How to Bogotá

Is Bogotá safe? 13 safety tips

January 8, 2014 // 0 Comments

Whilst it is fair to say that Bogotá’s reputation as a ‘dangerous’ city is not entirely undeserved, there is also a great deal of scaremongering and ignorance with regard to this matter, particularly online. It often ‘ranks’ within the top 10/25/50 most dangerous/violent cities in the world in online blogs; in this blog post, for [more]

How to get a Colombian partner visa

January 6, 2014 // 158 Comments

NOTE: Please read the comments in the comments section below when you’ve finished reading this post, as readers have been giving helpful advice on how the partner visa application process is constantly changing! I’m summarizing the most helpful ones here at the top as updates. *Update June 2019*– Readers are still confirming that the Centro de [more]

How to renew your Colombian tourist visa

January 6, 2014 // 6 Comments

Update May 2018: Many thanks to Chris for writing to me to let me know that you can now extend your Colombian tourist visa online! Here’s his helpful blog post on this topic on The Unconventional Route. Many foreigners come to Colombia and find themselves wanting to stay .. much like myself 🙂 Thus arises the question of how to renew your Colombian tourist [more]

How to get a taxi in Bogota – Taxi apps [UPDATED]

January 5, 2014 // 2 Comments

Updated July 2019. In Bogotá, hailing a taxi from the street is not recommended, especially at night. Calling for a taxi or car service may be a daunting prospect for someone with a lower-than-intermediate level of Spanish. But never fear; here are some mobile apps which solve this problem, helping you to get an Uber-style car or taxi in Bogota easily. You will need [more]

How to send a letter – Bogotá mail

January 4, 2014 // 29 Comments

The first part of this post explains how to send a letter from Bogotá to somewhere else (either in Colombia or to another country). The second part briefly explains how to format a Colombian address when you are posting a letter to Colombia. How to send a letter from Bogotá Colombians rarely use the public mail service so it took me a while to find out how to send [more]

How to survive the Colombian markets – shopping tips

January 1, 2014 // 0 Comments

In Colombian markets, whether these be indoors, outdoors or people selling on the street, mastering the art of negotiation is essential if you want to pay a fair (or perhaps less unfair) price for goods. A typical market stall in Bogota First things first: you either need to learn the numbers from 1 – 1000 in Spanish (not as difficult as it sounds) so that [more]

The Bogota bus system: demystifying the TransMilenio

December 28, 2013 // 3 Comments

Bogota bus system - a Transmilenio bus at rush hour

Updated July 2019. In a city where getting from A to B can be stressful, tiring and chaotic, it doesn’t help that the SITP and TransMilenio system (i.e. the Bogota bus system is extremely hard to fathom, even for some Bogotanos! Look at a Bogota bus network map at any station and it might as well be written in ancient Greek for all the sense it makes – [more]

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