Essential Safe Guide: A Thrilling Colombian Adventure
- Trevor Lawrence
- Jan 17
- 11 min read
Updated: Apr 14
Improved security, drastic decreases in violent crime, advancing opportunities for Colombians, and breakneck investments in modern roadways are making this enchanting country a must-visit.
If you’re traveling with little ones, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more baby crazy destination. They love kids!
As always, it’s a good idea to do an internet search about any routes and destinations you’re interested in exploring. Find out what other travelers are saying about the safety of places you’d like to visit.
If you're wondering whether Colombia is safe, check out our post on the topic. If you're ready to plan your trip, dive into our 10-day guide to an unforgettable Colombian adventure, then check out our flash trip guide to Cartagena and our road trip along the Caribbean Coast.
Quick Takeaways in This Essential Safe Guide: Colombia
Bogotá or Cartagena – landing one vs the other makes a big weather difference
Road tripping is tiring – don’t overestimate how far you can travel in a day.
Limit nighttime driving – it’s not just a suggestion; it can be downright dangerous.
GPS time estimates are misleading – plan for longer than the time suggested.
Infrastructure is evolving fast – new highways and expressways pop up all the time.
Use Google Street View – recent imagery helps you spot-check road conditions.
Jump To:
WHAT’S COLOMBIA LIKE?
You may have noticed when visiting excessively touristed countries that locals seem worn down by the constant influx of and interaction with foreigners. Colombia’s tourism industry, on the other hand, is still finding its footing. As a result, it seems we visitors have not yet drained the very life force from its hospitality folks. Virtually every person with whom we interacted went out of their way to offer an easy smile and strike up a chat. To that end, Colombian hospitality is incredibly warm and outgoing.
These people are wild about little kids. Men, women, old and young – everybody turns to mush when they encounter a traveler with a baby. We were stopped in grocery stores, restaurants, museums, and parks – even when Augie was bundled up and sound asleep – just so locals could peek, coo, and swoon.
If you’re not comfortable having strangers hold your baby, you should probably come up with a gracious excuse – but good luck – because Colombianos love almost nothing as much as engaging with little kids or holding a baby.
Gracious isn’t a strong enough word to describe the people of Colombia. No matter where we were – from city centers to remote roadside food stalls high in the mountains – people go out of their way to make you feel welcome. More than that, most folks are just naturally friendly and engaging.
I think one of the most important things foreign travelers can remember when visiting a country that has worked incredibly hard to shed a tough history is that the country’s everyday citizens were victims. The majority of people neither condone the drug trade nor support the civil strife that has plagued their country. These are people who, when given the opportunity to reclaim their country, seek nothing more than to share the beauty and pride of an incredibly rich culture with eager visitors.
IS COLOMBIA SAFE FOR TRAVEL?
This really is the whole point of our essential safe Guide to Colombia. There simply wasn't enough up-to-date info on English language forums. You can read a lot more about the safety of visiting Colombia in our post on the subject. There, we’ll discuss appetite for risk and try to cover as many places and routes as we can – from our perspective – and the safety environments there. You should also check out our general purpose article on how to travel safely anywhere. There, we (cheekily) cover a more nuanced way to improve safe travel skills.
TL;DR? The key to mitigating risk is to plan your in-country movements, research the routes and the destinations you’re interested in visiting, and read a few up-to-date travel experiences from fellow adventurers.
On one of our visits, we brought a five-month-old baby. We’ve both agreed that we’d be hard-pressed to think of a country we’ve visited where people were more excited about striking up a conversation just to fawn over AJ.
Admittedly, some of the enthusiasm is the novelty but plenty of it is simply the love of children that is seemingly universal in Colombia. Mothers with big families spoke wistfully about how much they missed having a baby AJ's age. I must say, she is one heck of an ice breaker when you’re on the road! If you're thinking of traveling to Colombia with a little one, be sure to check out our article on the subject. We get into packing lists, keeping your routine, and all things kiddo-logistics.
Overall, in covering roughly 1,700 km (1,000 mi) in a rental vehicle, we did not feel in danger at any time. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the driving itself.
But I will get into that in our post on driving in Colombia. Everywhere we went, people were warm and friendly. Police and military presence were notable, and cities we visited felt safe.
We did drive through some areas in Medellin, in particular near the city center’s museums and plazas, where life looked decidedly unkind to segments of the population. Some of the blocks where items are scrapped and sold are about as rough as what you’d encounter driving through Skid Row in Los Angeles, while only a block or two away, families, tourists, and business people on lunch breaks are relaxing in a beautiful plaza surrounded by chubby Botero sculptures.
