Cartagena, Colombia Travel Guide

I’m sure you have all seen my multiple vacation pics from our trip to Cartagena, Colombia. So I figured I would compile them all in one spot for easy access!

I kind of love when I tell someone where I’m going on vacation and they say “wow really? Why there?” This happened with pretty much everyone I told about our trip to Cartagena. Let’s start with why we decided on Cartagena in the first place and then I’ll get into the things you must do while there.

Why Cartagena?

To be honest, it was a super random trip that I booked on a whim. It started with our friends going there on their honeymoon this past October. Their trip looked so amazing and I think that sort of planted the seed in the back of my brain that I needed to go there.

Also, pretty much any time I return from one vacation, I’m ready to plan my next one. We traveled to El Salvador and Panama in December and January (I promise I’ll get to that travel guide soon). When we got home, I was immediately ready to hop on another plane to go somewhere else I had never been.

Cartagena, here we come!

Back to the seed being planted for Colombia. Our friend’s trip was in the back of my mind and then I started seeing more hints that I needed to plan a trip there. I read about a new luxury hotel opening in Cartagena and thought “hmm this must be an up and coming spot if a large luxury brand is opening a hotel there.” Then, I kept seeing photos and posts about Cartagena on Instagram.

The trend continued from there, which convinced me to start looking up flights. I turned to my good friend, Google flight tracker, and started searching for flights within the next couple of months. I found round trip airfare on JetBlue for $365 per person. LIKE WHAT!?! You can’t even fly somewhere in the U.S. for that cheap! So, of course, I immediately text Nick and demand that he allow me to book the flights. His response was “well I really want to go to Yellowstone National Park” (LOL). I promised we would go later this year or sometime next year, but for now, we cannot pass up this insane deal. He agreed and I immediately booked those flights! Cartagena, here we come!!!

And why not bring some friends?

I eventually convinced our friends Ashley (who also has a blog – With Love and Happiness) and Andrew to join us – trust me, it didn’t take much convincing. And if you’re thinking about going to Cartagena, I don’t think you’ll need much convincing either. I know Cartagena isn’t the major “hot spot” right now, but it is definitely going in that direction – which means, it’s better to go now before it gets super expensive or becomes too “Americanized.”

Now, let’s get down to what to do while you’re there

(because hopefully, by now, I’ve planted the seed that you need to go).

Explore Old Town, Cartagena

Also known as The Walled City. It consists of cobblestone streets, the cutest cafes, restaurants, and shops. The entire old town is enclosed by a walled fortress. There are small openings, called gates, spread throughout the wall where you can enter the city by car or foot. The fortress was built in the 16th century to protect the city from numerous attacks by pirates. Nick loves pirates so he found this fascinating.

The walls are all still standing, which is insane to think about after over 500 years. Along the walls you will see small holes for guns and cannons that still exist – also used to protect the city. Once you are inside, you will find plazas spread throughout the town with live performers, artists, and street vendors selling all types of goodies. My favorite part of the city is the colorful streets – each house is a different color and covered in the most beautiful flowers and vines.

I’m going to break down Old Town even further because this is where you really want to go out to eat, drink, dance and shop.

Let’s start with the restaurants:

La Cevicheria

Located in downtown Old Town. This is some of the best ceviche and fresh seafood you will have! La Cevicheria was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” which might lead you to believe that it is a tourist pit. But it was nice to see that it really was not at all! We shared a communal table with a local family and should have copied everything they ordered because it looked and smelled amazing. If you are a hot sauce lover, like most of our group, then you must try their hot sauce. Our friends brought it home for us on their honeymoon and we ended up buying four bottles to bring back with us – two for them and two for us.

Demente

Located in the heart of Getsemani. It’s a tapas restaurant, but also features wood-burning oven pizzas.  We tried the ahi tuna and it was honestly the best I’ve ever had. I am not a huge seafood person, but this was the freshest and most tasty tuna I’ve eaten. In the back, they have a large open patio with communal seating at picnic tables. It is a more casual place, but the atmosphere is great and the food and drinks were delicious. If you want to go out after dinner, I suggest starting here and walking over to Cafe Havana after for live music and salsa dancing.

El Baron

Located in the Plaza de San Pedro. The location alone sells this place. We sat in the middle of the plaza with easy sightline to the beautiful church across from us, street performers and the best people watching. Another tapas style restaurant with a variety of options. My favorites were the burrata with beet jam and the “grilled cheese” (which was actually a grilled ham and cheese sandwich) served with tomato soup.

Going out at Night:

*There was this crazy rule enforced the weekend that we were in Cartagena. Apparently it was Election Day, so no establishments (bars, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, etc.) were allowed to sell or serve alcohol. This was enforced from 6PM on Saturday to 6AM on Monday. I highly suggest researching this before you go to see if it might affect your trip.*

With that being said, we didn’t really get to go out at night too much. The one place we did visit is the place I mentioned above:

Cafe Havana

Also located in Getsemani. Nick and I stopped by around 10:15 PM and the place was dead. We thought we would pop in and check it out, but there was also a $10 cover charge. So we decided we would pay the cover charge, check it out and come back in an hour when the place gets busy. In the meantime, we went and had a drink somewhere nearby (this was Friday night so we were still able to drink).

Around 11:30 PM we returned to Cafe Havana and the place was packed. We got the last two bar stools at the bar – every other table and bar stool was occupied. There was a live band consisting of 6 women playing salsa music. Before we knew it, everyone in the place was salsa dancing in any little space they could find. There wasn’t necessarily a dance floor, the entire place became a dance floor.

Nick and I pretended to know how to salsa dance, but mostly just watched in amazement as the locals took over the “dance floor.” This is a must visit even if you don’t dance – the people watching is amazing and you will see all different age ranges tearing up that dance floor.

Other things to do:

Rent a boat to the Rosario Islands

This was BY FAR my favorite part of our trip. We rented a boat through Boating Cartagena for the day on Monday. We had a 33 ft. boat with a captain and assistant from 9AM to 5PM. It was a private boat for just the four of us. They provide you with coolers, ice and bottled water. You can then bring anything you want on the boat. We loaded up on snacks and alcohol for the boat and ate fresh seafood in the water at the Baru Island for lunch.

The Freshest Seafood for Lunch

The captains don’t speak English, but the guide we worked with to set everything up spoke perfect English. We traveled to about 4 different islands, snorkeled, swam and ate the freshest seafood ever. In the picture above, you see plates of lobster in a small boat – those guys pull up and sell fresh lobster in the water.

For lunch, we sat in chairs in the water under a hut. We ordered platters of seafood to share that was better than any seafood I’ve ever had. One thing to keep in mind when traveling to the islands – make sure you have enough cash (and local cash – Colombian Pesos, not American dollars). We ran out of cash and had to pay by credit card and they charged us a 15% fee for using a credit card.

We only had a few days in Cartagena, but we took advantage of our time and packed in quite a few things. As far as where to stay, I would suggest staying close to old town. We stayed at the Hilton Cartagena and it was about a 15 minute taxi ride to downtown and only $4.00 each way. I thought our location was perfect for what we wanted to do – easy cab ride to old town and close to the pier where we got on the boat. I would also highly suggest looking into small boutique hotels in Old Town. We passed quite a few on our walks and they looked amazing – and you can’t beat the location!

I am already starting to think about my next trip…leave a comment below with any suggestions!

❤️ xoxo,

Whit

If you are interested in any of the items I’m wearing in the photos above, you can shop them below: