Safety First: What Level 3 Means for Couples
Reconsider travel is the State Department's way of saying the risks are serious enough that you should weigh them before going. It is not a ban. It also does not void most travel insurance, though you should read your policy. In practice the incidents that hit visitors are mostly opportunistic. Phones get snatched from café tables. Drinks get spiked in bars, sometimes with scopolamine and more often with cheaper sedatives. Street taxis drive people to ATMs at knifepoint. Dating app meetings turn into robberies. Medellín has had a run of these cases involving foreign men.
Couples can avoid most of it with a few habits. Book cars through your hotel or an app. Keep phones out of sight on the street and carry one card and modest cash. Drink where you can see the bartender. Stick to the established tourist circuit, skip long road trips at night and register your trip with the State Department's STEP program so the embassy can reach you.
Why Colombia for a Honeymoon
Colombia packs an unusual range of scenery into flights of an hour or so. You can wake up to Caribbean heat, lunch at 6,000 feet in a coffee town and finish the week on a reef island. Because the country sits near the equator, altitude does the work that seasons do elsewhere. Cartagena stays in the high 80s all year while Medellín hovers around the low 70s and Bogotá needs a jacket.
The food has improved fast. Cartagena and Medellín both have serious tasting-menu restaurants built on Colombian fruit, fish and cacao. The coffee is the real thing, roasted by the farms that grow it. Prices are friendlier than in Mexico's resort towns, so a mid-range budget buys a restored colonial hotel with a rooftop plunge pool. Colombians are warm hosts and quick to pull you onto a dance floor, whatever your skill.
Best Time to Visit
There is no single best month, because each region runs its own calendar. On the Caribbean coast the dry season lasts from December through April, with steady breezes and almost no rain from January to March. Showers return in May and build to a peak in October and November, when Cartagena gets most of its yearly rainfall.
In the Andes, including Medellín and the coffee region, there are two drier spells, roughly December to February and June to August. Rain falls on many afternoons the rest of the year, but it rarely wipes out a whole day.
The weeks around Christmas, New Year and Easter are the busiest of the year, since Colombians travel then too. Hotels on the coast fill and prices rise. For good weather with fewer crowds, aim for late January to early March or for July and August, when Medellín hosts its Feria de las Flores.
Where to Go
Most first trips combine a coast and the mountains. These are the places we cover in depth:
- Cartagena: the walled colonial city, all bougainvillea balconies, rooftop pools and some of the country's best restaurants.
- Rosario Islands and Barú: a reef-fringed archipelago and a long sandy peninsula an hour or so by boat from Cartagena, for slow beach days.
- Tayrona: a coastal national park near Santa Marta where the Sierra Nevada falls into the sea, best for couples who like a hike before a swim.
- Coffee Region: the hill towns of Salento and Filandia, the wax palms of the Cocora Valley and haciendas that still harvest by hand.
- Medellín: a mild, modern city of cable cars and good food, with the lake and rock at Guatapé as a day trip.
- Providencia: a small English-speaking island on a huge barrier reef, far from the crowds and slow to reach.
Sample 10-Day Itinerary
Days 1 and 2: Fly into Medellín, which has nonstops from South Florida. Settle in El Poblado, ride the Metrocable up the hills and spend a day at Guatapé climbing the 700-odd steps of El Peñol.
Days 3 to 5: Fly or drive to the coffee region. Stay at a hacienda near Salento or Filandia, tour a working farm, walk the Cocora Valley early and soak in the hot springs at Santa Rosa de Cabal.
Days 6 to 8: Fly from Pereira to Cartagena. Walk the walls at sunset, eat in Getsemaní and give one afternoon to a siesta, because the heat earns it.
Days 9 and 10: Move to a bungalow on Barú or the Rosario Islands for snorkeling and lazy meals, then fly home from Cartagena.
With more time, add Tayrona before Cartagena or swap the islands for four nights on Providencia.
Budget and Costs
All figures here are approximate and swing with season and exchange rates. Colombia is good value by Caribbean standards, though its best hotels are not cheap.
In Cartagena's walled city, a well-reviewed boutique hotel usually runs somewhere around $200 to $400 a night in high season, while the grandest converted convents can pass $600. Coffee region haciendas tend to cost noticeably less. Simple posadas on Providencia less again. A tasting menu for two at a top restaurant in Cartagena or Medellín might come to $120 to $250 with drinks. A good set lunch at a local spot can still cost under $10 a person.
Domestic flights are often well under $100 one way if booked early. Imported wine is pricey, so drink rum, local craft beer or fresh fruit juices. Budget extra for the December holidays and Easter week, when coastal rates jump.
Getting There and Around
Bogotá's El Dorado is the main gateway, with nonstops from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Atlanta, Houston, Newark and New York. Medellín and Cartagena have fewer direct flights, mostly from South Florida, so many couples connect in Bogotá, Miami or Panama City. Airline schedules on these routes shift from season to season.
Inside the country, fly. There are no intercity passenger trains. Mountain roads are slow and sometimes closed by landslides in the rainy months. Avianca, LATAM, JetSMART, Wingo and Clic link the big cities while the state carrier Satena reaches smaller airports. Book seats on early flights where you can, since afternoon storms can delay departures.
In cities, use ride-hailing apps or a hotel car. For day trips such as Guatapé, Barú or the coffee farms, a private driver arranged through your hotel costs more than a bus but saves time and worry.
Culture and Etiquette
Colombians tend to be more formal than visitors expect, especially inland. Greet people with buenos días before asking anything and use por favor and gracias freely. In Bogotá and Boyacá you may hear strangers addressed as su merced. On the Caribbean coast things loosen up, the Spanish speeds up and nobody minds if you wear shorts to dinner.
Tipping is simple. Restaurants usually ask whether you want to add a voluntary 10 percent service charge. You can say yes or no. Round up for small purchases and tip guides and drivers you liked.
Avoid joking about cocaine or Pablo Escobar. Many Colombians lost family to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s and find narco tourism insulting. People are proud of how far the country has come. Learn a few Spanish phrases, because English is thin outside upscale hotels. Accept any offer of a dance lesson.
Quick tips
- Order taxis through an app or your hotel; the State Department warns against hailing them on the street.
- Never leave a drink unattended or accept one from a friendly stranger, since spiked drinks are used to rob visitors.
- Plugs and voltage match the US. The country sits on Eastern Standard Time all year.
