At least not yet, writing from my apartment in Argentina....
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| 2010, 29 years old, my first trip to Colombia and South America! |
2010: My first trip to Colombia, the first time I ever set foot in South America, and the trip that made this blog titled "6 of the 7 continents". Colombia was number 6! I never thought I'd reach Antarctica for continent number 7, but life blessed me New Year's 2023, and I may even be going back this year, but that's another article. I landed in Cartagena and it was 8 days that changed my life in a way forever. I loved it, I loved South America, I loved the culture, the people, the food, the rhythm... Everything. I had a feeling I would be back, to Colombia, or another country in South America? Maybe both. That feeling was correct. I have been to Colombia now 4 times. I have visited every country in South America except Venezuela, it's on the list, and I am now living in Argentina. It all began with that fateful trip 16 years ago.
My second trip to Colombia was a bit more special. Medellin in 2015ish... This time I was a much more seasoned traveler, spoke better Spanish, and my eyes were not just opening to the world outside USA, they were consuming, processing, and calculating my future somewhere else one day. In those days, I highly considered Colombia to live. Especially that trip. Medellin was new, fresh, safe (ish), economic, and so different from where I lived. I spend the next 11 years working in the USA and of course traveling. I wanted to see and do everything and maybe one day, leave the USA to live abroad... Colombia was high on the list! So high I decided to make a trial run, it would be one of three trial runs of where my next long term stay would be, Italy was the other, and you guessed the third where I live now, Argentina. So why did Colombia not become home?
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| Medellin cable car |
Immigration:
So this was trip three of four. I landed in Medellin in February of 2025. I was excited to visit not as a tourist, but as someone who was doing moving research. I would visit there and three other cities over the month. The rule was simple, keep tourism minimal, try to live the daily life there and figure out the logistics of living there. I should probably write another article on that! Anyway I landed in Medellin, and the problems started as soon as I got off the plane... Customs and passport control was EXTREMELY long. 2 hours. When I got to the end of the line they asked me a few basic questions, I don't know if they are understaffed, or over visited.. But where ever I would choose to be home base was going to be just that, home base, I don't plan on stopping travel anytime soon. The idea of 2 hours for immigration every time I come back home was not too appealing, factoring in the same year I got global entry and it hasn't taken me more than 2 minutes to re-enter the USA since I got it. The airport is not close to the city either, about 40 minutes. So I could take a short flight to Panama City, Peru, etc, and the customs and taxi to get home would be longer than the flights!
Medellin Changed, & I Changed
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| Medellin 2015 |
I got to my Airbnb late after that 2 hour wait, breathed in the jungle air, it was good to be back, and I didn't want to sleep just yet. There were lots of bars and restaurants on my block, I decided to go out for a walk, and maybe a drink or two. As I walked the street I wasn't greeted to the sounds of Colombia, I heard English being spoken EVERYWHERE, the same music I was listening to in Scottsdale before I left, seemingly even the same restaurants... The city changed. When I first came here it was a bit touristic, now it was Disney World. The little Colombian restaurants had all turned into giant Cheeseburger chain restaurants, not the big one, McDonalds, but it lost flavor both in a culinary and cultural way. I was in the touristic center, so I thought, I should get around and see more... It didn't work. The problem when I visited the other neighborhoods was it was nothing, things closed at 7pm, or the streets were barren from the get go. Plus the gyms in those neighborhoods kind of sucked. The gyms in the center were great, better than my first time here, grocery stores were also top notch, but with the good, comes the bad. 
I changed. Saturday night it was time to party! I made some friends and even had a random run in with a friend from Phoenix for the first time in my travel life, so I wasn't going to go out alone. We headed downtown.... The drink prices were damn near equal to Scottsdale, the places were too crowded, the music was too loud, there were too many hookers! Ok I sound like my Dad now... Maybe not quite with the hooker part, but the point is the party scene is great when you are in your 20's or maybe even my 30s, but now at 45... It didn't feel quite like something I wanted every weekend. We had a blast that night, drank till 3am or 4am, met cool people, danced, etc. But it's not something I have any desire to do on a regular basis anymore at age 45.
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| Trying to blend in like a local |
Then of course the night life, or really any life in other areas I checked out, was pretty non-existent. Laureles was ok... But the problem was off the main strip safety was a big issue. It was on to Cali next.
