I recently took a little field trip to Bogota for two weeks. I am a white guy who doesn't speak Spanish, but has traveled around quite a bit. This was just another random trip for me after an impulse plane ticket buy on Travelocity. These are my impressions:

Climate: - Bogota is surrounded by mountains and has decent elevation. Some people say this results in a rather comfortable temperate climate. Weak sun in between overcast skies and little showers in the evening, fairly chilly nights. To me, it was rather dreary and a bit depressing. I'm more of a tropical climate kind of guy. I like Hot. But I can see how some people would find the 70 degree weather ideal.

General architecture and beauty - Most of Bogota looks either like a slum, or communist concrete jungle. What is unique is that no matter what part of town you are in, you can see that you are surrounded by mountains. Some of the richer areas look like a little bit of Euro city with little stores and cafes, etc. In summary, it is mostly ugly. There is one area that is very beautiful though; la Candelaria - old part of town. It is amazing.

Prices - Comparable restaurants and clubs are about 1/2 the US price. A lot of activities like renting bicycles or hiring guides are cheap. However, hotels are VERY expensive. More expensive than in the US. Basically, Bogota only seems to have low-end backpacker types and high-end business types coming, and this results in very few mid-budget options. It is SUPER hard to find a clean, modern looking hotel for under $100/night. In Thailand, you can get the same thing for $30, anywhere, and easily. In Bogota, $30-$35 will get you a single room in a dirty, old hostel where you are sharing a 60s bathroom. I ended up getting private rooms at several hostels but eventually moving to nice hotel that I bargained down to $150ish/night. I bet I could get something decently nice for $100-120, but by that point I was sick of going to hotels, inspecting rooms, and searching for discounts. BTW, I did try online sites to rent people's apartments - but they either didn't reply or the places were occupied.

Services - This is a city of 8 million with amenities of a city of 300K. I tried doing a bunch of things like renting a motorcycle that proved to be extraordinarily hard.

Drugs - You will see people in la Candelaria openly smoke dope in front of cops. Regular middle class Colombians don't really do Coke. The few that do any drugs, it seems like they will do ecstasy. But apparently, drugs is one of the big reasons why tourists come here, so you can expect to be offered.

Transportation - They have a city bus lane system that is supposed to be good but I never tried it. I mostly used a motorcycle, bicycle, or Taxi. Taxi drivers are pretty scummy in Bogota and there is good reason why you are not supposed to hail just any taxi on the street. (You are supposed to call in and get PIN number for security reasons.) I ignored this rule and hailed taxis anyway. About 60% of the time, I was taken the long way or I had to argue to get change back.


Clubs and bars - The shining point of Bogota. On the high end you have places that are just like US - including the prices - but with more friendly beautiful people. On the low end you have pretty cheap places with beautiful girls but questionable security.

Women and people in general - this is the one redeeming value of Bogota. People are nice. Women are hot and nice. I will admit that I've seen some truly stunning women here that made me stare and turn around. Bogota doesn't get that many tourists so it seems like you will get more brownie points here.

Language barrier - I don't speak Spanish so it was harder to get around. But it seems like whenever I needed something, there was always a random person who spoke a little English who would stop by and help me out. That said, most of the smaller museums are not prepared for English speakers and all the info is in Spanish. Whatever tourists Bogota gets, it's mostly from Latin America/Spanish speakers.

Poverty - Bogota is a mostly a slum and it shows. People here can't even afford cell phones. There are street vendors who have like 10 cellphones on a string and you can pay them to make a call. haha... There is a good number of indigenous people displaced by the drug wars, whole families begging on the streets. Even their renowned National University looks like a public housing project... full of graffiti and trash everywhere.

Casinos and Poker - I checked out some of the downtown casinos. They are small operations with little 'wow' factor. I screwed around a little bit at a roulette table, and also put in some hours playing poker just to say I played poker in Bogota. This particular casino had only one electronic table and the stakes were equivalent to 50NL. It was a mix between 50BB stacks and very deep stacks. On my electronic screen they helped me switch to English so I had no problem following the action. The atmosphere was lighthearted and friendly. People did screw around between each other, but they were cordial when I was in the hand and I did not feel like they were sharing info. Complimentary dinner food was good. I know that some casinos in the North have higher stakes. I did not have a chance to check them out. With almost no Spanish skills, I wouldn't want to sit at my regular limits and screw around, plus, I'm not a big fan of live play unless it is super juicy.

