Santa Marta

Santa Marta is South America's oldest European-founded town and the second-most-important colonial city on Colombia's Caribbean coast. Despite its long history and charming center, it gets a bad rap from many travelers, who cite its unlovely urban sprawl and terrible traffic as reasons not to hang about here. The secret to Santa Marta is to use it for what it does well: hotels, restaurants and bars, and then get out to the slew of superb nearby destinations during the daytime.