A 3 Day Guide to Medellín, Colombia
After visiting Bogotá for a couple of days, I set off for Medellín. I spent 3 days exploring the city and had a lovely time getting to know different neighborhoods and having new adventures. Here’s my guide to 3 days in Medellín – scroll to the bottom for some bonus tales about solo travel and losing something very important while visiting Medellín.
Some of the Basics
Currency
The Colombian Peso
At the time of writing (Sept 2022), $1 USD = roughly 4,500 pesos. Not a super easy conversion, but fortunately prices tend to be pretty cheap so when in doubt hand over a slightly bigger bill and hope for the best!
Language
¡Español!
Fortunately for me, I spent a year living and studying in Costa Rica and a few months doing the same in Spain, so although my skills are a bit rusty, I can speak Spanish. This is very handy in Colombia because while a lot of people who work in tourism speak at least some English, this is not a given.
When traveling to any country, it’s best to know at least the basics.
Hello – Hola
How are you? – Cómo estás?
Good morning – Buenos días
Good afternoon – Buenas tardes
Good night – Buenas noches
Thank you – gracias / muchas gracias
Weather
Medellín is called the City of Eternal Spring because they have Spring weather year-round. When I visited in September 2022, it was around 75 degrees Fahrenheit / 24 degrees Celsius each day. It did rain each afternoon that I was there, and the temperatures did cool after the storms and in the evening. I recommend packing loose, comfy clothing or shorts and T-shirts to stay cool as well as a jacket to wear when the temps drop.
Getting There
I decided to go to Colombia thanks to an amazing flight deal from Scott’s Cheap Flights. SCF is a subscription service that sends you frequent emails with flight deals to destinations around the world. I booked an astounding $300 roundtrip deal from Charlotte to Tokyo back in 2020, but wasn’t able to go due to the pandemic. However, when the $318 roundtrip flight deal from Charlotte to Bogotá showed up in my inbox, I quickly leapt on the deal. If you’re interested in receiving flight deals, you can sign up for Scott’s Cheap Flights’ free subscription to try it out and then upgrade to their $49/year once you get addicted ;-).
To get to Medellín, I decided to fly from Bogotá. The flight cost about $55 USD on LATAM Airlines including an overhead cabin bag and took one hour. It is also possible to take a direct bus from Bogotá to Medellín, but it takes nearly 9 hours. Many people break up the bus ride by visiting other parts of the country between the two cities, but I had limited time so decided to take the flight.
Getting to the City from the Airport (and vice versa)
Unfortunately, the main airport in Medellín – Medellín Jose Maria Cordova (MDE) – is pretty far away from the city center. There are 3 ways to get to the city center from the airport – a taxi, a collective taxi shared with others, or a bus. This article explains all 3 options really clearly.
I took the bus and then connected to the metro because the taxi was a bit pricey for a solo traveler and had no issues.
Where to Stay
The El Poblado area is the most common area for visitors to stay in Medellín. Unlike Bogotá and Cartagena, Medellín doesn’t have a historical district, so the El Poblado area is simply a part of the city with a high concentration of hostels and hotels.
I stayed at two hostels in Medellín – one for two nights before an overnight trip to Guatapé and another for two nights after.
First, I stayed at Los Patios Hostel, which is absolutely huge and one of the nicer hostels I’ve stayed at (and I say that having stayed at over 3 dozen). It has two buildings around the corner from each other, one of which has a rooftop pool and bar. The dorm room I stayed in was great and had all of the hostel basics I come to expect in the best hostels – bed curtains, a lamp, a shelf, and multiple outlets. The hostel also organizes events every day/night and has several tours that you can book.
One night, I attended an artist talk organized by the hostel. A young, up-and-coming artist from the city displayed his art in the lobby and shared with us how he quit architecture school to pursue becoming an artist full time. The hostel offered free wine to entice us to attend, but I enjoyed the talk and chatting with other guests afterward.
A bed in a 6-bed mixed dorm cost $18.25 USD a night. This is a bit pricier than some other hostels, but I felt the price was worth it for this hostel.