WHEN SHOULD YOU GO TO COLOMBIA?
High Season runs from December through February and into March. You’ll see more tourists, but also more sunny days. Naturally, tourist-focused businesses raise prices during this season as well. If you’re a budget traveler and don’t mind some rain, October and November are wonderful times to explore the country. Flights, car rentals, and hotels are all cheaper – which certainly appeals to us. We’ve been in October and encountered nothing but sunshine, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it.
Check out some of our favorite itineraries for a great Colombia experience.
CAN YOU GET BY IN COLOMBIA WITHOUT SPANISH?
How hard is it to visit and travel Colombia if your Spanish isn’t great? Good news, you don’t necessarily need to be fluent or have much Spanish to get around. Most people speak some English in the major cities. What’s more, ChatGPT and other apps offer a handy feature that lets you have a conversation with somebody in another language in real-time. So far, you’ve got to have a cellular or WIFI connection for it to work. You can get a sense of how this app could work for you in our article reviewing the translation app.
As you progress to more rural areas, the odds of finding someone with serviceable English is likely to diminish as with most places in the world you’re visiting. But as always, even with a complete language barrier, patience, grace, and context can get you a long way. If you’re standing at a ticket booth, sitting in a restaurant, or loitering at a concierge desk, there’s a good chance they know what you’re about.
WHAT SHOULD I EAT IN COLOMBIA?
Check out our cheat sheet on Colombian cuisine for a food-obsessed overview of the country's flavors, staples, and signature dishes.
WHAT IS COLOMBIA'S GEOGRAPHY LIKE?
Okay, this is fascinating. One out of every ten species on the planet can be found in Colombia! It’s the second most bio-diverse country in the world (after Brazil – a country 10x its size). And driving around the country for a week helps you understand why Avianca's claim of being the oldest operating commercial airline in the Western Hemisphere (since 1919) isn't remotely far-fetched.
Colombian geography is that extreme. Domestic and international investment in highways and tunnels (Tunel La Linea is the longest tunnel in South America, boring through the Earth for a staggering 8.6km) are rapidly opening the country up to the intranational commute, but it’s decidedly a work in progress.
WEATHER & TEMPERATURE IN COLOMBIA
The airport you choose in this geographically diverse country can make a big difference. An equatorial destination, you won’t see major temperature swings, but whether you’re landing in Bogota vs. Cartagena, for example, weather should factor into your planning.
Temperatures aren’t the only thing you’ll contend with. Whereas Cartagena straddles the Caribbean coastline, Bogotá rests in an upland basin of the Cordillera Oriental within the northern Andes mountains. Its elevation clocks in at a respectable 8,660 feet (2,640 meters) above sea level.
If you’re like us and have lived most of your lives near sea level, you may suffer the effects of high altitude. Bogotá is no Cuzco, Peru – where walking a flight of stairs was a trial – but I still developed a low-level headache shortly after we landed in Colombia. My wife, generally better at handling altitude, reported only a minor feeling of sluggishness. You may get lucky by experiencing only some slight non-travel-related fatigue. And the good news is you should adapt pretty quickly.
If you’re traveling with little ones, check out our post about the effects of altitude and symptom mitigation in children.
No altitude-induced headaches in Cartagena but get ready for dependably humid air and plenty of Caribbean heat. Temps at the equator feel considerably more intense thanks to the steeper angle of the sun at our lovely planet’s generous waistline. When you're reading, check out one of our favorite itineraries for this Caribbean gem.
GETTING AROUND COLOMBIA
Driving a rental vehicle?
Roadways are being improved at a breakneck pace, but much of the country is still for serious drivers only. Moreover, your GPS is virtually guaranteed to mislead about the time it will take to reach your destination.
Locals universally rely on the navigation app Waze for the most up-to-date traffic information, including warnings about the simultaneously respected and loathed speed cameras that are ubiquitous in parts of the country. To date, however, Waze does not offer the same offline map functionality as Google Maps because Waze is focused on real-time data whereas Google Maps can be downloaded before your trip for more reliable offline use. We recommend downloading maps of your routes via Google Maps and/or using Waze when your cellular service is available.
We've gone into crazy detail about using Waze and Google Map in tandem to get the best our of your travel, including the added power of having Maps.Me for backup. We even go into detail about how to use Google Street View to check recent road conditions. If you're curious, that article is a must-read.
