Medellin Travel Guide: An Instruction Manual for an Unforgettable Trip

Go Beyond the TripAdvisor Top 10

This post is part of Everything to Know Before Visiting Medellin, a collection of no-B.S., unique guides to an unforgettable stay in Colombia.

We made this atypical Medellin travel guide because we're tired of travel guides that tell us exactly what's "must do" but are really just rewrites of the TripAdvisor top 10.

Instead of telling you what to do, we're going to share with you what we think you should know about Medellin: what's where, what's unique, what's tasty, and what's nearby and worth checking out too.

We'll also make some specific recommendations, but those are more to give you an idea what's out there.

Try some things we recommend for sure, but also make your own discoveries. That's how we had our favorite experiences during our six months living in Medellin, and that's how you will too.

Ready? Listos?

Let's get into this Medellin travel guide.

Medellin Travel Guide Outline

Before You Visit Medellin

Is Medellin Dangerous?

Yes.

The parts of Medellin you're likely to visit are more dangerous than comparable areas in North America or Europe.

For instance, we heard no shortage of stories of friends and friends' friends and readers getting mugged, mostly when they were drunk and stumbling home alone, but even in broad daylight.

And no.

On the other hand, the vast majority of people we know and met, including many idiots who were asking for trouble, had no issues.

To stay safe, keep your valuables (including your phone) concealed in public, dress and act to blend in, heed locals' warnings about certain areas, and be extra careful at night. Common sense.

map of Medellin, Colombia comunas
Perhaps the most important decision you'll make is where to stay.

Where to Stay in Medellin

The mistake most newcomers make—we made it too—when trying to figure out where to stay in Medellin is to ask, "Should we stay in El Poblado or Laureles (or even Envigado)?"

Those districts are too huge. Your best bet is to find the barrio within one of those districts that's best for you.

Our guide of where to stay in Medellin ranks the city's top barrios in 12 criteria including food, safety, and affordability. That way, you can pick the ones that matter most to you and decide on the perfect place.

If you're too "busy" to go through that whole guide, here's a super-fast intro to the top 10 barrios we recommend you consider:

  • Central Poblado: Most popular area for both tourists and long-term foreign residents. I sometimes almost forget I’m in Colombia when I’m in this part of town.
  • Lower Poblado: More conveniently-located and low-key than Central Poblado. Still unmistakably Gringolandia.
  • La Florida, Poblado: Swanky high-rise hotels and apartments, malls, and not much street-life.
  • Central Laureles: Far from the metro, but full of cafés and eateries. It's where people who think El Poblado is "too gringo" go.
  • La 70, Laureles: Closer to the metro than Central Laureles and more lively, for better and for worse.
  • Northern Laureles: Laid-back, almost too laid-back, and well-to-do residential neighborhood.
  • Central Envigado: Envigado’s small but happening “downtown” feels like you’re not in Medellin anymore, which was indeed the case not too long ago.
  • El Dorado, Envigado: A true neighborhood feel, with row houses that have shops, bars, mini-markets, and other small businesses all along its narrow streets.
  • Northern Envigado: Less street life than El Dorado, but a larger fine-dining / entertainment district, La Calle de la Buena Mesa.
  • Downtown Medellin: On the rise and in the middle of the action. The most central for tourists during the day, but not the best at night.

Check out our Medellin neighborhood guide to decide which of these is best for what you're looking for.

Biking over bridge in El Poblado, Medellin
El Poblado is lush, green, and expensive. Some love it, some hate it. Use our guide to decide if it's right for you.
Kim in supermarket holding plantain/bananas in her hands
Which hand is holding a banana, right or left? Trick question. The answer is neither. This is one of the (less important) things you might want to know before coming to Medellin.

Things to Know Before Coming to Medellin

Like everywhere, there are ups and downs to Medellin. And like everywhere, nobody tells you them before you get there.

Here are some of them—a quick cheat sheet of 10 good, bad, and fun things to know before coming to Medellin.

