Quick aside: Hello, hello! If this is sitting in your email inbox, you probably followed my extremely chaotic quarantine newsletter, The Brain Distrust (now extremely defunct).
A lot has changed since then— namely I’ve made my favorite thing in the world, travel, my full time job by becoming a Travel Advisor (and yes, you can hire me to plan the trip of your dreams). With that, I decided to start a travel specific newsletter, The Escapism Dispatch, so if you’re here and you don’t want to be, that’s ok, see ya! 👋🏼
But if you’ve been looking for a travel specific weekly newsletter with my recommendations and musings, perhaps you’ll stay awhile! This newsletter is meant to be inspirational, a vacation for your eyeballs, and will hopefully encourage you to make time for yourself and get away from your day-to-day life.
-Bella
6 Days in Colombia: An Itinerary
Every year for my birthday, I ask for the gift of travel. I’ve never been one to enjoy receiving materialistic things for milestones— I’d rather collect experiences and memories than physical objects.
My criteria for a birthday trip is simple yet unchanging:
The location must be warm and have a beach
The location must provide some level of immersion in nature and be slightly off the beaten path
Last year for my birthday, we went to (and got engaged at) Cuixmala, the year before, we went to Costa Rica (FYI this is a nice property if you want to redeem a bunch of Chase or Hyatt points), and this year, I decided on Colombia!
There were two parts of this trip, part one being Cartagena, and part two being Isla Baru.
Part One: Cartagena
I had been to Cartagena pre-covid, but wanted Mark to experience the rich history and colorful buildings that the seaside city has to offer.
We stayed at Casa San Augustin in the walled city. In my opinion, this hotel was the best thing about the first part of the trip. While Cartagena is a colorful, cultured city filled with beautiful architecture, the walled city is stifling hot, extremely loud and congested, and you can’t walk down a street without several people trying to sell you something. CSA is the perfect respite from the chaos, with its lovely courtyard pool and beautiful, historically rich rooms.
Another hotel I considered and recommend is the Charleston Santa Teresa. It’s a cheaper option, but still gorgeous and well appointed.
FYI— If you decide to stay at either of these lovely properties and book through me, you will receive the following perks (yay for working with travel advisors!):
Upgrade on arrival, subject to availability
Daily Full breakfast for up to two guests per bedroom, served in the restaurant (for Casa San Augustin)
$100 USD equivalent Resort or Hotel credit to be utilized during stay (not combinable, not valid on room rate, no cash value if not redeemed in full)
Early Check-In / Late Check-Out, subject to availability
Complimentary Wi-Fi
Pre-covid, Cartagena was a lot less touristy, and my overall opinion of it has changed slightly. I still think it should be on everyone’s travel list, but you should know that the only real industry here is tourism and the locals have been driven out of the walled city they once lived in because of the influx of tourists. We opted to do 3 nights here, but I think 2 nights in Cartagena is really all you need before the chaos of it starts to get tiring.
Day 1:
We arrived around 2pm and checked into the hotel. It was so hot (real feel of 106 degrees) that we immediately went to the pool and ordered ceviche and mojitos. Both were delicious!
After some R+R, we got changed for the night and walked to the wall of the city to watch the sunset.
We headed back to Alma for dinner— conveniently located in our hotel. I had eaten here the first time I came to Cartagena, and I was so impressed that it was ultimately what made me decide to book Casa San Augustin for this trip. However, dinner this time was underwhelming. I will say the hotel poolside food and the complimentary breakfast every morning were delicious and consistent. They also had the most amazing brownies and cookies that they’d leave in the room during turndown service that I cannot stop thinking about (can you tell I’m incredibly food motivated?).
Day 2:
On the second day, we woke up and spent the morning poolside. Around 11am, we went on a walking street food tour of Cartagena, which I booked through Cartagena Connections. I truly believe the best way to tour a city is through cuisine, as food tells such a story and sheds light on the history of a place. Cartagena used to be the largest slave port in Colombia, and a lot of the traditional food in Colombia is directly influenced by this, from the ingredients used to the techniques locals cook with.
We sampled over 8 traditional dishes, including cheese bread, corn and cassava arepas, fruit (with salt, black pepper, and tajin), and savory donut holes. We covered a lot of ground in the Walled City and the neighborhood of Getsemani, and we even saw a sloth while walking through Parque Centenario.
After three hours of walking, we went back to the pool to chill. We had planned on covering more ground ourselves, but we were truly exhausted.
For the sunset, we opted to watch it at the Movich Hotel rooftop after our tour guide recommended it as the best view in Cartagena. I wouldn’t opt to stay here, as it felt corporate, but the rooftop was a vibe. There was an incredible DJ spinning tropical house beats, a solid Pisco Sour, and lovely views of the entire city and the ocean.
Before dinner, we headed to drinks at Alquimico, ranked #9 on the World’s Best Bars list. We made a small mistake here— it was completely empty, and it would have been much more lively after dinner, but overall it was a great atmosphere! I’ve heard it turns into a disco club late at night, but we were too tired to return post-dinner.