As driving at night is something of an extreme sport, it’s nearly vital to plan for long trips to begin early in your day. The roads, distances, hairpin curves, and incredibly aggressive drivers will also wear drivers out more quickly than usual. Mistakes on Colombia roads can get you into a bad situation in the blink of an eye.
As hinted at above, almost every adventurous driving itinerary for Colombia is overly ambitious. The roads and the geography are a huge impediment to getting to see everything you’d like in one sweep. If you’re dead set on exploring as much as possible, your best bet is booking inexpensive flights through Colombia’s many hubs to explore the cities and day-trip the surrounding areas with a combination of brief car rentals and/or one-way rentals. The benefit more than makes up for the time it takes to secure the vehicle.
If you’re driving, hyper-vigilance is the name of the game. Many destinations outside cities demand a vehicle with some ground clearance. You can get lucky with a drive that consists of 90% paved roads, only to encounter an area where seismic zones with huge dips. Rain and mudslides frequently wash out portions of smaller paved roads.
And all of this is to say nothing of entire swaths of your journey that may include vehicle-sized mud holes or ruts deep enough to strand cars with lower ground clearance.
The first time you see an oncoming vehicle adorned with multi-colored lights that flash and twinkle, you might think to yourself that Colombian drivers exercise serious artistic flair. After driving for five minutes on the open road, you will quickly get it. Driving in Colombia can feel like an extreme sport. Our post on driving in Colombia in an absolute eye-opener.
Taking a Bus? If you’re not completely confident in (or deluded by) your driving proficiency, bussing around the country is an option. Due to heavy traffic within 20-30 miles (30-50km) of a city, or along certain heavily trafficked routes, and combined with poor roads in areas, the going can be extremely slow. As long as you’re not in a hurry, it’s a great option. That being said, many Colombian bus drivers are as aggressive as anyone on the road. I saw long-haul buses navigate traffic jams like maniac daredevils, forcing oncoming traffic to the shoulder while passing.
Flight-hopping? Many everyday commuters travel Colombia’s inexpensively friendly skies. Among the longest-transited commercial airspace in Latin America, Colombian air travel is a matter of necessity. Rough terrain and evolving roadway infrastructure makes flying a no-brainer. We found the combination of air travel and car rentals to be a great way to see the country.
RENTING A CAR (HURRY UP AND WAIT)
QUICK TAKES
· Your driver license will suffice. No International License needed
· Get a credit card that offers rental car insurance coverage
· To ease congestion, Colombia cities restrict driving days
One of our essentials to renting a car is to carry a credit card that offers among its perks some kind of built-in insurance coverage. We'll tell you all about it here, but let's just say, aside from country-mandated liability, there are few things more pleasing than declining all that expense coverage at the rental counter. “Decline! Decline! Decline!”
Certainly, if you can lock in an online rate before you arrive, that’s a great strategy.
This isn’t Europe, so booking a small car with low clearance is not a good idea. Despite having seen locals driving cars through the mountains, to this day I have difficulty imagining how they manage such a feat. Colombian roads outside cities come in every conceivable shape and size. You think you know potholes? We’ve seen vehicles drive into them and momentarily disappear from view.
A word of caution for renting a car in Colombia: Wear comfortable shoes. Once you’ve stepped up to the rental counter, you can expect to be there for up to thirty minutes while a small mountain of administrative paperwork is completed.
Besides the bureaucratic rite of passage, the annoyance of waiting is happily offset by kindly customer service. Everywhere we rented a car clerks were consistently outgoing and super friendly. Read our complete post about Car Rentals in Colombia for detailed tips about renting a vehicle for your visit.
PICO Y PLACA (RENTAL DRIVERS MUST-READ)
Colombian cities like Bogotá, Cali, Medellin, and many others rely on a system to reduce traffic congestion throughout the work week. That means, depending on the last two digits of your rental vehicle’s plate number, you may not be permitted to drive starting at 6:30 am on certain weekdays. Bogotá does allow you to pay extra for the privilege driving on restricted days, but other cities do not.
Learn all about the restrictions, which cities enforce them, where to find up-to-date information about which plate numbers are affected each week, and tips for ensuring Pico Y Placa doesn’t put an abrupt pause on your travel plans.
COLOMBIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
We have two fun features for you to learn a lot about this complicated and fascinating country. First, as you travel around you'll see the name Simón Bolívar everywhere. Who was he? Read our article on his fascinating story to find out.
We also have a great list of fun facts, and recommended books and movies all about Colombia!
If you have any other questions, feel free to drop us a line or leave a comment!
Wanna Make Your Colombia Trip Even Better? Click below to check out some curated picks for making life easier when traveling with (and without) small children.
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