Bucaramanga, Colombia 🇨🇴 Gringo's Guide
Easily one of the best small cities in the whole country...
Bucaramanga, Colombia is known as "La Ciudad Bonita" or “The Beautiful City” by its residents, and often by other Colombians as well.
It is indeed a very pretty city with mountains all around — and is very walkable. Just overall a very nice environment to be in.
Its main downside is that it's very sleepy, especially considering how many people live there. Consequently, some people visiting here may love it at first, but get bored very quickly. Others may prefer the relaxed atmosphere and slow pace of this mid-sized city.
Is Bucaramanga a place where you could spend time for an extended period? Keep reading to find out.
Bucaramanga, Colombia 🇨🇴
Population:
The city of Bucaramanga only has around 625,000 souls living there, but the total population of the metro area is roughly twice that, clocking in at around 1,225,000 or so residents.
It's also currently the most rapidly growing area in Colombia, and, curiously, has the lowest unemployment rate in the whole country.
Climate and Topography:
Bucaramanga, like many Latin American cities, is situated on a plateau, surrounded by mountains. This means you constantly have gorgeous mountain ranges on the horizon, almost no matter where you look. On the downside, the land on the plateau is pretty limited, and is quickly running out these days!
The city has an average elevation of just under a kilometer. This makes for a climate where some days are balmy, others are a little on the hot side, especially during the afternoon hours.
Many people feel that the city has gotten hotter and more humid in recent years. The humidity usually sticks around 80% when it's not raining, which is a bit on the high side for some people, especially if the temperature hits 30-33 C (87-92 F) in the middle of an especially warm day. At night, Bucaramanga is very comfortable, generally not going below 18 C (65 F).
It can rain quite a bit in Bucaramanga, but it doesn't rain as much as it does in Bogotá or Medellín, much less the cities of the coffee region, namely Pereira, Manizales and Armenia.
Getting to Bucaramanga, Colombia 🇨🇴
To be honest…
Bucaramanga is a little out of the way — compared to major cities in Colombia.
There are regular flights from cities such as Bogotá and Medellín, which take place multiple times daily.
There’s also regular connections from many of the other larger cities in Colombia, like:
Cali
Barranquilla
Cartagena
Santa Marta
Since Bucaramanga is NOT a tourist destination or hotspot, international direct flights are very sparse.
Most flyers will find flying into Bogota or Medellin, and then flying here to be easier.
However, you will find a few direct flights to:
Miami / FLL 🇺🇸
Panama City 🇵🇦
For more information on all flight routes, click here.
The other downside to flying into Bucaramanga is that the airport is located really far away from the city itself, and the route connecting the airport with the city is not direct, as can be seen in the map below:
Unfortunately, as of this writing, the only option to get to Bucaramanga from its airport, and vice versa, is to take an expensive taxi. It's also especially important to leave a lot of extra time when heading to the airport from town, as unexpected traffic jams can come up and cause you to miss a flight if you didn't allow enough of a time cushion.
Bucaramanga can also be reached pretty easily by land from Bogotá and Medellín, taking around 7-10 hours by car or bus.
Aside from the odd bit of construction to slow you down, the roads are in pretty decent condition.
Best Barrios in Bucaramanga 🇨🇴
This beautiful city has a lot of beautiful neighborhoods in it, to be sure. Here are some of the most important ones:
La Cabecera
La Cabecera, despite being quite removed from downtown, is the real heart and soul of the city of Bucaramanga. It's also the place that you as a visitor/expat/etc. will be spending a great deal of your time in Bucaramanga.
This neighborhood is a true mixed-use neighborhood, with residences thrown in with all kinds of businesses:
Bucaramanga is, in general, a very clean and pretty place, and La Cabecera is one of the best examples of this:
As I mention below, the city's nightlife is also very heavily focused on this area, as is its restaurant scene.
Altos de la Cabecera
Located just up the hill from La Cabecera, this is the most exclusive place to live in the whole city:
The residents of this neighborhood enjoy fresh air, beautiful views, and favorable zoning laws which keeps things very low-density, especially for a Colombian city.
The only real drawback to living here is that it is very residential, meaning that there are not a lot of amenities like: corner stores, dry cleaners, laundromats etc. within walking distance.
People who live here are definitely of means, and, as such, they often pay people to run these types of errands for them, and prefer to keep the neighborhood free of the hustle and bustle of the rest of the city.
El Prado/Sotomayor
El Prado, like neighboring Sotomayor, is situated right next door to La Cabecera. All three neighborhoods are part of Comuna 12, which is the district where all the fanciest neighborhoods are located.
This neighborhood is ideal for people who don't want to live right in the middle of everything, but want to be walking distance from it, and don't want to deal with the hills or the high prices of Altos de la Cabecera.
Both El Prado and Sotomayor also do have many good restaurants as well, for when you're too lazy to even walk to La Cabecera.
Ciudadela Real de Minas
This neighborhood is halfway upscale, and halfway middle class, but it's definitely worth shouting out in this article, because it's a really nice place to live.
