Colombia

Colombia is the country that changed the most between when I first heard about it and when I finally arrived. The gap between reputation and reality is wider here than almost anywhere I have traveled. What you find is a place of extraordinary physical beauty — three Andean cordilleras, two coastlines, Amazon jungle, coffee highlands — populated by people whose warmth and pride in their country borders on evangelical. They want you to love it. You will.

The Caribbean Coast

Cartagena is the postcard, and it earns that status honestly. The walled old city is one of the most beautiful urban environments in the Americas — a fever dream of bougainvillea, colonial balconies, and Caribbean light that turns the stone walls amber at dusk. But Cartagena is also a lesson in looking past the obvious. The real city lives in Getsemaní, in the street food stalls of Bazurto market, in the Rosario Islands where the tourist infrastructure thins and the water turns impossible shades of blue.

Farther up the coast, Santa Marta is the gateway to Tayrona, a national park of forest-backed beaches and boulder-strewn coves where you walk in on trails from the road. Beyond it, Palomino is a long stretch of beach where a river runs down from the Sierra Nevada to the sea, and the Sierra itself holds the Lost City trek and the communities of the Kogi and Arhuaco peoples, who have lived in these mountains for centuries. Inland, Mompox is an old river town on the Magdalena where time seems to have stopped, with whitewashed colonial churches and a long waterfront.

Out in the western Caribbean, San Andrés and Providencia Island have a culture of their own, with Raizal Creole traditions and the seven-color sea that locals describe. Providencia is the quieter of the two, a mountainous island ringed by coral.

Medellín and Antioquia

Medellín is the story everyone wants to tell, and for good reason. A city that was once the most dangerous on earth has become one of the most innovative, with a public transit system that doubled as social policy, neighbourhoods reborn through architecture and investment, and a creative scene — music, food, design — that hums with the energy of a place that knows exactly how far it has come. The Medellín Innovation district shows how much has changed, and the cable cars that climb the hillsides give a view of the whole valley.

Just outside the city, Guatapé is a lake town of painted reliefs on every house, and the Piedra del Peñol is a huge granite monolith with a staircase of some 700 steps to the top, rewarded by a view over the reservoir’s islands and inlets. Jardín is a small, colorful town in the coffee hills farther south-west, with a plaza full of café tables.

The Coffee Region

The coffee region south of Medellín is gentle and green, the farms terraced into mountainsides where hummingbirds outnumber people. Salento is the main base, a village of brightly painted balconies at the edge of the Cocora Valley, whose wax palms rise up to sixty meters, the tallest palm in the world. Staying on a working farm, watching the harvest and tasting the beans in the cup is the best way to see how Colombian coffee is made. Many fincas offer a walk through the plantation, a lesson in picking and drying, and a cupping at the end, and several also have rooms where you can stay overnight. The Cocora Valley hike is best done early in the morning, before the clouds roll in and the trail fills up, and the Willys jeeps that serve as the town’s taxis make a fun way to get there.

Bogotá and the Andes

Bogotá sits at around 2,600 meters on a high plain, and is bigger, grayer and more cultured than visitors expect, with the Gold Museum, the colorful old quarter of La Candelaria, and street art on every other wall. Around the capital, Villa de Leyva is a perfectly preserved colonial town with a huge cobbled plaza, and Barichara in Santander is one of the prettiest villages in the country, a whitewashed place of stone streets. San Agustín in the south holds an archaeological park of mysterious carved stone statues, set among green hills. Cali, the capital of salsa, is the heart of the Pacific side and a good place to dance.

Rivers, Jungle and Color

For a very different Colombia, Leticia sits on the Amazon where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet, a base for river trips and jungle lodges. And in the Macarena mountains, Caño Cristales is a river that turns red, yellow and green with aquatic plants in the right season, a short window when the water level is right. Access is limited and controlled, so book through an authorized operator and check current conditions.

Safety varies by region and changes over time. Check your government’s current travel advice, stay on tourist-friendly routes in border areas, and listen to local advice about where and when to travel, especially at night.

When to go: December through March is dry season in the Andes and Caribbean coast. June through August offers a second dry window. Cartagena is hot year-round — magnificently, unapologetically hot. The coffee region is pleasant at any time, its altitude tempering the equatorial sun.

What most guides get wrong: They skip the Caribbean coast beyond Cartagena. Santa Marta is the gateway to Tayrona National Park and the Lost City trek, one of the great multi-day hikes in South America. Palomino is a beach town that still feels like a secret. The coast between Cartagena and the Venezuelan border is an entire trip in itself.

Photography: Pexels contributors.