The other hostel I stayed at was Medellín Vibes Hostel, which was also in the Poblado area. This hostel was also very nice. It had all of the basics, a pool, and free breakfast, which is always a nice perk. Medellín Vibes was also the first hostel I’ve been to where they made my bed each day.
A bed in a 6-bed mixed dorm cost $21.72 a night. I did appreciate the very good free breakfast at this hostel, but overall I liked Los Patios better due to their nice common spaces and planned activities.
Getting Around
While I found Bogotá to be huge and tricky to navigate easily due to a crowded and unreliable public bus system and very heavy traffic, Medellín is very easy to get around due to its amazing public transport system.
I highly recommend using Medellín’s metro to get around the city. You can get a transport card at easy-to-use machines at each station for 6,000 pesos (around $1.35 USD) and then each journey costs 3,000 pesos (less than $0.70 USD). The El Poblado metro station is located close to the hostels and hotels in the area, and the city center is just a few stops away.
The city also has a very cool system of metro cables – cable cars that serve as public transport for people who live up in the hills above the city. You can take these cable cars for the same price as the metro.
Safety
Back in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, Medellín was one of the most dangerous cities in the entire world due to Pablo Escobar and guerilla and paramilitary groups throughout the city. Now, however, the city has made a huge turn and is now a major backpacking destination.
I personally never felt unsafe in Medellín, but it is always important to be aware of your surroundings, take extra care with your belongings, and don’t walk around on your own late at night. If you keep these things in mind in Medellín, you shouldn’t have any issues.
Things to Do
Take a Free Walking Tour
I try to do a free walking tour on my first day in any new city to get my bearings, learn a bit of history, and get recommendations for things to do. I did a pretty good walking tour with Real City Tours. They have the highest ranked free walking tour of the city center and their daily tours at 9:30 am and 2:30 pm fill up ahead of time, so book early if you want to do the tour.
I left the tour with a good idea of the history of the city – the good, the bad, and the ugly, but felt the tour was a bit long and included a lot of sitting and listening rather than a lot of walking around. It was 3.5 hours while most tours are 2.5 at most. My guide, Suzy, was very animated and a good storyteller, but I was a bit exhausted by the end.
Overall, I wasn’t really into central Medellín, but fortunately there are cooler areas of the city to explore.
Do a Free Walking Tour of Comuna 13
I have taken a loooootttt of free walking tours in a looooottt of places, but this one was one of the best free tours I’ve ever done. Comuna 13 was one of the most dangerous places in Medellín in the early 2000s, but in the past several years it has really turned around to become a vibrant and thriving part of the city filled with dance groups, rappers, street art, and more.
I went on a tour with Zippy Tours, the best Comuna 13 tour. My guide, David, grew up in Comuna 13 and now leads tours around the community he clearly loves so much. I did the tour on a Saturday and had the fortune to see a performance by the Big Boss Dance Company (@thebigbossdance on Instagram). The group was made up of young people and they even pulled us in to dance with them and learn a few steps. We also got to see a breakdancing performance by Skill Flavor (@skill_flavor on Instagram) that was amazing.
We learned about the beautiful street that has popped up in the past 5 years and what it was like to grow up in the Comuna in the early 2000s with different paramilitary groups controlling the neighborhoods while climbing the hills of the area. We also took escalators up to some of the steeper parts of the Comuna – these escalators are an important part of the public infrastructure that the locals are very proud of and helped Medellín win most innovative city in 2013.
Comuna 13 is hands down the coolest area of the city. It is now very safe to explore the area and enjoy performance art, street art, food, and amazing views of the city.
See Botero Art in Plaza Botero and the Museum of Antioquia
Fernando Botero is a very famous Colombian artist from Medellín known for his very distinctive sculptures and paintings. He donated 23 of his large sculptures to be displayed in one of the main squares of Medellín because he believes in the accessibility of art and wants everyone to be able to experience and interact with it. Plaza Botero is a stop on the Free Walking Tour of the city and is an incredibly busy square. You can pose in front of one of Botero’s many chunky sculptures in the square before heading into the Museum of Antioquia.
