Christmas and Easter travel

Christmas and New Year are high season for travel in Colombia. Colombians themselves will leave cities and travel to the coast and other destinations.

Implications

The main implications for travel during these periods are cost and availability. To give yourself the best possible chance of organising your travel, aim to book as far in advance as possible. For example, for Christmas travel, to have the best choice and most sensible prices you should be looking to bolt down your plans by the end of August.

Be flexible, if travelling between the middle of December and the middle of January, let us organise your travel to avoid high season at the destinations most compromised by seasonality. The same goes for travel that spans Easter.

The implications are different for different destinations.

Large cities

It’s not all bad news, big cities like Medellín and Bogotá have an oversupply of high quality hotel accommodation. Travelling during high season potentially lets you get a great deal. Christmas and New Year in Bogotá can be quiet. Medellín is famous for its Christmas lights and despite the Paisa exodus you can still find bustling bars for a great New Year celebration.

Cartagena

Our preferred hotels in Cartagena are all small boutique properties with 8-10 rooms each. After August these properties are fully booked. Larger properties in the walled city are sometimes available but at greatly increased rates.

Bocagrande might offer the best value accommodation.

Santa Marta and Tayrona

Santa Marta and Tayrona are known for having the best beaches in Colombia and are very popular with Colombians travelling during high season. Whilst we do not focus our attention on Rodadero or Santa Marta city itself, the same applies to Palomino and Tayrona and Taganga.

Once again it can be difficult to secure availability at our preferred destinations along the Tayrona coastline.

Coffee zone

In the coffee zone we offer family run fincas in our round trips The Colours of Colombia and short coffee tours. These fincas tend to be rented to entire families for the Christmas, New Year and Easter periods.

In the coffee zone we have a provisioning manager on the ground able to confirm great finca options that are run very much like a hotel. So it will normally be possible to find a great alternative at a reasonable price.

Villa de Leyva

Villa de Leyva is very popular with Bogotanos during high seasons. Hotel availability, especially at New Year will be compromised.

Barichara

To a lesser extent Barichara might offer reduced availability during the high season.

Other destinations

San Agustín and Popayán can be great places to visit at Christmas and New Year. San Agustín’s archeological attractions might be closed for a day around Christmas but hotel availability will be good.

As mentioned above. Larger cities such as Bogotá and Medellín have plenty to offer. How about a brisk Christmas Day hike in Parque Chicaque, a trip to Zipaquirá or a day out in Guatapé and El Peñón.