We ducked into an alcove at Cartagena’s fort to let people pass, and somehow scared them instead. That awkward little moment came on a six-night birthday trip to Colombia, and it is one of the pieces this plan is built from: the Old Town, the fort, a food tour and a night out in the Rosario Islands. If you’re putting together a Cartagena itinerary, below is a suggested four-day version, followed by what each part was actually like for us and whether the islands were worth an overnight stay.
One thing to be clear about: the four-day plan is a suggestion, not a record of our trip. We spent six nights in Cartagena and didn’t follow this exact schedule, so the details behind each day come from the parts of our trip that we filmed.
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Our quick verdict
Start in the Old Town on foot, add Castillo San Felipe, and give a food tour its own evening. The fort is worth visiting, but plan for a lot of sun, and the tour was a highlight partly because it took us to food stands we wouldn’t have found ourselves. If you want the Rosario Islands to feel slower and less party-focused than a day out, a night on Coralina Island was worth it for us. Just budget for the boat transfer separately from the room, and know that our return ride was much bumpier than the trip out.
A suggested four-day Cartagena itinerary
This is the order we’d suggest, based on what we did and saw. Boat times and meeting points change, so confirm them with the hotel before you build your days around them.
- Day 1: the Old Town on foot. Walk in through the Clock Tower gate, wander the back streets, and plan a drink stop somewhere with air conditioning. A rooftop gives you a view back toward the gate, and the cafés along the city wall looked like good places to watch the sunset. Expect the Old Town to be far busier after dark than during the day.
- Day 2: Castillo San Felipe and a food tour. Do the fort in the morning, because you’ll be in the sun for nearly all of it, and keep lunch light or skip it. Then join a food tour: the one we booked met near the Old Town’s main entrance at about 4 p.m. and wrapped up with an evening coffee stop.
- Day 3: the boat to Hotel Coralina Island. Take a morning boat out to the Rosario Islands for a night at Hotel Coralina Island. You’ll likely reach the island well before your room is ready (ours wasn’t until 3:00), so the first hours are for loungers, lunch and coffee by the water.
- Day 4: back to Cartagena. The hotel’s own transport page lists an afternoon departure that reaches Cartagena in the late afternoon, so day four is mostly an island morning. Don’t schedule anything tight in Cartagena that evening, and check the boat time before you book a flight.
On our real trip the order was different. The Old Town and the fort came on our first full day, the food tour followed, and the island night came near the end. We left early the morning after we got back.
Wandering the Old Town, starting at the Clock Tower
On our first full day, we entered through the Clock Tower gate and did what we’d come to Cartagena hoping to do: wander. The Old Town is lively, colorful and a little crowded. It reminded us of Old San Juan or New Orleans, with a pirate-town feel, especially once you get a little lost in the back streets.
Watch your feet. The sidewalks are very uneven, with holes that could end in a broken ankle. When we wanted a break, we stopped at Epoca, a coffee shop, bar and small restaurant in a historic building, for a drink, a bathroom and some air conditioning. A rooftop gave us a view of the Old Town entrance we’d come in through, and later we found a plaza beside a church with cafés, where we stopped for another drink. The horse-drawn carriages are there if you like that kind of thing, though they looked overpriced to us for what they are.
The old city wall is worth a stop, too. You can walk around most of it, and the cafés on a few corners looked like good places to watch the sunset. The Old Town at night was a different story: absolutely insane, far more crowded than during the day, with foot traffic flowing in one direction. We were trying to leave, but the one-way flow wouldn’t even let us out.
Castillo San Felipe: sun above, tunnels below
Castillo San Felipe is the imposing fort on a hill. Spanish colonizers built it to defend Cartagena, and reaching the top felt like a small victory. You can explore with a guide or on your own, but either way, expect to spend most of the visit in the sun.
The tunnels were the part that stuck with us. They were a little cooler, though a little is the important phrase, and they kept going farther than we expected. The enclosed space brought on a touch of claustrophobia, though it wasn’t too bad. At one point, we tucked ourselves into a small alcove so other visitors could pass and frightened a lot of them instead. We later read that the nooks were built to ambush anyone trying to break into the fort, which made it a bit ironic.
Vendors and the price switcheroo
Cartagena’s vendors have a reputation for being very pushy. There really were a lot of them, but in the Old Town it wasn’t nearly as bad as we’ve seen in the Middle East or India. If you’re not interested, say no once or twice and then ignore them, even if it feels rude. At the main touristy beach in Bocagrande, where we stayed, the vendors were a little aggressive.
