With Colombia being an up-and-coming travel destination and the first stop on our South America adventure, we had very little idea of what our costs would be. To our delight, we found Colombia to be substantially cheaper than we expected and one of the most affordable countries in South America. It’s affordability coupled with the plethora of fun things to do should push Colombia to the top of your travel list! This post covers how much it costs to travel Colombia by breaking down our all of our expenses for the just over 2 months we spent there!
Highlights
Let’s cut right to the chase. Here’s how long we stayed, where we visited and what we spent. Keep in mind, costs below are the total costs for a couple in their 20s traveling together.
Days Spent Traveling in Colombia: 62
Places Visited: Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena, Jerico, Jardin, Manizales, Santa Rosa de Cabal, Salento, Filandia, Buenavista, Cali
Total Amount Spent: $4,300
Cost per day (couple traveling together): $70
Colombia Travel Cost Details
Looking for a little more info? Curious if/where you can cut some costs? For every country we visited, we broke up our expenses into the following buckets: Food & Drink (including groceries), Transportation, Accommodation, Entertainment, Shopping, Laundry, and Other. For Colombia, here’s how much we spent in each category:
- Food & Drink: $1,400
- Transportation: $750
- Accommodation: $1,130 ($18/night!)
- Entertainment: $690
- Shopping: $75
- Laundry: $25
- Other: $170 (Gifts, Sim Cards, Pharmacy, Nail Salons, etc.)
How To Travel For Less In Colombia
Looking to really keep expenses down? For Colombia, your best bet is to cook often and stay in dorm beds. Only using buses will also slightly lower your cost per day as our cost analysis includes 4 domestic flights. However, domestic flights in Colombia are very affordable (<$50USD/person) and can be booked last minute so in our minds they were worth the convenience.
Highlights from the Entertainment bucket include:
- Soccer Game – Medellin
- Day Tour to Los Nevadas National Park – Manizales
- Cocora Valley Hike – Salento/Filandia, Colombia
- Horseback Riding – Filandia, Colombia
- Private 1-on-1 salsa lessons – Cali
You will also likely spend less on Entertainment. We spend almost 3 weeks is Cali and spent a couple hundred dollars on salsa lessons! So worth it if you have the time!
More Helpful Stuff
Cost Analyses
Looking to learn more about how much it costs to travel South America? Check out how much we spent in each of the following countries.
- Peru Backpacking Cost
- Chile Backpacking Cost
- Brazil Backpacking Cost
- Argentina (Coming Soon)
Nick and Michelle Travel Guides
Whenever there’s a city with a hyperlink in these posts, you’ll open up a link to one of our travel guides!
Notes
All costs are current as of October 2019. The exchange rate while we were in Colombia was roughly 3400 Colombian Pesos (CLP) to $1 USD.
Although we tried our best to catch every expense, it’s likely some slipped through the cracks. We’d estimate our numbers are within 5% of our actual total.
There you have it our, our Colombia Travel Costs post! From us to you, happy adventuring!