Boyacá
Construction on this Franciscan monastery, the most dominating building in Monguí, began in 1694 and took 100 years to complete. The stunning red-stone…
Must-see attractions in Colombia
Capilla y Museo de Santa Clara La Real
Boyacá
Founded in 1571, the fascinating Capilla y Museo de Santa Clara La Real is thought to be the first convent in Nueva Granada. In 1863 the nuns were…
Medellín
The densely populated neighborhood of Moravia was once Medellín's municipal rubbish dump with an open-air mountain of trash surrounded by a large shanty…
Los Llanos
These lovely natural swimming holes hewn from the rocky riverbed are a wonderful place to relax and cool off once you've sweated your way around the other…
Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe
Medellín
Adjacent to the Berrío metro station, this striking black-and-white Gothic Revival building designed by Belgian architect Agustín Goovaerts is one of…
Bucaramanga
Another piece in the historical jigsaw of Simón Bolívar's life (Colombia is full of them), this slightly musty museum is housed in a colonial mansion…
Medellín
On top of this 80m-tall hill, 2km southwest of the city center, sits the kitschy Pueblito Paisa, a miniature version of a typical Antioquian township,…
Centro de Investigaciones Paleontológicas
Boyacá
Just across the main road from the famed El Fósil site, this sleek center combines an open-window research facility with a collection of impressive…
Cartagena & Around
This intriguing 15m mound looks like a miniature volcano. However, instead of erupting with lava and ashes, it spews forth lukewarm mud that has the…
Tolú
This 1800-hectare nature reserve is a part-freshwater, part-saltwater bog with five varieties of mangroves. The red mangrove's roots twist and tangle in…
Boyacá
This impressive 120-million-year-old baby-kronosaurus fossil is the world’s most complete specimen of this prehistoric marine reptile. The fossil is 7m…
Boyacá
Once home to scribe Juan de Vargas, Casa de Don Juan de Vargas is a splendid 16th-century residence that has been converted into a museum. It has a…
Cartagena
Getsemaní, the outer walled town, is less obviously impressive than Cartagena's old city but has some charming parts and is well worth exploring. In…
Cali & Southwest Colombia
Hidden amid lush jungle off the path to Fin del Mundo, this impressive site has a creek gushing through a hole in the roof of an open cave, which forms a…
Casa Museo de Luis Alberto Acuña
Villa de Leyva
Villa de Leyva's best museum features works by one of Colombia's most influential painters, sculptors, writers and historians, Luis Alberto Acuña (1904–93…
La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria
Bogotá
This Catholic church was built in 1686 and houses a collection of important religious artworks from the colonial era. Originally built in colonial style,…
Providencia
Cayo Cangrejo, a small island that's part of Parque Nacional Natural Old Providence McBean Lagoon, rises sharply and dramatically off the coast. There's…
Boyacá
The nondescript exterior of the mid-16th-century Iglesia de Santo Domingo hides one of the most richly decorated interiors in Colombia. To the left as you…
Parque Metropolitano Simón Bolívar
Bogotá
At 360 hectares, the Parque Metropolitano Simón Bolívar is slightly larger than New York's Central Park, something that more than a few of the weekend…
Around Medellín
This unusual 291m bridge over the Río Cauca is 5km east of town. When completed in 1895, it was one of the first suspension bridges in the Americas. José…
Cauca & Huila
The most remote burial site at Tierradentro, El Aguacate (2000m) is reachable via a stiff 1¾-hour climb from San Andrés de Pisimbalá, with the best views…
Medellín
Accessible by the fantastically scenic Metrocable Linea L from the Santo Domingo interchange (COP$4850 one way, 15 minutes), Parque Arví is a big chunk of…
Manizales
The 30m-high spaceship-like lookout point has 360-degree views of the dramatic mountainous terrain surrounding the city. If you're brave you can walk…
Centro de Interpretación de la Cestería de Bejucos
Zona Cafetera
Filandia is famous for its woven baskets, an art that can be traced back to those once used by coffee pickers to collect the harvest, and this museum run…
La Guajira Peninsula
Pilón de Azúcar looms over the eponymous beach and provides the area's most telescopic viewpoint, with the whole of Alta Guajira displayed before you and…
Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona
This gorgeous boat-in beach on Bahía Neguange used to be known as Playa del Muerto (Beach of the Dead) – little wonder they decided on a name change. It's…
Cartagena
The Museum of Modern Art is a perfectly sized museum, housed in a beautifully converted part of the 17th-century former Royal Customs House. It presents…
Los Llanos
Located 17km from San José del Guaviare in La Pizarra subdivision along an unpaved but normally quite easily passable road, the so-called 'City of Stone'…
Santuario Nuestra Señora del Carmen
Bogotá
With Spanish colonial architecture dominating the historical centre, this peculiar Gothic-style church, adorned with Byzantine and Arabic art, is a rare…
Amazon Basin
This nature reserve is deep in the rainforest, a 3km hike from the hamlet of La Libertad on the banks of the Amazon, where you'll be dropped off after an…
La Guajira Peninsula
Playa del Pilón, far and away the most beautiful beach in Cabo, is a vivid orange-sand beach lapped by surprisingly cool waters and framed by low, rocky…
Cali & Southwest Colombia
This small island is a national park, and at an altitude of 2830m it offers a rare glimpse of cloud forest, bursting with some 500 species of plants…
Los Llanos
This fascinating site 22km from San José is the most easily accessible of the numerous cave paintings in the department of Guaviare, though it's still…
Providencia
Some tiny, deserted beaches exist on the island of Santa Catalina. It's worth a look if only to see Morgan's Head, a rocky cliff in the shape of a human…
Medellín
One of Medellín's nicest green spaces, the botanic gardens cover 14 hectares, showcase 600 species of trees and plants, and include a lake, a herbarium…
Santander
While not the tallest or highest-volume waterfall in the area, La Llanera is worth a visit for its mystical remote setting surrounded by magnificent…
Cauca & Huila
The surrounding region used to be a seabed and contains numerous important fossils from the Miocene era, some 3.8 million years old; paleontologists…
Museum of Paleontology & Archaeology
Santander
The unique Museum of Paleontology & Archaeology has a collection of more than 10,000 fossils, a 700-year-old mummy, a few conehead skulls, Guane artifacts…
Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona
Cañaveral is as far as you can go in the park by road. From the car park a trail leads west to Arrecifes and Cabo San Juan del Guía. The beaches in…
Leticia
This little museum has a small but thorough collection of indigenous artifacts. Learn about malocas (ancestral longhouses) and chagras (indigenous…