Things you should know before coming to Medellin

For all the details and twelve more things to know before coming to Medellin, see the full post.

Things to Do in Medellin

Chris looking down on Medellin from Cerro Pan de Azucar
The backdoor hike to Parque Arvi has the best, and we mean best, views of the Medellin.

Our Top 10 Favorite Experiences

In the six months we lived in Medellin, we tried to see and experience everything. We gave the touristy things a go and explored all sorts of spots even locals had no idea about.

Of all our amazing (and not-so-amazing) adventures, these were our top 10 absolute favorites (in no particular order):

  1. Hiking Parque Arvi through the back door
  2. Forgetting Narcos and doing the Real City walking tour
  3. Gorging on as many menu del dias as we could all over the city
  4. Eating the most humongous piece of "mega-bacon" we've ever seen at La Gloria de Gloria
  5. Heading for the hills to go hiking
  6. (This one's a secret)
  7. Escaping Medellin and visiting pueblos like Venecia, Jardin, and Jerico (NOT Guatape)
  8. Feeling like a superhero while paragliding
  9. Spending an afternoon checking out the highlights in Laureles
  10. Enjoying the best of El Poblado

For all the details on these amazing experiences, a handful more that just barely missed the list, and some things we recommend not to do, check our atypicial guide of things to do in Medellin.

Overrated and Underrated Medellin Attractions

We have the sometimes contentious opinion that some Medellin's "top" tourist attractions should be on the bottom of your to-do list.

They're not all terrible (except Pueblito Paisa). It's just that there are likely better ways to spend your time and money.

Here our favorite examples:

  • Overrated: Laureles, Parque Arvi, Pueblito Paisa, Uber, Poblado farmers market, Guatape
  • Underrated: Envigado, every other Medellin park, Cerro Pan de Azucar, taxis, Mercado Minorista, Jerico
Envigado best things to do guide cover image of a man sitting in front of a house
Read our Envigado guide then come over and hang out with this guy.

Don't Overlook Envigado, Medellin's Version of Brooklyn

Located right next to the high-flying, rapidly-modernizing El Poblado district of Medellin, Envigado remains a hard-working, urban, unpretentious town that's yet to be swallowed up by globalism (or hipsters).

It's a pre-hipster Brooklyn.

We lived there for two amazing months. Here are some of our favorite things about it:

  • The Neighborhood Feel: There aren't many "highlights" in Envigado, but it's a great place to wander. Kids play on the streets, old men sit on tables drinking guaro while watching life pass by, and crazy Christmas displays decorate the whole town in December. And nowhere did we feel safer.
  • The Restaurants: There's a fine-dining area called La Calle de la Buena Mesa, where you can pick where to eat based on your cravings that evening. In super neighborhoody El Dorado are some of our favorite spots like Pedacito de Amor and Pizzeria Burro. And there are La Gloria de Gloria and Trifasico with their enormous slabs of meat.
  • Otraparte: The coffee isn't that good and the WiFi sucks, but even so El Cafe de Otraparte is the cafe / hang out area we miss most about Medellin.

There's A LOT more than this, of course, which you can read all about in our comprehensive Envigado guide.

What Everybody Other Blogger Recommends for Medellin

When we moved to Medellin we read a lot of blog posts on what to do and see.

Then we had the idea of compiling all those recommendations into one.

Things quickly got out of hand.

By the end, we had consolidated tips from over fifty travel blog posts. The compilation is enormous and overwhelming, but maybe you'll find it helpful. 

Check it out.

Eating and Drinking in Medellin

Kim holding up chicharron at La Gloria de Gloria in Envigado
Good luck tackling the chicharron platter at La Gloria de Gloria by yourself. This arm-length piece is only about 1/4 of the whole meal.

