Best Activities in Medellin

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Medellin is a lush city in the central Andes range. International flights will usually bring you here or to Bogota, so it’s a great place to start or end your trip. There’s plenty to see during your time in Medellin, and once it’s time to leave, the city is well-connected to just about every other city in Colombia by either plane or bus.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do any birding or much of anything else because I was sick most of the time here. However, I still did a few things and have some additional suggestions on things to do in Medellin. I’ll talk about a couple of walking tours we did and the plans I had but didn’t get to do.

I chose a budget-friendly Airbnb in the Laureles-Estadio neighborhood. It was $40/night and we each had our own bedroom and bathroom (2), and most importantly we could catch up on laundry. The location is close to the metro, which is the easiest way to get around the city. It was also near the meeting point of our early morning Guatapé tour. Unfortunately, this is one of the activities we didn’t get to do when I was sick.

Comuna 13 used to be the most dangerous neighborhood in one of the most dangerous cities and countries of the world. Go check out a tour and learn about its history and how it came to be a popular tourist destination, full of street art and street vendors.

When visiting a big city, one of the first things I always do is look for a free walking tour. It’s a  great way to learn about the city and get oriented. There are usually general tours available and specific ones, like food! We used Real City Tours, but there are several others if the schedule doesn’t fit your itinerary. The guides only earn money on tips, so plan accordingly and have cash. Depending on the country and the tour guide, I usually tip about $10 USD per person.

Day trip to Guatapé

You’ve probably seen photos of a big rock, El Peñol, in Guatapé. It’s a very common overnight or day trip from Medellin. Unfortunately, I got sick and didn’t get to go on this tour, but this is the one I had planned to do.

There’s a park on the northeastern side of the city called Parque Arvi. It’s accessible by a combination of the metro and cable car (fun and all part of the same metro ticket!). This park looks like an awesome place to spend the day. On their website, they have a contact form if you’re interested in scheduling a birding tour.

Transportation

To get to and from the airport, I used Cabify. Traveling to Laureles-Estadio (and probably just about anywhere near the city center) will cost $80,000-100,000 COP, which was about $16-20 USD. It’s definitely possible to catch a bus from the airport and get into town via public transportation, and had I not been traveling with my mom this is what I would have done.

Once in the city, we travelled by metro. You can get a metro card and share it between members in your group. Just make sure you swipe for each person. If you’re only staying for a few days, it probably isn’t worth it to get a Civica card. This is like a frequent traveler’s card and makes you eligible for a slightly lower rate. However, the card costs money to get and there’s a lot of paperwork.

Unless you’re planning on living in Medellin for a few months and using the metro frequently, just get a ticket. If you think you’ll use the metro 6 times (3 roundtrips), you can still load it up with 6 “viajes” (trips) when you get your ticket. Each trip is about $3000 COP.

We were fortunate and our airbnb host left us a metro Civica card. Supposedly these are tied to a person, so not sure how that works, but we never had any issues.

Birds?

I didn’t record any here 🙁