Holidaying in Colombia: Caribbean Beaches, Buzzing Cities and the Good Life

There was a time when pairing Colombia with the word holiday drew raised eyebrows. Guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and the drug trade owned the headlines for decades, and most travellers stayed well clear. The 2016 peace deal with the FARC changed the mood, cities that had been no-go zones remade themselves, and word got out that the country was, frankly, gorgeous.

Tourism has exploded since. Certain areas still call for your wits, but the welcome you get now feels warm rather than staged. Colombians are chuffed to have you, and it shows.

Cartagena: The Jewel of the Caribbean

If you only see one place here, make it Cartagena. In the UNESCO-listed old town, bougainvillea spills over wooden balconies, colonial facades come painted in candy colours, and plazas fill with performers who break into champeta the second the sun dips. Walk those cobbles at dusk, once the heat loosens its grip and grilled arepas drift out from the corner stalls, and the evening stays with you a long while. We stayed four nights and could've doubled it.

Accommodation runs the full gamut. Boutique hotels sit inside restored colonial mansions in the old town and Getsemaní, many with plunge pools in leafy courtyards and rooftop terraces. Expect £80 to £250 a night for something special. Budget travellers do fine too, with social hostels offering dorms from around a tenner.

Amenities are excellent: air con is a given (you'll need it, trust me), and most places throw in WiFi, airport transfers and tour desks that can sort day trips to the Rosario Islands.

Medellín: The City of Eternal Spring

Medellín's comeback is the stuff of legend. Once branded the most dangerous city on earth, it's now known for cable cars swooping over the hillside barrios, bold public spaces and nightlife that doesn't quit. The nickname is earned. Temperatures sit near 24 degrees year round, so leave the jumpers at home.

Base yourself in El Poblado for trendy cafes, coworking spots and restaurants running from bandeja paisa to sushi. Laureles is the local, laid-back option, with tree-lined streets and bars where a beer is about a quid. Hotels range from slick high-rises with rooftop infinity pools to family-run guesthouses where the owner insists on making you coffee every morning.

Day trips are easy, too. Guatapé, with its enormous climbable rock and rainbow-painted streets, is about two hours away and worth every minute of the bus ride.

Bogotá: High Altitude, High Energy

Beach-hungry travellers often skip the capital, which is a shame, because Bogotá has a gritty charm that grows on you. La Candelaria, the historic quarter, is all narrow lanes, bold street art and hole-in-the-wall cafes pouring some of the best coffee you'll ever taste. Take the cable car up Monserrate for views across the sprawling city, then head to the Gold Museum to gawp at pre-Columbian treasures. Sundays are magic: the main roads close and fill with cyclists, joggers and food vendors. Just remember the city sits at 2,600 metres, so take it easy on day one or the altitude will humble you.

The Coffee Region: Slow Days and Green Valleys

Ask Colombians where their heart is and plenty will point to the Eje Cafetero, the coffee triangle. Salento is postcard pretty, with brightly painted doors and balconies overflowing with flowers, and the surrounding Cocora Valley is home to wax palms that stretch up to 60 metres into the mist. They look like something Dr. Seuss dreamt up.

Stay on a working finca and you'll wake to birdsong, the smell of fresh tinto and views across endless green hills. Many fincas run tours where you pick the beans, roast them and drink the results, which ruins supermarket coffee forever and is worth it anyway.

The Caribbean Coast and Tayrona

Then there are the beaches. Colombia's Caribbean coast delivers in spades. Tayrona National Park, an hour or so from Santa Marta, is the headline act: a stretch of jungle-clad coastline where enormous boulders frame coves of golden sand and impossibly blue water. The hike in cuts through humid rainforest alive with howler monkeys, and when you emerge at Cabo San Juan, with its viewpoint hut perched between two bays, you'll understand the raving.

Accommodation inside the park is rustic (hammocks under thatched roofs, eco-habs on stilts, simple campsites). Facilities are basic. Falling asleep to crashing waves in a hammock you rented for the price of a London pint is hard to beat.

Further along, Palomino has become the backpacker darling, a scruffy-beachy village where you can float down the river on an inner tube in the morning and sip cocktails on the sand by sunset. Minca, up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, offers waterfalls, cacao farms and eco-lodges with jaw-dropping views for anyone wanting a break from the heat.

San Andrés and Providencia: The Sea of Seven Colours

For genuine postcard perfection, hop on a flight to San Andrés and its smaller sister Providencia. Closer to Nicaragua than the mainland, the islands serve up the "sea of seven colours" everyone bangs on about, and it isn't marketing fluff: the water genuinely shifts from pale turquoise to deep sapphire as you look out from the shore. Providencia in particular feels like the Caribbean of fifty years ago, sleepy, friendly and blissfully free of high-rise resorts. Expect simple posadas run by local families, fresh lobster at lunch and snorkelling straight off the beach.

The Lifestyle: Music, Food and Sobremesa

What makes a Colombian holiday, though, is the lifestyle. Music is everywhere here. Salsa, cumbia, vallenato and reggaeton come through every open doorway, and nobody thinks twice about dancing in the street. Cali claims the salsa crown, but you'll find dancers everywhere. Food is hearty and unpretentious: crispy empanadas, sancocho stew, fresh fish with coconut rice on the coast and fruit you've never heard of, lulo, guanábana, granadilla, sold by smiling vendors for pennies.

Coffee is taken seriously, obviously, and mealtimes come with sobremesa, the habit of lingering at the table long after the plates are cleared. Nobody rushes here. After a few days, neither will you.

Where to Stay and What to Expect

Accommodation standards have shot up in recent years. Big cities offer international chain hotels with gyms, pools, spas and business centres, while the real character lives in the boutique hotels, converted haciendas and eco-lodges. Even mid-range places usually include generous breakfasts, strong WiFi (digital nomads have cottoned on to Colombia in a big way) and staff who'll bend over backwards to help. Hot water can be hit and miss in the hottest coastal towns, where a lukewarm shower counts as a blessing, and remote spots lose power now and then, so pack a power bank. Tipping around ten percent in restaurants is customary, and a few words of Spanish go a long way, since English isn't widely spoken outside the tourist hubs.

Final Thoughts

Colombia gets under your skin. The variety does it: one week you're hiking cloud forest to a hidden beach, the next you're sipping single-origin coffee on a finca balcony or dancing salsa badly at 2am with new friends who won't let you leave. Seeing the place bloom again stirs something. Go now, while it still feels like a discovery. Do not be surprised if you start pricing one-way tickets on the flight home.