Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena, Colombia is a fun and easy trip with direct 3-hour flights from Miami, Florida. It is a coastal city with a warm, Caribbean climate, and much of the local cuisine includes Caribbean dishes. The city offers plenty of history, culture, and delicious food. It’s also on the water, so you can enjoy an evening sunset cruise or check out the local beaches in addition to exploring the city. Cartagena’s beaches are nothing to write home about, but there are islands that are quickly accessible from Cartagena that offer beaches that are typical of what you would expect of the Caribbean region. In addition to the walled city, we really enjoyed the Getsemani neighborhood just beyond the walled city. It had a local flare, even cheaper prices, and was popular with the backpacker crowd because this area offered a number of hostels.

Since we’ve been to a lot of incredible beaches over the years and were heading to Aruba right after Cartagena, we decided to skip the beaches in Cartagena and spent most of our time exploring the historic walled city and surrounding neighborhoods. One thing to keep in mind if you’ll be visiting a Caribbean island after Colombia is that most of the islands require proof of yellow fever vaccination at least 10 days prior to your visit for those who have traveled to Colombia, so make sure you have it if moving onward to the nearby Caribbean is a part of your travel itinerary!

Although hotels are a bit less expensive outside the walled city, we appreciated the convenience of staying in the walled city because this is where most of the action is with plenty of restaurants and shops steps away. We stayed at Alfiz Hotel and would definitely recommend it. More on Alfiz Hotel in the free full itinerary below.

We found the prices in Cartagena to be very reasonable. If you stick with street food and beers, you can have an extremely budget-friendly trip, but even restaurants were more affordable than comparable venues in the United States. For local cuisine, arepas con queso (grilled or fried dough stuffed with cheese), cocados (coconut balls), and seafood were our favorites.