Medellin's Best Restaurants for 20 Unique Occasions

We can't honestly tell you which are the "best restaurants in Medellin" because we haven't been to every one and tried every dish. Nobody has. But we can recommend some restaurants for specific occasions and cravings. For example:

  • If you want to impress your partner with a romantic picnic in the park, go to In Situ
  • If you need a rest, refresh, and refueling in Mercado Minorista (Medellin's city center produce market), go to Aqui Paro Lucho
  • If you want Colombian cuisine with a modern, adventurous, and delicious twist, go to Alambique (probably our favorite restaurant in Medellin)
  • If you want to get high and/or eat really good gelato, go to Nuovo Fiore

We have twenty recommendations in total. Check out our Medellin restaurant guide for all of them.

Espiritu libre main dish from above
Unleash your tastebuds on this menu del dia from Espiritu Libre.

Medellin's Best Lunch Specials

Lunch is the best time to go out for food in Medellin. You can get high-quality, delicious meals including soup, a main course, a drink, and sometimes dessert for $3 to $6 USD. These specials are called menu del dias.

There are so many restaurants with menu del dias that it can be overwhelming, so Chris went a bit overboard to help you out. He went to over hundred places then made a list of his forty favorites.

See them all in his huge menu del dia guide.

Supermarket basket full of Colombian cheeses
Not knowing anything about the Colombian cheeses, we bought 18 of them and did a blind taste test.

The Best Colombian Coffee, Beer, Cheese, and Aguardiente

Are you sure your tastes aren't affected by branding and appearances?

We aren't.

And that's why do blind taste tests. In Medellin, we did some to determine who truly has the best coffee, beer, cheese and aguardiente in Colombia (or at least Medellin).

Here are the surprising blind taste test results:

  • Best coffee: Rituales Cafe. Hands down. Read the full post here
  • Best lager beer: Heineken. Ugh. We can't believe it either. Read all about it here.
  • Best Colombian cheese: None. But if you force us, we'd take queso pera. Learn all about the weird Colombian cheeses here.
  • Best aguardiente: Aguardiente is the local liquor and the best from our taste test (here) was Amarillo de Manzanares. More importantly, and regardless of which aguardiente brand you drink, read these nine surprising facts first.
Kim having a chocolate Santafereno, one of our favorite Colombian drinks
Some Colombian drinks… involve eating too.

An Intro to Colombian Drinks

You already know about Colombian coffee, but do you know what vichemazamorra, and guarapo are?

Here's a quick vocab lesson:

  • Chicha: A fermented corn drink that was the locals' drink of choice before the Spanish came and screwed things up.
  • Viche: A home-brewed moonshine made from sugar cane that’s popular on Colombia’s Pacific Coast
  • Chocolate Santafereño: Hot chocolate with cheese inside.
  • Limonada de Coco: A hugely popular and super delicious and refreshing blend of coconut and lemonade.
  • Mazamorra and Claro: Corn-infused milks that often come with your menu del dia (lunch special).
  • Guarapo and Aguapanela: Drinks made from sugarcane. Guarapo is typically made by pressing the cane itself. Aguapanela is agua mixed with panela, unrefined cane sugar.

And there are even more Colombian drinks to know about. To see them all, where to get them, and how to drink them, check out our guide.

Medellin Getaways

Chris below Chorro del Hato
You can hike to these falls, Chorro el Hato, from the Medellin Metro. Then you can paraglide back down!

Medellin Hikes

The quality and quantity of hikes near Medellin (many accessible by public transit!) was something we didn’t expect before coming. From waterfalls to caves to natural pyramids to Escobar’s old prison, whenever we ventured into the hills we were always rewarded for doing so. And every single time the views are incredible.

If you want to get some fresh air and develop a tight round tush the old-fashioned way (instead of artificially, like many women do in Medellin), we highly recommend it.

Some hikes are hard to find, so we've helped you out with a list of our favorite hikes in and around Medellin. For each hike, you’ll find a guide complete with directions, maps, and photos

Horses in front of a bar in Urrao
A horse-ride-through bar in Urrao, an old-school Antioquian pueblo that's worth exploring.