Cali: No... At Least For Now
This wasn't as easy to write off, and to be honest, I would still give it a little chance. It was like stepping back into the early 2000s Medellin as far as culture. It felt a lot more Colombian and a lot less corporate. The gyms weren't quite as good as Medellin, but they had what I needed. Grocery was the same, not top notch, but I'm mainly a man of chicken and vegetables when I cook at home... Although Argentina has added a lot more steak! The weather was the heat I enjoyed, the food, the vibe, the downtown area, it was all excellent. Some of the areas I really loved. On one night in a bar on a side street in Granada on a Friday night, I was enjoying a beer, and truly living in the moment, and I thought... This is it... This is my next home. The street was safe, there were lots of people out, great party vibe, but not too much, great restaurants, cafes, extremely safe, police everywhere, people seemed very chill, and polite... I felt great!
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| Overlooking the beautiful landscape from Cali |
I headed back to the same area that next day, during the day I discovered even more that I loved about the Granada area. I was practically signing an apartment lease... I needed more! Then I headed back of course for dinner that night, it wasn't the weekend, Monday or maybe Tuesday now... Shit changed... Big time. I used to be a cop a long time ago in the NYPD. We had to go to the jails regularly to drop people off or pick people up, I would feel a hell of a lot safer in the jails in the Brooklyn South Precinct without my gun than I felt in the streets that night in Granada. The place was night and day difference from weekend, to weekday. The other areas I checked out were safer, but virtually not much to do. I really loved Cali, and maybe one day I will live there but for now and at that time Granada was out, Cali was out.
Bogota: Last Chance At The Capital
Ahhh Bogota, an old friend.... I also hit Barranquilla during the trip, but that was solely for Carnival! Bogota was more to visit friends than anything else, it's a beautiful city, but I also knew going in that the weather is not my scene, and it has too much of a big city vibe. I still wanted to give it a chance, but things just didn't fit, like Cali, my favorite neighborhood La Candelaria is great by day but questionable at night. The traffic, the volume of people, the city air, not quite my scene. Chapinero is a nice area, but again, it just didn't feel right.
It was great to see friends there, and those friends walked me through everything I would need to live there. The cities have all the modern city things that I would like that go beyond tourism, think things like door dash, amazon, uber, autopay for your gas/electric bill, the modern luxuries or the Colombian equivalents. But the negatives kind of outweighed the positives. Throughout the whole trip I also of course was reviewing my options to legally stay there. For my other choices, Italy, I have an Italian Passport and Argentina I had an American friend that bought a place down there and already walked me through the basics of legally living there. The Nomad Visas, Rentista Visas, or Pensionado Visa all seemed a lot more complicated than moving to Europe with citizenship or the Argentina citizenship process, now that I am living in Argentina I may have been wrong about that last part, the visa process here has been a ride through hell! But too late now for the Visa pros and cons!
So at that point, I was also journaling the whole process, categories, tracking daily spending, some boring stuff, some interesting stuff that shows up on this blog. And when I got back I read through the notes, already kind of knowing, I wasn't going to live there. I cannot stress how much I loved Cali, and how I am missing it now just writing about it, but it wasn't going to be my home. At least for now, who knows what the future holds. I know however that I love this country, and will always come back to it.
Lessons Learned
- Lessons, don't plan 10 years in advance, maybe even 5 is too much. Cities change, countries change, and of course, you change. The 5 year plan is probably reasonable but have a back up plan.
- Visit as a person living there, not as a tourist, I did this extremely well I think, rather than the Pablo Escobar tour, or visiting the Salt Mines, think about what you will do almost daily there. For me the important things were gyms, nightlife, cafes, music stores, live music scene, and supermarkets.
- Healthcare: I don't have any health problems, but it would be naive not to factor this in. And I will say here Argentina where I live now is certainly not as good as my other option Italy, or of course my home country the USA.
- Taxes.... Yep, do the homework here to on liabilities, etc. It sucks! But it's something you will need to factor in.
- Budget: Don't go with chatgpt, or forums, crunch your own numbers, when I was analyzing everything in day to day spending, it was cheaper than Scottsdale, but not by much. Rent was easily a big savings compared to rent in the USA, but you gotta eat, you gotta have internet, gas, electric, etc.
- If you can, by all means do the trial dip before you jump in. I am so grateful that I had the chance to visit all 3 countries for more than a month in "life mode" rather than "tourist mode". It greatly helped with my decision, and my life now.
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| 29 years old in Cartagena, it seems now like a lifetime ago |
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