How to Fall in Love with Bogotá, Colombia in One Weekend

Bogotá traffic isn’t for the faint of heart. I had heard it time and time again, but was finally becoming well acquainted with it myself in the hour between the airport and the hostel. I clutched onto my backpack tightly as a moped squeezed persistently first into our lane and then the next, but our taxi driver adeptly glided in sync not only with the moped but with the symphony of other vehicles on the road too. Every person on the road knew their own part, and easily anticipated the moves of everyone around them too. That was my first impression of Bogotá. A behemoth of a city in which order emerges beautifully from chaos.

A lot of people will tell you to skip Bogotá when you’re planning your trip to Colombia. Don’t listen to them. Skipping Bogotá means missing its incredible art, friendly locals, and irresistible food. Oh my goodness, the food! I fell in love with Bogotá, the Colombian city that felt the most unvarnished to me, over the course of four days. Here, I’ve written everything you need to know about Bogotá – where to stay, where to find the best food and drink, and the top things to do – so that you will too.

Things to Do in Bogotá

Here’s the wonderful thing about a weekend in Bogotá: there’s a wide variety of interesting things to do and see. Best of all, it’s all dirt cheap. What you shouldn’t miss…

Explore La Candelaria’s Street Art

Throughout Colombia, I found street art to be a common form of story-telling. Colorful murals and striking graffiti gave voice to the under-seen and under-heard, and provided poignant commentary on historical events or political in/action.

In La Candelaria, the historical center of Bogotá, you’ll find the walls of entire streets covered in vibrant art. Walking around, you’ll certainly stumble upon some of the more well-known pieces. Calle del Embudo is a narrow alleyway full of thought-provoking pieces. For an in-depth understanding of not only the art, but also of the artists, history, and influences of Bogotá’s street art, you have to take the Bogotá Graffiti Tour, one of the most popular activities in the city. The tour is free, but a donation of 20-30 mil pesos ($7-10 USD) is suggested.

Beyond Colombia’s Free Walking Tour

Free walking tours are fantastic introductions to a city. I’m a huge fan of doing one on my first morning in a new city, so that I’m equipped with a wealth of new knowledge for the remainder of my time. Beyond Colombia’s tour is one of the best out there.

Our tour guide was so knowledgeable, honest, vigilant about safety, and really funny to boot. You hit up the most famous landmarks in the historical center: a black market for emeralds, Simon Bolivar Square, Calle del Embudo, the Botero Museum, and more. You also make a pit-stop to try chicha, a fermented corn drink! I traveled through Colombia over the next two weeks with a much more nuanced understanding of Colombia’s violent past, Pablo Escobar, guerilla groups and the para-military, thanks to this tour.

The tour itself is free, but tips are highly encouraged. Beyond Colombia also runs a free food tour (!) and a free War & Peace tour. Both sounded amazing, and I would’ve joined if we had more time. See meeting times and places, and more details for all three tours here.

Botero Museum

Fernando Botero was famous for distorting figures in his signature, voluminous style in his sculptures and paintings. It’s great fun to walk around the gallery, and to spot the Botero version of your favorite artworks.

The museum itself is quite lovely, as well. In addition to his own works, Botero donated his private art collection (which includes Picasso and Matisse pieces) to form the Botero Museum in what was formerly a colonial house. Its courtyard is very picturesque, especially at golden hour!

Entrance to the Botero Museum is free.

Hike Monserrate (If You’re Up For a Challenge)

OK, but see… I wasn’t up for the challenge. If it had been up to me, we would’ve taken the funicular up and down. But Leah insisted that we mix it up, get in touch with nature, and hike our way to the top. Doing something active for once might also have helped to offset all the arepas we’d been chowing down.

Here’s the thing, though. Hiking Monserrate involves climbing 2,000 feet in elevation in just 1.5 miles. This means that every single step you take is a literal uphill battle. Altitude sickness is also a real concern. We stopped every few feet to catch our breaths in the shade and guzzle some water. With that said, the views from the top of Monserrate are stunning and should not be missed.

If you’re not in the mood for a challenging hike, you can take the funicular or the teleférico/cable car to the top (and back down, which I insisted on). Both cost 14,000 pesos each way (it’s free to hike). The views from the teleférico are nicer, but the hours of operation are less reliable. Make sure you check the hours here before you go.

Usaquen Sunday Market

There’s nowhere better to spend your Sunday morning than at the street market in Usaquen, an upscale neighborhood just north of El Chico. It’s the best place to shop for trinkets and souvenirs made by local artisans.

