Recently, we spent 3 months in Colombia. We lived in Medellin and even managed to visit some places around the country despite busy work schedule. Here are some Colombia online travel resources that helped us to enjoy the country.
General Info
- Colombia Official Travel Guide
- Discover Colombia – a comprehensive information source for Colombia, South America. They are a small group of expats, bloggers, adventure seekers, photographers, travel enthusiasts and locals that have a common interest in Colombia.
- Colombia Reports – a Colombian news website in English, founded in 2008 by Dutch journalist Adriaan Alsema and headquartered in Medellín. It claims to be independent and not affiliated with any political or social organization.
- Viajeros (Colombia) – the largest community of travelers in Latin America
- Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia
Visas
- Types of visas
- Information about Colombia (US Department of State)
- Practical information about visas
- How To Extend a Tourist Visa in Medellín (by Medellin Living)
- Residency Options (by International Man)
Airlines
- Avianca
- Copa Airlines
- LAN
- TACA (Transportes Aereos del Continente Americano) became Avianca El Salvador (use Avianca website)
- SATENA – a Colombian government owned airline. It operates regional, domestic and international routes. Its main hub is El Dorado International Airport. SATENA is the only Colombian airline that must exercise presence in regions where nobody else fly due to geography, law and order, and poverty.
- Easyfly – a regional low-cost carrier that operates in Colombia. Its main focus is to serve intermediate cities and those not served by other carriers.
- VivaColombia – a Colombian low-cost airline based in Medellín. VivaColombia is the first true low cost carrier in Colombia. NOTE: you can’t buy their tickets online with non-Colombian credit card. It seems that the problem is not on the credit card side: they are simply not seeing the charge at all and not declining it. Looks like it is Pagos Online issue. VivaColombia offered us to buy tickets at the counter at the airport (however at slightly higher price).
Airfare Search
- Atrápalo – a Colombian aggregator (also search for hotels, cars, cruses and more). Sometimes produces better results for local flights than better-known competitors.
Buses
Online Periodicals and News
- El Colombiano – a national daily newspaper
- El Tiempo – (English: The Times), a national daily newspaper
- El Espectador – (English: The Spectator), a national newspaper
- El Mundo – a daily newspaper, covers Medellín and Antioquia
- Vivir en el Poblado – El Poblado Living (Medellin)
- Colombia Reports – a Colombian news website in English, founded in 2008 by Dutch journalist Adriaan Alsema and headquartered in Medellín. It claims to be “independent” and “not affiliated with any political or social organization.” Source: Wikipedia.
Points of Interest (just a partial list of places we were planning to visit)
- Maps of Santa Fe de Antioquia and Puente Colgante De Occidente
- Santuario de las Lajas, Nariño, map of Santuario de las Lajas
- Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona (read about our experience there)
- Santuario de Fauna y Flora Los Flamencos (read about our experience there)
- Parque Nacional Natural Macuira
- Map of Tatacoa Desert. The Tatacoa Desert or “Sadness Valley”,UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
- The Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral, is an underground church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 200 meters underground in a Halite mountain near the town of Zipaquirá, in Cundinamarca, Colombia. Map of the cathedral.
- Guatapé and El Peñon de Guatape, the famous rock, towering at 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) above sea level. Location map.
Medellin
General Info
- Medellín (by Wikitravel)
- Medellin Living – fantastic source of information about Medellin in English
- Medellín Guide iPhone app (by Medellin Living) – it was very useful while we stayed in Medellin
- Medellin News from Colombia Reports
Transportation
- Metro de Medellín – home page is in Spanishonly, but some internal pages are in both languages. For example, schedule
- How to use metro in Medellin (by Medellin Living)
- Metrocable to Parque Arvi & Piedras Blancas (by Medellin Living) – read about our Parque Arvi experience
- No-go areas in Medellin (by Colombia Reports)
- Easy Taxi – best solution for all your taxi woos in Medellin. Install the app, book a taxi and track it in real time
- Budget Car Rental in Medellin – address: Carrera 43A No 6 Sur-26 C
Medellin, Colombia. Obviously, there are other car rental companies, but we used Budget in Colombia - Jose Maria Cordova International Airport – non-official website of Jose Maria Córdova Airport
Eating out Resources
- Degusta – (in Spanish) recommend, share and discover the best restaurants in your city! Covers Bogotá, Cali, Cartagena and Medellín in Colombia
- Restorando in Medellín – free and instant restaurant reservations
- TULIO Recomienda qué COMER (Tulio recommends what to eat) – among other things, restaurants recommendations in Medelin and Bogota
Accommodations
- Welcometotedellin.com Realty – long and short term rentals, real estate sales, investment
- Paradise Realtor – specializes in international real estate services, property sales, rentals and management
- The Apartment Medellin – furnished apartment rentals
- Poblado Rentals – a luxury apartment rental website
- Oasis Collections in Medellin – Medellin luxury rentals
- Medellin Room Rentals – shared housing, mostly for those who what to learn Spanish in Medellin
- OLX – clasificados gratis en Colombia; best described as a Colombian version of Craigslist
- Casacol – real estate services
- Nueva Alejandria – luxury furnished apartments
- Airbnb.com has good selection of apartments in Medellin. We booked an apartment in Nueva Alejandria building through Airbnb. It was a good experience during our 3 months stay in the City of Eternal Spring
Learning Spanish
- ABC Spanish – a small school run by husband and wife team, Diego Trujillo and Angela Vargas. I studied Spanish with Angela for 7 weeks with great results. She tailored classes for my needs and every lesson was not only about studying language, but learning about Colombian history, culture, and traditions. Instead of mindlessly learning to conjugate Spanish verbs or memorizing words, or any other usual language-learning activity, we were… having conversations. It worked amazingly well for my purpose of learning spoken Spanish.
- UPB Spanish Program – it was mentioned on Medellin Living and was my back-up choice.
Great collection. Bookmarked!
Thanks! Hope you would find it useful.