Colombia Tours

We are not selling Colombia at the moment, and we would rather tell you why than quietly leave the country off the menu.

The reason, and the date on it

On 10 August 2026 a magnitude 7.4 earthquake with its epicentre near San Jose del Palmar, in Choco, struck western Colombia. The confirmed toll is 331 dead and 4,611 injured, with more than 14,000 homes destroyed across twelve departments. It is the deadliest earthquake in the country since 1999.

The problem for a trip, specifically, is where it landed. The coffee region — Caldas, Risaralda and Quindio — is the third pillar of the classic Colombian route and the heart of the itinerary we had designed: three nights around Salento. Pereira and Armenia are among the five worst-affected cities. Risaralda alone recorded 108 deaths, Pereira’s Matecana airport terminal partly collapsed, and seven airports suspended operations.

What we have not been able to establish, as of 12 September 2026, is the thing that actually decides it: whether Salento, the Cocora valley and the coffee fincas are trading normally again. No source we trust says either way. Colombia’s own tourism board site would not load for us.

Selling three nights in the epicentral zone without knowing whether the hotel is standing is not a commercial risk. It is a risk to you. A published itinerary is a promise, and we are not in a position to make this one yet.

What we will do about it

This is not a research problem, it is a phone call. We are asking our suppliers on the ground directly, and the page will change when they answer — not on a schedule, but when we know.

If you want Colombia specifically and you are travelling far enough ahead, write to us anyway. We would rather have the conversation and tell you honestly where things stand in a month’s time than have you book it elsewhere without anyone raising the subject.

What we had built, for when it comes back

The research is done and it does not expire with the news, so here is the short version.

The classic route is Bogota, the coffee region, Medellin and Cartagena, and the order is not negotiable: of twenty-one rival itineraries we measured, Cartagena appears in twenty-one, and not one of them runs Cartagena to Bogota. You start high and finish at sea level. That happens to make Colombia the easiest of the Andean countries on your body — Bogota at 2,640 m is above the threshold at which altitude affects an unacclimatised traveller, but the itinerary only ever descends: 2,640 m, then 1,895 m, then 1,495 m, then the sea. You acclimatise by leaving.

The month is January, and that is measurable rather than a matter of taste. Using Colombia’s own meteorological normals, January is the driest month of the year in Bogota, Santa Marta and Pereira, and the second driest in Cartagena. No other month satisfies all three regions at once. The corollary is the part nobody tells you: July and August are the second Andean dry season but the wet season in Cartagena, so an August trip gets the coffee country at its best and the Caribbean at its worst.

One more thing worth knowing whenever it reopens: Tayrona national park closes three times a year — 1 to 15 February, 1 to 15 June, and 19 October to 2 November — which rules out the longer version of the trip on those dates.

Security advisories and airport status change. The figures on this page were checked on 12 September 2026; if you are reading it much later and it still says the same thing, write to us and push.