Enjoy a leisurely coffee in the morning, browse through the labyrinth of stalls in the flea market, and then head across the street to the Boho food market & expo. The boho market is home to funky prints, clothing, jewelry and wellness goods by avant-garde designers. Then, join a crowd of young families for brunch at Abasto, right around the corner from the flea market.

DIY Fruit Tasting

Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, which means that its exotic fruit game is strong. It’d be a shame if you missed out on sampling a few. Fruit tours like this one take you on a proper tasting through a produce market.

While wandering around the Chapinero neighborhood our last afternoon, we stumbled upon a supermarket and found aisles full of fruits that we didn’t recognize. That inspired us to grab a bunch of new-to-us fruits for a DIY fruit tasting that we’d have in lieu of dinner that evening. Our haul consisted of: mangosteen, passionfruit, granadilla (sweet passionfruit), multiple varieties of guava, lulo (a citrus variety that mostly looked and tasted like a lime, but had hints of tomato and kiwi), sweet mangoes, a huge avocado, and ‘tree’ tomatoes. I highly recommend doing a DIY fruit tasting of your own! It’s cheap (all of the above cost us around $5 total) and delicious.

Food & Drink in Bogotá

I know, without a doubt, that you won’t go hungry in Bogotá. There are so many new flavors to taste, so many hearty treats to delight in. We made a valiant attempt at consuming a vegetable every now and then, but here’s a warning for you: it’ll be next to impossible to find something truly healthy to eat. Embrace it. Eat alllll the cheese and fried plantains and empanadas and buñuelos as you can now, and save the salads for the post-vacay diet. Some of our favorite places and items to eat and drink in Bogotá…

Arepas La Reina

This is a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint in Chapinero, where I treated myself post-Monserrate with an enormous, pillow-soft arepa filled with rice, cheese, and pork… unbelievably delicious. Lunch entrees come with a side of soup too! This was our favorite arepa in Bogotá, and we tried a lot. La Reina, indeed.

Azahar Coffee

This hip cafe is an Instagrammer’s dream and a neighborhood favorite. Gorgeous plants all over the space, huge windows filling the dining space with light, and a menu full of yummy food. It was down the street from our hostel, so we stopped by multiple times. We tried breakfast arepas and pan de bono one morning with campesino coffee, a black coffee sweetened with panela (raw cane sugar), cloves, and cinnamon. Then, on a stormy day, we ducked into Azahar for wine and chocolate cake because why not?

Street Food Carts

You will see street food carts in most corners of Bogotá, and you’ll be tempted to pick up a treat at most of them. Don’t resist the temptation. Stop at the busiest carts, especially those with a long line of locals. Those are sure to not only be delicious, but also clean and reasonably priced. I loved the carts offering up plastic cup bouquets of fruit, or freshly squeezed juices. We also picked up a fried disc-shaped empanada stuffed with cheese, egg, and chicken and I’m still thinking about it to this day. It was also only 70 cents. Un-freaking-believable.

La Puerta de la Catedral or Puerta Falsa

Both of these restaurants are located right next to Simon Bolivar Square, and serve excellent renditions of traditional Colombian food. We had meant to try chocolate santafereño for breakfast at Puerta Falsa before our walking tour, but crazy Bogotá traffic nixed that plan. By the time the walking tour ended in the early afternoon, Puerta Falsa had closed and we were perilously close to hanger.

Our tour guide mentioned that all of the restaurants next to Puerta Falsa served great food, so we diverted to La Puerta de la Catedral for a full on feast. Not only did we finally try chocolate santafereño (cheese dipped and melted into hot chocolate), but also we tried classic soups such as ajiaco (amazing) and sancocho (so comforting), and had limonada de coco, a blended coconut limeade, for the first time. (We’d proceed to have limonada de coco almost every day for the rest of our stay in Colombia.)

Cafe Magola Buendia

Its entrance is nondescript, but once you’re in Cafe Magola, it becomes a sprawling oasis for hipsters and students. Comfortable corners with hammocks to lay in and old couches to cozy up with friends, wine bottle flower vases, and tapestries made from old beer bottle-caps. It reminded me of Budapest’s ruin bars!

I ordered a lulo helado by accident, and ended up devouring it. Extremely tart and a touch creamy, it was the perfect icy treat on a hot day of sightseeing!

Abasto

Right around the corner from the Usaquen street market, Abasto is the perfect brunch spot before or after your Sunday shopping session. This cozy, rustic restaurant seems plucked from Brooklyn or Portland. It has all the bookish, farm-to-table vibes you could ask for. Make sure you try the mini empanadas that come with a punchy lulo salsa, and also the calentado, a tasty home-style skillet dish with rice, beans, chorizo, potato, plantain, and a fried egg. We loved it so much we’ve been recreating it back at home!

