Exploring the Bohemian beach town of Palomino, Colombia

For decades Palomino was a fishing village on Colombia's Caribbean coast, and outsiders mostly kept their distance. The wider region had a rough reputation during the country's troubled years, so travellers were advised to skip this stretch of coastline. They listened. Through the 2010s, as Colombia opened up, backpackers working their way along the coast from Cartagena and Santa Marta began passing around the name of a beach where the jungle runs down to the sea.

Reaching it is a pleasure in itself. From Santa Marta you board a bus on the coastal highway, ninety minutes or so, and the land shifts from dry scrub to deep green while the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta climbs on your left, its peaks often dusted with snow despite the proximity to the equator. The driver drops you on the main road. From there it's a short hop on the back of a moto-taxi, bag wedged between your knees, down a dusty lane toward the water. Salt reaches you first, then woodsmoke, then a sweet green smell off the jungle, and finally the sound of surf you can hear well before the sea comes into view.

The beach itself is a long, wild sweep of golden-grey sand with palms and tangled vegetation behind it, the river on one side, open horizon on the other. This isn't a manicured resort beach. No rows of identical loungers, no waiters with trays. Driftwood instead, fishermen mending nets in the shade, and dogs trotting the tideline like they own it. Underfoot the sand is coarse and warm, the kind that exfoliates whether you like it or not.

Swimming takes some judgment. Currents here can be fierce, and on bigger days the water belongs to the surfers. Ask locally where it's safer and listen to the answer. On calm mornings the sea comes bathwater warm and glassy at dawn, and much of the pleasure is sitting at the shoreline with your toes in the foam, a cold beer sweating in your hand, watching the water heave and glitter.

Early mornings arrive soft and silvery, mist clinging to the river while pelicans skim low over the swell. By midday the sun bleaches everything white-hot, and the smart move is to retreat under a palm roof and do nothing at all for a few hours. Late afternoon is when the place exhales. The heat drops a notch, the breeze picks up, and the sky runs through peach, tangerine and violet while the mountains go dark behind you and the sea turns copper in front. People stop mid-sentence to watch. Every night.

If you do one thing here, make it the tubing. A guide straps an enormous inner tube to the back of a motorbike, you ride up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and then you lie back and let the Palomino River carry you down. The water is cool and clear, fresher than the sea, and the route runs through corridors of jungle smelling of wet leaves and earth. Birds flash between the trees. Howler monkeys grumble overhead. You drift past boulders worn smooth, spin lazily in the eddies, and eventually the current slows where fresh water meets salt and the sea opens out ahead of you. Two hours, very little money, and a memory that stays.

Accommodation is where Palomino quietly shines. At the budget end, the backpacker hostels are genuinely excellent: dorm beds and hammocks strung under thatched roofs, open-air showers where butterflies drift past while you wash, communal kitchens, and bars where strangers become friends over rum and Coke before the first night is out. Many have pools now, yoga decks, and the kind of laid-back design that makes you want to extend your stay by a week.

Move up the scale and you find boutique eco-lodges, and these are where the town has become rather sophisticated. Private cabanas of bamboo and hardwood, billowing mosquito nets, outdoor bathrooms open to the stars, terraces looking straight onto the sand. Some lean into wellness, with massages in palm-thatched huts, morning yoga timed to the surf, and menus built around smoothie bowls, fresh fish and tropical fruit. Others are simpler: a handful of cabins, a hammock for every guest, a dog asleep on the steps. Electricity can be patchy and Wi-Fi is more of a suggestion than a promise in some spots, though this improves year on year. Frankly, putting your phone down is half the point. I never did find out which lodge keeps the resident parrot, though several guests swore one existed.

There are also family-run guesthouses in the village itself, a little back from the beach, where you get a spotless room, a fan, and breakfast made by someone who remembers how you take your coffee. The rooms come with a small terrace and a plastic chair that has clearly hosted a thousand sunburns. These rarely appear on the big booking sites. Ask around and you'll find them.

You might expect a remote beach village to offer fried fish and not much else, and yes, the fried fish is superb, served with coconut rice, patacones and a little salad, often caught that same morning. The traveller influx has brought variety too: wood-fired pizza, vegetarian and vegan cafés, arepa stands, fresh juices of every fruit you can name, and strong Colombian coffee grown not far away in those very mountains. Beachfront bars serve cocktails in hollowed-out coconuts, and in the evenings tables appear on the sand, lit by candles and strings of bulbs, and you eat with your feet buried in still-warm sand while the surf provides the soundtrack. A plate of the day typically runs about 25,000 pesos.

Nobody hurries. The village is a handful of sandy lanes, a few small shops selling essentials and handmade jewellery, kids on bicycles, the occasional wandering goat. Days fall into an easy rhythm: swim or walk the beach early, retreat from the midday heat, take a yoga class or a surf lesson, read in a hammock, wander out for sunset, eat, drink, sleep, repeat. Full-moon parties happen, and bonfires, drumming circles, someone's guitar drifting over the sand. Social without being rowdy, most of the time.

If you get restless, the surroundings deliver. You can hike the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada, visit indigenous Kogi villages with a local guide (these communities have called the mountains home for centuries, and the visit is worth approaching with that in mind), or take day trips to Tayrona National Park to the west or the flamingo lagoons to the east. Palomino works brilliantly as a base, but bases have a habit of becoming destinations. People arrive for two nights and stay for two weeks. It happens constantly.

Bring cash, since the ATMs are limited and card machines temperamental. Pack insect repellent, because the sand flies at dusk are relentless little monsters. The rainy seasons, roughly May and October, can turn the lanes to mud and the sky to theatre, though the storms tend to pass as quickly as they arrive. Don't expect luxury infrastructure. What Palomino offers instead is a beach that still feels like the edge of the map.

What stays with you afterwards isn't any single thing. It's the accumulation: the weight of warm river water as you drifted downstream, the taste of lime and salt on your lips, falling asleep to surf so loud it sounded like weather. Palomino won't stay sleepy forever, but right now, between hidden gem and hotspot, it's close to perfect. Go while the dogs still own the beach, and while the last guesthouse on the lane still keeps its keys on a nail by the door.