Here’s what to expect. Guys may come up and make up a rap for you, with a little boom box, and then ask for money if you listen and engage. Palenqueras in traditional outfits will want to be paid if you take a photo with them. Whether to buy something or pay for a picture is your call, and everyone is just trying to make a living, but it’s easier to decide when you know what to expect.
There also seemed to be a lot of the old switcheroo, where someone quotes one price and then tries to charge another. That came up with taxi drivers, vendors and some restaurants, so agree on a price before you commit. After the hot trip to the fort, we took an Uber back to the Clock Tower even though it’s walkable. It was very affordable.
The food tour that made lunch a mistake
Food tours are one of our favorite things to do in a new country, especially when we wouldn’t know what to order on our own. We booked a ten-stop tour through GetYourGuide. The first stop was a little food stand that had been there for over 40 years, and we would never have found it without the tour.
La Bomba, a seafood-and-plantain dish, started things off and ended up as probably our favorite thing on the tour. After that came fried plantain with cheese, Colombian sweets near the Clock Tower and arepas con queso fried right in front of us. At an indoor stop, a hot, cheesy baked pandebono surprised us by being hollow inside. Somewhere along the way, we began losing track of both the food and our remaining appetite. If you book a food tour like this, learn from us: don’t eat lunch the same day.
Partway through, we got lost and ended up in a shopping mall before someone from our group found us. There was also a tiny beer on plastic chairs in the street, followed by a walk through a busy, colorful neighborhood just outside the Old Town and an evening coffee stop. That part of town was new to us, and the tour gave us a look at it along with places and foods we wouldn’t have discovered alone. We highly recommend it.
A night in the Rosario Islands at Hotel Coralina Island
We stayed overnight at Hotel Coralina Island, on Coralina Island, in the Rosario Islands near Cartagena. The hotel’s own site describes it as a private island inside the Rosario Islands national park. There are day trips and beach clubs if you want a day out, but for a birthday we wanted something slower and less party-focused. We didn’t take a day trip, so we can’t compare the two directly; the overnight is what we can tell you about.
For our trip, the boat left from Pier 3 near the Old Town, and we expected roughly an hour and a half by speedboat. The pier was busy with island-trip departures, but hotel staff met us in front of the big line and brought us inside. The hotel’s transport page now lists a morning departure from a pier in Bocagrande and a crossing of about an hour, so check where and when your boat leaves.
Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, so the hotel took our bags, gave us a welcome drink and set us up with loungers under an umbrella by the clear blue water. Lunch at El Manglar, the waterfront restaurant, turned into ceviche, seafood rice and plantain chips, and more food than we needed. Coffee came from a little station with an espresso machine in a thatched hut.
Our standard double was the cheapest category, and it was more comfortable than we’d expected for an island stay: a king bed and a single, space to sit, air conditioning and a bathroom we liked. The hotel’s site now lists different room names, so look at what’s currently on offer. Electricity and internet on the Rosario Islands can be unreliable, or so we’d read, but reviews of this hotel said everything worked, and the Wi-Fi did cover the property in our first hours there.
The unwelcome surprise was the boat transfer. When we booked, it wasn’t included in the room price and the hotel’s website didn’t mention it, so we paid for it at the hotel. That site now has a transport page with options, but ask for the total before deciding whether an overnight works for you.
A staff member kindly let us use a private dock that normally costs extra to reserve. Before dinner there was a sunset, a couple of drinks and a swim in the ocean. The restaurant asked us to pre-order our meals because its kitchen was small, and the seafood brought back La Bomba from the food tour. The next day gave us more time on the loungers before heading back. Staying another night crossed our minds, but the hotel was sold out, and the return boat ride was longer and much bumpier as the wind picked up.
Before you go
Check the official Castillo San Felipe page for entry details and hours, the Hotel Coralina Island site for room options, boat times and transfer costs, and GetYourGuide for food-tour availability and its current stops. For current travel advice, use travel.state.gov.
Image credits: the photo of the Clock Tower used as the featured image is by Bernard Gagnon, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (source). The photo of a small Rosario Islands island near the top is by Ben Bowes, licensed CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (source). Neither was taken on our trip. The other photos are stills from our own videos of Cartagena.