Amor Perfecto

Some of the best coffee in the world is from Colombia, but you can’t find a lot of it in the country itself. Most of the good stuff gets exported, and Colombians drink the leftover bits. In recent years, however, speciality coffee roasters and producers in Colombia are trying to make sure that premium coffee experiences are available domestically as well. Amor Perfecto is one of the best of these, and has numerous awards to prove it.

We stopped by the Chapinero location for aromatic cappuccinos and a decadent carrot cake – highly recommend! I also heard great things about Cafe Cultor but didn’t have a chance to visit myself.

Patrono Food Hall or The Market Food Hall

All arepa’ed out, and really just needing a quick bite to eat? Patrono Food Hall and The Market Food Hall by Parque de la 93 are trendy options that each have a variety of quick, tasty bites. We shared a couple of buns at Baobun in the Patrono Food Hall, and they tasted just as good as they looked… and they looked good.

Andres Carnes de Res*

The most famous restaurant in Bogotá is perhaps less of a restaurant and more of an experience. You come for the steak, but stay for a raucous evening when the restaurant more or less turns into a nightclub. The original location is about an hour away in Chia. Many hostels offer a party bus at extra cost, or you can hire a private taxi to take you. There is also another outpost in Zona T, but I heard you can only really experience the real thing in Chia. *I unfortunately did not make it on this visit, but am putting it on my list for next time!

Where to Stay in Bogotá

Bogotá is a sprawling metropolis home to over 10 million people. It’s overwhelming to even start looking at where you might want to stay for your visit, but I’m going to make it easy for you.

Stick to the Zona Rosa (also known as Zona T) neighborhood or the El Chico neighborhood directly next to it. Zona Rosa is the upscale commercial district of Bogotá. There are tons of restaurants, shops, cafes, nightclubs, and nice hotels in the area. El Chico is its quieter, slightly more residential neighbor. Both of these areas are very safe, livable, and full of things to do and eat.

Many tourists also stay in the historical La Candelaria district. While you’d be closer to all of the activities recommended above, we felt that the area was a little dodgy in the evenings and a bit too touristy during the day. We liked staying in a quieter neighborhood and then venturing to La Candelaria during the day for sight-seeing. Do keep in mind though that during rush hour, it can take you over an hour to get from El Chico/Zona Rosa to La Candelaria. Plan ahead!

Check out hotels in Zona Rosa and El Chico here.

Selina Parque de la 93

Leah and I shared a private room with an attached bathroom at the Selina Parque de la 93. This was my first time staying at a Selina, the WeWorks of hostels. It didn’t have as social of an atmosphere as I wanted, but the shared spaces are beautifully decorated, the staff was helpful, the room was clean, and the location couldn’t have been more perfect. The cafe served up a mean cappuccino too!

There are two other Selinas in Bogotá – one in Chapinero, and the other in La Candelaria. Every day, there is a free shuttle from El Chico to La Candelaria in the morning that stops at the Chapinero location, and then one back in the evening. This was an awesome perk that we certainly took advantage of! As mentioned above, the one downside to staying so far north was the time spent in traffic getting to the historical center… but Selina made it free and took out the guesswork. I highly recommend staying at a Selina – at the Parque de la 93 location in Bogotá, in particular!

Is Bogotá Safe?

The million dollar question.

I’m sure when you told your mom or best friend about your travel plans, this was their first question. “Well, in Narcos…” they might say, to back up their concerns.

The Colombia of the 80’s is not the Colombia of today, but I hear your mom and friends, because mine asked the same. The thing is, the areas of Bogotá that travelers visit aren’t the ones to be worried about. As a tourist, you really won’t be venturing out of the safest places in the city. At first, I was taken aback by the heavy presence of armed private security in El Chico and La Candelaria. In time, I realized that their very presence makes these neighborhoods safer. A general rule of thumb is that the further south you go in the city, the rougher it becomes.

We never walked alone – or at all – past dark. Even if your hotel is a few blocks away, call a car to pick you up at night. Ubers are plentiful and extremely cheap. They do ask one person to sit in the front seat though, as drivers don’t want to face the wrath of taxi drivers.

There’s a popular saying in Colombia. No dar papaya, don’t give papaya. It basically means, don’t become an easy target. Be careful with your valuables – your phone, AirPods, camera – and don’t flash wealth, especially in highly touristed areas.

Personally, I never felt unsafe in Bogotá despite my guard being up because of its reputation. In fact, the people I interacted with in the city and all across Colombia were some of the nicest I’ve ever met.

Man, it turns out I had a lot to say about your visit to Bogotá! It’s because I honestly had the best time, and I hope you will too. Hit me up in the comments if you have any specific questions, and please Pin this post if you found it helpful!