What to see, do, and eat in Cartagena? All valid questions! Luckily we have Dale from The Maritime Explorer who has recently returned from an Adventures Abroad trip to Colombia and is kind enough to share his insights with our readers. 

In my first post on Cartagena Colombia I gave a brief outline of the history of the place and a recommendation as to where to stay. In this post I’m going to describe some of the things you’ll want to see, a couple of great places to eat and as promised, how to get rid of a mime. This will be my final specific report from Colombia at the end of what has been an eye opening and frankly unexpectedly wonderful trip to this underrated country. As I’ve come to expect over the past 20 plus years I’ve been traveling with Adventures Abroad, you more than get your money’s worth by getting off the usual tourist beaten path while at the same time not missing out on the ‘must see’ attractions. Colombia’s a bit different that way, in that I suspect most people don’t have a pre-conception of what the ‘must see’ places are. I know I didn’t, other than Cartagena which numerous friends who had visited before me, simply raved about. Turns out they were right. Here’s a few reasons why. Continue reading →

Ever wondered what Colombia’s Caribbean city is like?  Read on as we’ve got another instalment by Dale of The Maritime Explorer on a Colombia and Panama tour.

Cartagena Colombia was the final destination on an almost two week tour of Colombia with Canadian travel company Adventures Abroad and it turned out to be the perfect place to wrap things up in this amazing country. After spending much of our time at some very high altitudes with consequently cooler temperatures, it was great to feel the heat of the coast and to see the aqua coloured waters of the Caribbean Sea. Continue reading →

Sometimes the most impactful parts of the journey are getting off the beaten path and discovering what real life is like. We’re excited to share the next chapter from Dale of The Maritime Explorer on our Colombia and Panama tour.  Check out this link for more info on this Colombia tour.

One of the reasons I consistently like to travel with Canadian tour company Adventures Abroad is that they make a real effort to get you off the standard ‘tourist’ itinerary followed by most of their competitors. Because the size of the group is small it is possible to get to places and experience things that are simply not practical for larger groups. Continue reading →

Like many places, the road less travelled is often rewarding. Tucked away in the Colombian heartlands, Jardin is a similar town that is hard to reach but easy to love. Many thanks to Dale of the Maritime Explorer for sharing his experiences in this small town with us after joining a recent Colombia tour.  We hope you enjoy his post as much as we do. 

This is the tenth post on a recent trip to Colombia with Canadian based travel company Adventures Abroad and before leaving I wrote This Post querying whether or not visiting Colombia was really a good idea or not. Now, having been in the country for almost a week, I can say unequivocally that it was the right time to visit. The Colombian people have bent over backwards to express their appreciation that tourists are at last returning to this extraordinarily beautiful and friendly country. This post is about the small town of Jardin which I originally was not going to write about because it was so damn hard to get to. However, on reflection and looking at my photos and the memories they generate, I realized that Jardin is exactly the type of place I should be writing about. It is not your typical tourist town, but I’m not sure it will stay that way once upgrades to the highway system make it more accessible. Here’s why you need to go now. Continue reading →

High in the Andean foothills, in a region bathed equally in sunshine and a cloud forest, we follow Dale from The Maritime Explorer as he shares his recent experience on an Adventures Abroad Colombia tour  Thank you kindly to Dale for allowing us to reshare his experience on our blog.

This is my ninth post from a recent trip to Colombia with my favourite travel company, Vancouver based Adventures Abroad. In the last post, after traveling by plane and bus to the remote town of Salento, we visited the nearby El Ocaso coffee farm and I finally got a taste of just how good real, fresh coffee can be. In that post I commented that I wasn’t that enthused in advance about the coffee farm visit, but certainly changed my mind after being there. The subject of this post is just the opposite. From the time I looked up ‘hiking in the Valle de Cocora’ on my web browser after seeing it on the itinerary, I thought it would be a highlight of the trip and I can now confirm that it was. Please read on and I’ll explain why. Continue reading →

Ever wondered what a rural town in the heart of Colombia’s coffee region would be like?  Join us as we follow Dale from The Maritime Explorer to verdant hills with a quaint village on a tour to Salento Colombia. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, Dale!

This is my seventh post from the country of Colombia and the first outside the environs of the capitol city of Bogota. Our Adventures Abroad group spent an amazing two days in Bogota, so much so that I was able to generate six different posts on just our time there. You can read them on this website. However, it is now time to venture into the Colombian countryside and see if the place is as safe and civilized as we found Bogota. Frankly, despite my extensive travels, I have very little knowledge of rural Latin America and am a blank slate waiting to have new experiences, good or bad, written upon it. Our initial destination is the small town of Salento Colombia in the heart of the Colombian coffee growing region. I hope you’ll come along for the journey. Continue reading →