Nearby Pueblos

Please, please, please don’t spend time in Medellin without visiting at least one of the nearby pueblos. It will completely change your understanding and perception of what Colombia and Antioquia is about.

And Guatape doesn’t count.

We went to a handful of pueblos and recommend them all highly, but there are plenty of others where you're sure to have an extraordinary travel story too. Here are the pueblos we wrote guides to:

  • Jerico – A traditional town for religious pilgrammiges, it's now worth going to for an artisanal food pilgrimage, colorful sunsets, colorful waterfalls, colorful people, and colorful architecture. See what there's to do in Jerico, and what to eat on your own food pilgramage.
  • Jardin – Jardin is a bigger, lusher, and more tourist-friendly version of Jerico. Here are our favorite things we did there.
  • Venecia – Venecia is for you if you don’t want to see any other tourists and/or plan to hike Cerro Tusa (the world’s largest natural pyramid). Read more here.
  • Urrao – The town itself wasn't our favorite, but it was cool for a couple of nights. Most importantly, it's close to the unbelievable and unforgettable Paramo del Sol. Check out these mind-boggling photos in our guide.

Elsewhere in Colombia

Frailejon with paramo and clouds in background
The paramo are a unique ecological area. Read our Paramo del Sol guide to be inspired to go on a one-of-a-kind adventure.

Paramo del Sol Trek

The trek to the Paramo del So is so mind-bogglingly cool that you forget to worry about how cold it can get (…well almost). Up at the highest point in Antioquia, there’s nowhere in the world with scenery like it. Read our guide here. Even if you don't like reading just go there for the amazing photos by our friend Oskar.

Kim driving a tuk-tuk on Playa El Almejal, which is highlighted in our list of things to do in El Valle, Choco, Colombia
See our El Valle guide if you want to hit the beach, jungle, and beach-jungle-waterfalls.

The Pacific Coast

Colombia's Pacific Coast was a no-go zone for a long time. It only very recently opened up for tourism again and started to appear on tourists’ radars. In other words, if you’re an adventure traveler now’s the time to go.

And from Medellin, it's an easy flight from the city center Olaya Herrera Airport.

Not knowing anything about it beforehand, we explored the Bahia Solano area for about a week. It turned out to be is a jungle, waterfall, and deserted beach paradise.

There’s so much to do that we couldn’t help but compile four different guides for the area:

  • 15 travel tips for Colombia's Pacific Coast – Things you should be aware of, including how worried you should be about bugs and rain, what tour not to miss, and how not to miss your flight home.
  • Where to stay around Bahia Solano – The pros and cons of all the options: remote beaches like Playa Mecana and Playa Cuevita, popular spots like El Valle and Playe El Almejal, or places in between like Playa Huina.
  • El Valle travel guide –  Your extensive guide of to this small town El Valle that is so under-covered by tour guides and blogs that even Google Maps doesn’t show its streets.
  • The Right Way to do the Cascada El Tigre tour – This is the only waterfall we've ever seen that falls right onto a beach. It's Chris' wet dream. And if you visit it the right way, you'll see a few more waterfalls and save some money.
People at the bar and bartender at Dos Carreras microbrewery in Bogota
Bogota has a lot more microbreweries than Medellin, like Dos Carreras pictured here. Read our take on whether Bogota's worth visiting or not.

Bogota

You might assume Bogota isn’t worth visiting. It’s too big, busy, dangerous, and cold. That's what we thought.

We were wrong.

You might be as surprised as we were by what Colombia's capital has to offer. Check it out.

And once you've had enough of Bogota and are ready to return to Medellin, consider taking the bus and maybe stopping off somewhere along the way. We went to a town called Honda. It wasn't our favorite, but it was an experience nonetheless. Read all about how (and why) to bus between Bogota and Medellin, and what Honda's like, here.