This museum features a floor full of Botero pieces as well as two other floors with temporary and permanent collections with pieces from other artists. I love Botero’s fun style and enjoying seeing his pieces along with some more modern art by other Colombians.
It costs 21,000 pesos ($4.75 USD) for foreigners and 10,500 pesos ($2.40 USD) for students and people over 60 to visit the museum. It is open every day except Sundays from 10 am to 5:30 pm.
Go Paragliding!
Medellín is located in a valley and surrounded by mountains that are perfect for paragliding. Before my trip, I looked through Airbnb experiences and found a paragliding experience for $72 USD. The experience has hundreds of 5 star reviews, and for good reason.
A driver picked me up one morning at 9:15 to take me up high above the city. After a 45-minute drive, we arrived at the paragliding company where I checked in and received a short video orientation. I also had the option to add video to my experience for 20,000 pesos ($4.50 USD), which I did because I knew I would want to document the experience.
After signing forms and watching the video, I climbed up a hill to the take-off point and met my pilot. Before I knew it, I had the gear on, the parachute was in the air, and I was running to take off. Then I spent the next 15 minutes soaring above the mountains and waterfalls with amazing views of the city.
It was such a peaceful ride and I felt completely at ease as I admired the views. At the end, my pilot asked me if I wanted to do acrobatics, and he whipped me around and around in tight loops before landing back on the ground. Overall, it was an absolutely incredible experience that I would do again in a heartbeat.
Bonus Stories!
Dinner and Drinks with New Friends
While I do enjoy traveling with friends and family, I also really enjoy solo travel. It pushes me out of my comfort zone and forces me to talk to more people than I normally would. While on my walking tour of Comuna 13, I started chatting with one of the guys on my tour. He was from China and I shared with him that I had lived in Hangzhou in 2019. His face immediately lit up and he told me that he was from there!
He currently lives in San Diego and was on a 10-day trip with 4 of his friends from university. They had been friends for over 30 years and still travel together regularly (Goals!). I chatted with them throughout the tour and they bought me ice cream at one of our stops.
Later in the day, they surprised me by inviting me out to dinner. They were so kind that I had to say yes! That night, I met them at a restaurant in the Poblado area where we had typical Colombian food. I was able to use my Spanish skills to help with translation and was able to introduce them to patacones – fried plantains that were one of my favorite foods from when I lived in Costa Rica. We had a lovely time chatting about China and my lack of Mandarin speaking abilities before going back to their hotel bar for wine to end the night.
At drinks, they toasted in Mandarin to “hometown people” and thanked me for sharing a bit of their home with them. It was such a beautiful experience and really shows how small the world is.
Losing Something Thanks to an Arepa
For years, I have been very nervous about losing something important while living abroad or traveling. Not my passport or credit card or phone.
My front tooth.
When I was 13 or so, I got a bridge put in the front of my mouth because I never had an adult front tooth there. It’s served me well for nearly a decade, but a week into my trip to Colombia, I bit into an arepa in Comuna 13 that was just a bit too crunchy, and the fake tooth came right out.
I immediately had a private little panic on the side of a street in Comuna 13 and proceeded to text my parents and a group chat with friends from college. My parents sent me reassuring texts and my friends told me funny stories and assured me that a missing first tooth is a conversation starter. Then I made my way back to my hostel so I could call my travel insurance company.
Yes, travel insurance! If you don’t buy it for your trips, this is your sign to start! I like to use World Nomads because I think their prices are fair and their coverage is fair. Insurance for my two-week trip to Colombia cost $90 USD and will now cover up to $750 USD in dental work that I’m going to try to have done in Cartagena.
As I write this post, I am still missing a front tooth, but stay tuned for a post about my time in Cartagena and hopefully a post about getting dental work done abroad!
Despite some dental setbacks, I had a great time in the beautiful and lively Medellín. I was inspired by its journey from one of the most dangerous cities in the world to a backpacker haven and loved its innovative public transport and its amazing neighborhood of Comuna 13. It is definitely a must-visit on any trip to Colombia.