperature.
The country runs from Caribbean sea level to a shrine at 3,152 metres, and the change happens in a one-hour flight. This is the single thing first-time visitors get wrong: a Cartagena wardrobe is useless in Bogotá, and a Bogotá jumper is unbearable on Barú.
- 2 m above sea levelCartagenaCaribbean heat and humidity all year. Boats and beaches in the morning, walls and shade after two.
- 1,495 mMedellínThe reason it is called the city of eternal spring. Shirtsleeves by day, a light layer at night, rain most afternoons in the wet months.
- 1,895 m at SalentoCoffee RegionCloud forest weather: warm sun, cold cloud, and a downpour that arrives without discussion. Boots, not sandals.
- 2,640 mBogotáCool and grey more often than not, about 14°C most days of the year. Take the first day slowly; the altitude is real.
Colombian rain arrives in the afternoon and leaves by dinner.
Bogotá drizzles for weeks and Medellín gets a proper storm most afternoons in April and October. Neither cancels a trip. The best answers are indoors and better for it: a salt mine, a gold museum, a chocolate workshop, a salsa class, a tejo court under a tin roof.
By region — the base you fly into
Cartagena195 tours
Medellín186 tours
Bogotá102 tours
Santa Marta & Tayrona34 tours
Coffee Region17 tours
Cali20 tours
San Andrés12 tours
Santander4 tours- All Colombian regions →
By experience — from island boats to salt mines
The route most first trips to Colombia end up taking.
GuatapéThe newest Colombia tour reviews.
More new Colombia reviews →
Horseback riding to the viewpoints and the Sestillal waterfall in Salento
Read our review →
2-Hours Street Art Walking Tour in Medellin Comuna 13
Read our review →
Tour of Waterfall in Pance River – Chorrera del Indio
Read our review →
Community and Biodiversity Tour of the Tatacoa Desert from Neiva
Read our review →
Wonderful tour of Villa de Leyva, and Zipaquira Salt Cathedral.
Read our review →
