Santa Marta get in · How to get in Santa Marta
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How to get in Santa Marta
How to get in Santa Marta
The Simón Bolívar airport (same name as the one in Caracas, Venezuela) has non-stop flights from Bogotá and Medellín. It is located along the beach, 20 min south of town, but much closer to most of the beach resorts and only 10 min from El Rodadero (main beach). If you get in from abroad check if baggage is unloaded in Bogota even if airlines promise they´ll send the baggage directly to Santa Marta.
The bus station is all the way out of town on the main highway (15,000 pesos to the beach in taxi, some charge tourists 10,000. To avoid this, you should fix the price before you get into the taxi;-). Mini-bus 1200 Pesos.
Bus rides are available from:
Cartagena (3.5 hours).
Barranquilla (2 hours).
Medellín (15 hours).
Bucaramanga (8 hours).
Bogotá (16 hours).
For more comfortable road travel across northern Colombia, a few companies offer air conditioned van services between Cartagena and Santa Marta, with stops in Barranquilla en route. Cochetur seems to be the most reputable of these. Price is 50,000 pesos per person between the main two stops and they will pick you up and drop you off at your desired location in each city. Note: you will likely share the van with 6-8 people including the driver. Tipping did not appear to be expected but a thousand or two goes a long way here.
There are also exclusive private transfers by taxi which don't cost a lot more if you are more than one person and if you don't want to wait until the busses have picked up or dropped off anyone else.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Santa Marta
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Santa Marta Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.