Favorite Other Sites

Resources and communities that helped us discover many of the items on this Medellin travel guide.

  • Catalyst Weekly is the go-to resource to find out what foreigner-friendly events are going on while you’re in town.
  • The Medellin Expats group on Facebook. It's full of lunatics, idiots, and self-promoters, but if you dig around you can find some truly helpful tips.
  • Kinkaju Hikes and Adventures. Go on a hike, or a beer crawl, with a diverse and friendly group of people including local expats, local locals, and visitors.
  • Tom Plan My Trip. This guy went super deep with info to help you plan your trip to Colombia. You'll find lots of stuff we didn't bother to write because he already said it.
  • Wikiloc. It's the go-to app for finding and sharing hikes in Colombia. You'll have to pay $2.99 US to use it, but it's worth it.
  • The Unconventional Route. That's us. Check out our extensive collection of Colombia-related advice here, ask us questions in the comments, or, if it's private, email us at info at theunconventionalroute.com.

How to Have an Awesome Medellin Trip

For all the ingredients you need to put together a magnificent Medellin trip—where to stay, what to do, what to eat, where else to visit in Colombia—see our Medellin Travel Manual.

And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to share with other readers, please share them in the comments!

Disclosure: Whenever possible, we use links that earn us a cut if you pay for stuff we recommend. It costs you nothing, so we'd be crazy not to. Read our affiliate policy.

11 thoughts on “Medellin Travel Guide: An Instruction Manual for an Unforgettable Trip”

  1. Nice list. Also lived in Medellin for six months, back in 2017…we have the same consensus on Pueblito Paisa. (https://hippospit.com/2019/04/24/pueblito-paisa/)

    What did you think of Colombian cheese? I’m rather impressed that you bought 18 and did a blind taste test…once, when we were living in Envigado, the refrigeration for half of our local Carulla was out for a week. They never bothered to replace the dairy stock…many leaps of faith were made.

    Also wrote a little something about safety in Botero Plaza a little while ago…in case anyone is reading and considering a visit. https://hippospit.com/2018/11/13/botero-plaza/
    Be careful.

    Reply
  2. I'd say that if anyone thinks that any description of any city encompasses the totality of reality, then they have never been to a city. There is no city that isn't variegated from places you shouldn't go to, to places that are perfectly safe…from boring to exciting, etc. I couldn't disagree more with the conclusion that one needs to quickly walk away from Plaza Botero to the metro because it's dangerous or unsavory. I guess unsavory is in the eye of the beholder, but please…cities have all sorts and varieties of people all over the place. Pointing out a transgender prostitute (perhaps not transgender at all – perhaps just a cross-dresser, and presuming that person is a prostitute seems rather judgmental.) So what? That's life in the big city, and they are hardly threatening one's security. I'd also like to point out that there is an ebb and flow over months/years as to what is happening in any particular area. What may have been a couple of years ago may be totally different today. That's also part of the danger of writing/reading reviews.

    Reply
    • Hey Phil. I don't understand: Which pointing out of prostitutes and hurrying from Plaza Botero to the metro are you referring to? I don't believe we mentioned that on the site. Or are you using these as examples to illustrate common misperceptions about Medellin overall? I also hope we aren't giving the impression of claiming to completely explain and outline Medellin with our blog. Like you said, we can't, especially since every person's perception differs. We just want this blog to give readers the tools and motivation to explore with their own fresh and unbiased perspective, which seems to be what you believe in as well! Enjoy Medellin!

      Reply
  3. Why the f*ck would you recommend Heineken, are you nuts? Colombia has amazing domestics and for cheap. Pilsen, Club Columbia, Poker, Aguila, the list goes on. GTFO out of here with that mess.

    Reply
    • Try a Colombian beer blind taste test, like we did. We included Heineken as an outsider and it was the clear winner. We didn't choose. Our palates did. I'm not proud of it.

      And thanks for censoring your commment with the *.

      Reply

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