It has also been rated the most popular neighborhood in town by real estate experts such as Metrocuadrado, who claim that it's the most-searched neighborhood in Bucaramanga on their website.
The San Andresitos, Puerta del Sol, and downtown
San Andresitos are basically overgrown flea markets. Most Colombian cities have at least one of them, some, like Bogotá, have dozens of them scattered all over the city.
In Bucaramanga, they are all crammed next to each other in what could best be described as a "midtown" area, between Calles 50 and 60. I say "crammed in", but they actually have more than enough space for them, and it makes for a very convenient shopping experience.
If you like bargain-hunting, or just shopping around for weird and cool stuff, the San Andresitos are definitely worth popping into when you have some free time. Bucaramanga's San Andresitos are surprisingly good, and are rivaled only by those of Bogotá.
Continuing north on "La 27" (the main trunk road going through town), we come to the downtown area, which is not super bustling, and has a surprising small-town feel for such a big city.
One of the downtown area's finest attractions is the Parque de los Niños. As you can see, it's well-maintained, lush and green:
Honestly, while there's nothing particularly wrong with downtown Bucaramanga, you probably won't be spending a lot of time there, because there aren't a lot of things to do there.
You will almost certainly only find yourself going there only when you need to go to some government office or similar.
Floridablanca and Piedecuesta
Floridablanca and Piedecuesta are both solid middle-class towns in the south of the Bucaramanga metro area.
They are both located slightly off of the main road coming into town from the south, and they are both pretty hilly places. Recently, they have been growing by leaps in bounds, as real estate prices are a bit lower than they are within Bucaramanga itself.
While Floridablanca is right adjacent to Bucaramanga, Piedecuesta is a bit up the road, so it's a little more remote and tranquil. It also has a bit more of a colonial vibe, with a lot of beautiful older buildings having been preserved:
The North of Bucaramanga (GHETTO)
People in Bucaramanga will often sincerely tell you to not go anywhere in the city located north of downtown. Actually, some will even tell you to avoid the downtown area, especially at night.
I personally would take this advice with a grain of salt.
There are cities in Colombia where there are some horribly bad neighborhoods that are no-go zones 24/7 and you would do well to 100-percent avoid those areas — Cali, I'm looking at you!
However, Bucaramanga is in general a pretty safe place, and it's one of the places in Colombia with the lowest crime rates.
At any rate, even the worst parts of Bucaramanga are pretty clean and well-ordered. You can see for yourself in the pictures below:
It's worth noting that, while you probably won't get shanked or kidnapped or anything in the north of Bucaramanga, there's also not much reason to go there, unless you meet someone from there and they invite you over.
If this happens to you, I'd recommend not to even think twice about accepting the invitation, though!
Finding a Place to Stay in Bucaramanga 🇨🇴
The very first time I stayed in Bucaramanga, I found the Hotel Alessio just tooling around the city on the motorbike. I enjoyed it immensely there, and have been back quite a few times.
This hotel is technically considered to be a three-star, but it's got a lot of amenities you would expect to find in a four-star.
The hotel has a rooftop restaurant serving basic but well-prepared typical Colombian stuff. It also has a pool, and guests at the Alessio are allowed to use the sauna at the nearby Hotel D'Leon — and guests there are allowed to use the Alessio's pool — since both hotels have the same ownership.
A room here will cost you from around 100,000 COP to 200,000 COP — around $20 to $40 USD or so — depending on what kind of a room you want.
To this day, I think that this is one of the best deals you could find in Bucaramanga.
Other more upscale options in Bucaramanga include:
These will range from 250,000 to 500,000 COP — just over $50-100 USD at this time.
On AirBnB, options are generally quite cheap!
If you’re staying for a month or two, you may want to look at a few of these rentals in the best areas of the city:
You can find both better and cheaper options with a bit of digging, but these should suffice to start.
Some apartments also feature insane views of the lush mountains surrounding the city…
Cost of Living in Bucaramanga
Bucaramanga has been rising in popularity and in price in recent years, as more people discover it as a viable alternative to other places in Colombia. However, things remain cheap there.
Here's a breakdown of what a typical expat might pay for a month to live in Bucaramanga…
The following is based on renting a small furnished place off of AirBnB or similar, and eating moderately, eating out a couple times a week, and spending moderately in the nightclubs etc. Your own mileage may vary on either side of this, depending on your tastes and habits, as always:
Accommodations: $500-1,000 USD
Groceries: $150 USD
Eating out: $200 USD
Gym: $12 USD
Cell Data: $15 USD
Social: $200 USD
This is easily a city where you could enjoy a high quality of life for under $1,000 USD a month — on a longer stay, 3-6 months.
You could also live like an absolute king here for $2,500 USD a month.
Nightlife in Bucaramanga, Colombia 🇨🇴
Bucaramanga, as was mentioned earlier, is surprisingly sleepy for a city with such a large-ish population.
That being said…
There’s enough to do here at night on the weekends. This isn’t Armenia, Colombia.
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