We had dinner at Sambal in Getsemani, my favorite neighborhood in Cartagena. Highlights were the ceviche caribe and the pork tacos.
Day 3:
At this point, morale was low due to the stifling heat, so we opted to spend the day out of the city. Casa San Augustin has a private beach, and they graciously offered to give us a private tour of their private island (perks of being a travel agent), 45 minutes away from Cartagena by boat. The beach is only available to CSA guests, and they just opened 6 new beach bungalows on the island where you can stay overnight. We were the only guests on the island, so we truly had the whole place to ourselves. The rooms were beautiful, but I couldn’t imagine staying here, to be honest. It’s a TINY island, and there’s truly nothing to do but lay on the beach.
After we got back in the afternoon, we quickly changed and headed to La Cevicheria. This wasn’t part of the plan, but I had hyped it up so much to Mark after my first trip to Cartagena that he insisted we get a pre-dinner appetizer. We both agree that it was the best ceviche we had in Colombia (and we probably ate Ceviche 10 times). There’s a reason this place has such a cult following! Going at 4:30pm was the move.
After, we headed to Cafe Del Mar for sunset drinks. This place has a lovely view of the sunset, but it’s rather touristy and the cocktails are avoidable sugar bombs. That said, I still recommend you go and arrive on the earlier side (5ish, there is a huge line by 5:30) because the view is not to be missed!
For our last dinner in Cartagena, we went to Carmen. When booking, I completely didn’t realize that I had been to Carmen’s sister location in Medellin last year, which was one of my favorite meals of 2023. So when we arrived at the restaurant, I was giddy with anticipation, and almost fainted when I realized that although the menus were completely different, this location had the cocktail I really enjoyed at my meal last year and have been fantasizing about ever since, the B.C.E.
The cocktail comes topped with ants, and they are really the cherry on top of the drink experience. They’re crunchy and salty and delicious. Have I obsessively looked to see if I can buy authentic Colombian hormigas on the internet? Yes, and I have failed, so let me know if you know of an ant guy.
Other things that were on my Cartagena list that we didn’t get around to this time, but I’d recommend:
San Felipe de Barajas Fort
La Serrezuela (old bull ring converted into a mall with local artisanal stores)
Cafe Havana (live salsa music in Getsemani)
Part Two: Las Islas, Baru
For the second part of the trip, we drove 1.5 hours to Las Islas Hotel in Baru. After going on a deep dive of Las Islas Google reviews (4.7 stars), I almost cancelled our trip here. Although the reviews are overall positive, there are some extremely nasty ones too (mostly about the staff interactions), so I went in with low expectations. I will preface this by saying that I made sure the property knew I was a luxury travel agent and that I was celebrating a birthday, so I'm not sure if the exceptional service we received was in part due to this, but the staff was overall really friendly!
We opted to stay in a Sea Level Bungalow Private Pool. It was so nice having the ocean right outside of our door!
A heads up:
If you're expecting top luxury, this isn't the place for you. This place is fully immersed in a dense forest. Mark and I were joking that if the world ceased to exist that nature would completely consume and swallow the entire property whole within a month. There are animals everywhere. This didn't bother us, as we understood what we were signing up for and the point of this leg of the trip was to disconnect. If you're in an impoverished area of rural Colombia on a jungle island, what else can you truly expect? The property itself is gorgeous. It's the perfect place to unplug and completely immerse yourself in nature. From the sunsets to the lush vegetation, I felt like I was in an episode of Planet Earth in the best way possible.
There were friendly raccoons at check in, peacocks singing outside of our room, cats everywhere, etc. All of the pools are filled with ocean water and aren’t chemically treated. I liked their minimalistic approach that was so clearly rooted in nature, but I can understand how it wouldn’t be for everyone.
The wifi here is practically non-existent, as is phone service. I actually really enjoyed this, and it was nice to leave my phone in the room and completely forget about the outside world.
All of the employees are Baru locals. If you're coming expecting all of the staff to speak fluent English, you're coming to the wrong place. Even though my Spanish is elementary at best, everyone was very kind and patient with me as I did my best to practice and communicate!
As far as the itinerary goes here, you don’t need one, and we didn’t have one. We spent our days relaxing at the beach, exploring the gorgeous property by foot and by bicycle, and the one planned thing we did here was a boat tour of the neighboring Rosario Islands, which was the highlight of the entire trip. The water around the islands is insanely clear and blue, and there’s some incredible snorkeling!
Ok, that’s it! Overall, I think that Colombia is a great 6 day trip option, especially if you’re coming from NYC (it’s only a 4.5 hour direct flight from JFK via JetBlue). Cartagena is easily digestible in 2 days, and it’s a great city destination if you’re looking for rich history, lots of sun, and access to beaches, so long as you can look past the chaos and noise. Isla Baru is a great way to relax, recharge, and unplug from daily life.
See ya next week!
Love,
Bella