The Ultimate Colombia Travel Guide

I hope everyone’s ready to get deep in to everything solo travel in Colombia!

By way of introduction, I am Lucy, a 23 year old solo traveller who fell in love with Central and South America during a 6 month trip! This blog post will contain personal stories, tips, recommendations and some of my itinerary for travelling Colombia! Check out my Instagram for more inspiration - @lucystraveldiary

Setting off on my 6 month trip!

To start, many people will ask ‘why Colombia?’. It’s capital city Medellin was once known as the most dangerous city and I (along with many others) still made the decision to travel round the country solo. I am here to share the hidden beauty of the country contrary to historical suggestions, I can assure you Medellin’s title is now a thing of the past.

Let’s kick this post of with my recommendations when visiting this beautiful county:

1- Ensure you have enough time to see the diversity of the country!

Colombia is so diverse from region to region. I started in the north by flying in to Cartegana. The north is full of stunning beaches, endless sunsets spots, forests and treks such a ‘the lost city’. Moving south from here, you have cities like Medellin and Bogotá which are full of character, history and culture with slightly cooler temperatures! Going further south again you then enter the coffee and salsa regions like Salento and Cali!

2- A Medellin must is to watch a football match.

Even if you know nothing about football, watching a match in Medellin is a must do activity! The atmosphere in the stadium is next level. Locals are so passionate, constantly singing/chanting and jumping around that as you can see, we all couldn’t stop smiling. Please do note though it’s safest to stand at the back, it’s common for fans to all push forward when there is a goal so locals advised us to move to the back after they’d saved us a couple times from being squashed!

3- Make the most of free walking tours!

These are donation based trips that are in every city. Throughout my entire trip I would always do the free walking tours on my first day in each city as it gives you a rough idea of your surroundings, learn the history and culture and it’s affordable.

4- Explore Minca

I met a group of people in a hostel and stuck with them for the north part of my trip as we were all doing the same route. We had two days at Minca and stayed in a hostel called Casa Elemento which had an incredible huge hammock that everyone could chill in! Between us, we did a tour in a jeep through the forests and saw some beautiful waterfalls, view points and more! It’s only a short part of your trip but is so beautiful!

Sunset on the hammock

Waterfalls on our jeep trip!

5- Visit Comuna 13 from Medellin

You can either do this trip by yourself or with one of the many walking tour companies! I did both as I ended up in Medellin twice and loved the street art. The benefit with a walking tour is they will teach you so much history on the struggle within this area and learn about everything the country went through. It was massively rewarding for me to learn the information that I did through these tours and it is probably half the reason I’m so in love with the culture, people and country.

6- Take a day trip to Guatape

Again there are a couple options with this one. I thought the trips/tours were very over priced so got the public bus there myself and just wondered around the local area and climbed up the gigantic rock (hungover) pictured below. The view from the top of this is breathtaking and it’s fully worth the 700+ steps!

The streets and tuk tuk’s are bursting with colour, there are some nice cafes and restaurants and even accommodation if you want to stay here for a couple days! For me, I left early and utilised the day and returned to Medellin in the evening.

7- Try a night out in one of the many salsa bars.

The salsa dance scene in Colombia is HUGE! I knew very very basic salsa steps but as a female, if you got a salsa club/bar, the local men will invite you to dance all night long! They’re such good leaders that you can just follow and have the best fun! As always on a night out, be safe and try stay with a group of people.

8- Tayrona National Park

My final recommendation for this post (although I could carry on for hours) is to visit Tayrona national park. To get to the most popular beaches, it’s around a 2 hour walk and it can get very hot so bring water! However, the walk is remarkable, you go through forest, climb across boulders, go over bridges and end up at the beach with gigantic palm trees.

If this hasn’t convinced you, please do check out my Instagram and feel free to message me with any questions! I’ll be updating my blog with more specific information over the coming months!

If you love this series comments below. Follow @Travelsarc to explore more.

By: Lucy Caitlin | Country: England

Travel Blogger