Three Colombias: a walled Caribbean city, an Andean coffee axis, and the hillside that painted itself.
Which Rosario Islands boat leaves you real beach time. What a Comuna 13 walk costs with a guide who grew up there. Whether the Salt Cathedral earns a day out of Bogota. Reviews of the tours, boat days and farm visits you can book across Colombia.
A mural hillside, a catamaran, a finca and a cathedral cut into salt.
The four bookings a first week in Colombia tends to hang off. What each costs, and what the people who went say.
01The Medellin morningComuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street FoodCable car up, then the painted staircases of Comuna 13 with a guide from the barrio. Go early, before the tour groups stack up.
02The boat dayRosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and SnorkelOut to the Rosario Islands under sail, with lunch and snorkelling time. The day everyone books first and remembers longest.
03The coffee dayCoffee Tour with Transport, Snacks and TastingsA working finca in the hills above Medellin: pick it, wash it, roast it, drink it. Transport in and out is included.
04The day out of BogotaSalt Cathedral Group Tour with PickupA cathedral carved into a working salt mine, 180 metres down. Pickup included, back in the city by evening.
Farm day, city cupping, or the run up into the hills. Pick your coffee.
Colombia grows it on steep ground in small lots, and most fincas will hand you a basket and let you work. Three kinds of coffee day, what each costs to join, and where it leaves from.
Six Colombian bases, and the best day out from each.
A fort city on the Caribbean, a valley of cable cars and murals, a cold Andean capital, a national park with jungle running into the sea, salsa country, and an island where the water turns seven colours.
The Colombian days out more travellers take than any other.
Every Colombian tour we have reviewed →Ranked by how many people actually book them, with what each costs and how long it takes.
1
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food
Join a small group of up to 10 with guides such as Natalia, Santiago, Martin, or Melina for a four-hour trip from El Poblado through Medellín’s metro and cable car system to Comuna 13. Expect murals, local stories, coffee, an arepa, dancing, steep walking, and a drink with city views.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
The Real Pablo Escobar Tour
from $42
3
Historic Center and Getsemaní Shared Walking Tour
from $12
4
Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and Snorkel
from $107
5
Bicycle City Tour
from $19
6
Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour
from $14
7
Full-Day Rosario Islands Including Barú, Bocachica & Playa Blanca
from $88
8
Salt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickup
from $46
The Caribbean day starts at the Cartagena jetty by eight.
Rosario Islands under sail, the long white stretch at Playa Blanca, Baru for a quieter version of the same water. Boats leave in the morning and come back late afternoon, and the good ones stop long enough to swim.
Medellin put escalators up a hillside and let it paint itself.
Comuna 13 was the part of the city nobody drove through. Now a cable car and six flights of outdoor escalators carry you up past murals that get repainted every few months, and the guides are people who lived through both versions.
Every Medellin day out →
What a day out in Colombia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Colombia is one of the few places where the best day of the trip can come in under the price of lunch at home.
Walled-city walks, street food crawls, graffiti tours and most of the city cable-car days.
The full days: island catamarans, coffee fincas with transport, the Salt Cathedral run, paragliding.
Private guides, chartered boats and the multi-stop days that swallow a whole calendar square.
Three things that happen in Colombia and nowhere else.
Beaches and old towns are everywhere in the Caribbean. A barrio that rebuilt itself in paint, sixty-metre palms in a cloud forest, and a cathedral hollowed out of rock salt are not.
Comuna 13
The hillside was the most dangerous address in Medellin inside living memory. The city answered with a cable car, six flights of covered escalators and a policy of leaving the walls to the artists. The murals are documentary: helicopters, handkerchiefs, elephants that stand for memory. Most guides grew up on these steps and tell you which year each panel refers to.
- 1Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 9,046 reviews
- 2Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,779 reviews
- 3Comuna 13 District Tour with Cable Car Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,467 reviews
The Cocora Valley
Colombia gave the wax palm its national tree, then found it only grows properly in one cloud-drenched valley outside Salento. They reach sixty metres, which is roughly twice what a palm has any business doing, and they stand in open pasture with mist moving through them. The loop walk takes five hours; the jeeps out leave the Salento plaza early.
- 1Cocora Valley Shared Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 246 reviews
- 2Private Cocora Valley, Salento & Coffee Farm Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 202 reviews
- 3Salento, Cocora and Filandia Private Tour from Pereira or Armenia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 90 reviews
The Salt Cathedral
Miners carved a chapel out of the tunnels to pray in before shifts, and the country eventually built the real thing 180 metres down: naves, a cross lit from behind, stations of the cross cut into rock salt along the approach. It is cold, it is enormous, and the walls taste of salt if you are the sort of person who checks.
- 1Salt Cathedral Group Tour with Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,606 reviews
- 2Guatavita and Salt Cathedral Daily Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 615 reviews
- 3Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira Private daily Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 262 reviews
Four Colombian bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on guide numbers, boat timetables and weather windows that take no interest in your flight.
- 01Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street FoodThe barrio guides cap group sizes and the good ones fill days ahead. Turning up hoping to join something is how you end up walking it alone.
- 02Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and SnorkelThe island boats leave once, in the morning, and come back once. Miss the departure and the day is gone, not delayed.
- 03Paragliding Tour with GoPro Photos & VideosFlights go when the morning thermals behave and are scrubbed when they do not. Booking the first slot of the day gives the weather a second chance at you.
- 04Salt Cathedral Group Tour with PickupThe pickups run to a fixed departure out of Bogota and the mine is busiest on Sundays, when half the city has the same idea.
Bogota sits at 2,600 metres and it rains most afternoons.
The Andean cities run on the same clock: bright mornings, cloud building after lunch, a downpour around four that empties the streets for an hour. Plan the walking for the morning and put something with a roof on it in the afternoon. Gold, salt, food halls and cooking counters.
Fruit you cannot name, arepas at midnight, a set lunch for four dollars.
Eating here is a street activity. The markets keep fruit nobody exports because it does not travel, the fried counters run late, and the corrientazo lunch is still the best-value plate in South America.
By place, coast to coffee axis
By kind of day: boat, barrio, finca or road
Bogota, Medellin, the coffee axis, then the Caribbean.
The newest Colombian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
CITY TOUR IN ENGLISH, Old city, Monuments, Castle
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Tour to Playa Tranquila with Snorkeling + Luminous Plankton and Parasol
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The Legendary Colombian Rum and Chocolate Tasting
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Islabela Islands Boat Trip with Lunch & Cocktail
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