Caribbean Coast

Cartagena de Indias is the undisputed queen of the Caribbean coast, a historic city of superbly preserved beauty lying within an impressive 13km of centuries-old colonial stone walls. Cartagena's Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site – a maze of cobbled alleys, balconies covered in bougainvillea, and massive churches that cast their shadows across leafy plazas.

This is a place to drop all sightseeing routines. Instead of trying to tick off all the sights, just stroll through the Old Town day and night. Soak up the sensual atmosphere, pausing to ward off the brutal heat and humidity in one of the city's many excellent bars and restaurants.

Holding its own against Brazil's Ouro Preto and Peru's Cuzco for the continent's most enthralling and impressively preserved historic city, Cartagena is hard to walk away from – it seizes you in its aged clutches and refuses to let go.

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona is a magical slice of Colombia's Caribbean coast, with stunning stretches of golden sandy beach backed by coconut palms and thick rainforest. Behind it all rise the steep hillsides of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world's highest coastal mountain range. The park stretches along the coast from the Bahía de Taganga near Santa Marta to the mouth of the Río Piedras, 35km east, and covers some 12,000 hectares of land and 3000 hectares of coral-rich sea.

The park gets extremely crowded in high season (December and January), and vicious currents mean that most of the gorgeous beaches aren't suitable for swimming, though you can take a dip and snorkel (with great care) at a select, safer few. Despite these issues, Tayrona is an immensely attractive place and one that's rewarding and exciting to explore.

What could be more intriguing than an ancient abandoned city? Ciudad Perdida (literally 'Lost City') disappeared into the jungle around the time of the Spanish Conquest and was only 'discovered' again in the 1970s. Deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, it remains accessible only on foot in what is easily one of Colombia's most exciting and breathtaking hikes. Known locally by its indigenous name of Teyuna, the city was built by the Tayrona people on the northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Today it's one of the largest known pre-Columbian towns in the Americas, and the focus of Colombia's most popular multiday hike. Doing the hike is a fantastic experience, and you don't need to be particularly strong or experienced to do it, either. The landscapes and the sense of remoteness will stay with you long after you return.

Mompós is one of Colombia's most perfectly preserved colonial towns. Remotely located deep inland on the banks of the Río Magdalena, the town (also known by its original Spanish name of Mompox) has essentially been in decline since river transport patterns changed in the mid-19th century, leaving it – quite literally – a backwater. Its similarities to García Márquez' fictional town of Macondo are striking, and Mompós, ironically, is a far better place to soak up the atmosphere of One Hundred Years of Solitude than García Márquez' nearby hometown of Aracataca. The 21st century finds this forgotten gem rising again, with a steady proliferation of boutique hotels and restaurants in recent years. It's easily the most charming town in northern Colombia, its decaying facades and multicolored churches reminiscent more of Havana's old town than of polished-and-buffed Cartagena.

Perched 600m high up in the Sierra Nevada above Santa Marta, Minca is a small mountain village famous for its organic coffee, incredibly varied birdlife and – perhaps more importantly – much cooler temperatures than on the scorching coast below. The town, which until a few years ago could only be reached via a dirt road, is delightful, surrounded by thick cloud forest and soaring mountain peaks. Despite being recognized by Unesco as a biosphere reserve since 1980, it's only in the last few years that Minca has grown as a traveler destination, with a slew of new hostels and hotels.

It's now well and truly on the map, however, and specializes in ultraremote traveler retreats scattered amid the surrounding steep mountainsides. A great base for mountain biking, bird-watching and hiking, Minca also offers delightfully warm locals who seem genuinely happy to see visitors.

Punta Gallinas is South America's most northerly point and offers one of the continent's most dazzling landscapes. Its access point, Bahía Hondita, is where burnt-orange cliffs surround an emerald bay with a wide and wild beach, beyond which is a large colony of pink flamingos. Otherwise the bay is home to just eight Wayuu families, who dwell in an exceptionally harsh environment peppered with vibrant green vegetation and shared only with herds of goats and locusts.

As the continent gives way to the Caribbean, sand dunes topping 60m high push right up against the turquoise sea, like a five-story sand tsunami in reverse. This is Playa Taroa, perhaps Colombia's most beautiful and certainly its least trampled-upon beach, accessed by sliding down a towering sand dune right into the water.

Colombia ends its desert-to-jungle Caribbean coastline with a flourish: the idyllic, laid-back villages of Capurganá and Sapzurro, and their surrounding beaches, are hidden in a half-forgotten corner of Colombia's northwest, just a stroll from the Panamanian border. Hemmed in by jungle-covered mountains and washed by fabulously azure waters, the villages are littered with the colorful quirks that characterize wild, isolated settlements. Cars are banned, electricity gets turned off almost daily and ATMs remain a distant urban rumor.

Part of the adventure is just getting here: both villages are only accessible by a choppy 1½- to 2½-hour boat ride from Turbo or Necoclí, or by a tiny plane from Medellín. Consequently, the beaches remain pleasantly unkempt and the jungle deliciously impenetrable. While in-the-know Colombians and a trickle of foreign backpackers might have discovered the area, the vibe is still decidedly casual, unhurried and locally led.