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SECURITY - This is a big topic. People say that Bogota has lower homicide rate than my home city of Washington, DC. People say it's not that bad.

This is false.

Bogota is one of the few places in the world where the second I stepped out of the airport I knew I would not be carrying around my dSLR. Not only that, I didn't just try to dress down. I tried to look as 'bummy' and poor as possible. This is not enough. In Bogota, you will have to restrict your movement quite a bit. There are many 'no-go' zones during the day, and they grow exponentially during the night. I've found myself getting 'bad looks' in certain areas for sure! And trust me, I can tell an inquisitive, curious look from a up-to-no-good-look.

Obviously, if you restrict yourself to tourist areas you will have no problems. Security is very tight in tourist neighborhoods. But you will also see nothing different from what you would see in the US. What is the point?

But if you like to explore a bit, wander around, this is not the place to be. And after dark, even semi-decent neighborhoods like Centro become very sketchy. Amusingly enough, one time at night I was not even sure when a coked out angry dude approached me whether he wanted some of my street food or whether he wanted to rob me.

You will find that anyone who has anything in Bogota builds a fortress wall around their stuff and puts 2 alarms on and a guard dog. Even the hostels have intricate double door and security camera setups. And despite all this, in the 2 weeks I was there, one hostel had their outside plumbing meeter parts stolen (resold, or sold for scrap metal), one had their wire to camera stolen TWICE, and one hostel was forcibly raided and everyone in the hostel robbed. What does that tell you about security in Bogota? How do you think the locals really feel about security if they feel the need to put barbed wire and shattered glass on top of their 10 foot compound walls?

People are very poor here, they are desperate, and they are used to violence. That is a very bad trio.

Most deceivingly of all, crime rates on paper do not account for one thing: as a Westerner, they know you have money. The bad guys WILL target you. And so, as it happens, I did run out of luck and I was chased by, fought, and ultimately surrendered all my stuff to 3 knife wielding bandits.

Bogota is no joke - unless you stay in a little tourist cocoon the whole time.

Summary - I guess the big question is whether I would go there again. While I feel tempted to review the cool things I saw and did in Bogota, I think I will pass. However, I am tempted to go to Medallin even though the security situation sounds similar. I am generally willing to take more risks than others, I am curious about it, Colombian people are generally very nice, and Colombia as whole isn't too tourist infested.

TLDR SUMMARY:
If you get robbed and almost stabbed somewhere and you are still kinda itching to go to that place again, I guess that is a very positive review of the place, isn't it? haha.

Questions?

Nice read mate, thanks for posting, was thinking of taking a trip there at some point myself

thank you forthe report

I can't help but be a nit

Colombia is on the western hemisphere
they are westerners

I concur with Bogota being a sketchy city.
Bogota had a small poker club the last time I went. It is safe and upscale and expect to plow a couple of hundred on a rebuy tourney.

For tourism, I think Cartagena is a better deal.

When I went there I stayed at a 50 dollars a night hotel. But I speak Spanish really good and am not into drugs.

For fun, I rate Buenos Aires much higher and its significantly safer.

How much have you traveling have you done in Latin America?

No offense, but you say a good bit of "ldo" type stuff I probably wouldn't even mention in one of my trip reports. Does this compare unfavorably to countries like Honduras and Guatemala, which are the same if not worse on paper wrt crime, poverty, etc?

Sorry that you got robbed. That sucks.

I guess I've been spending a lot of time in the Thailand threads, and my Colombia TR is really a comparison with Thailand, not to other places in SA.

I've spend 2 weeks in Peru, 1 week in Caracas, 1 week in Panama City, 3 weeks around Belize. I am definitely a SA newb, but I would like to get to know it better so I've been taking these short trips to get a better idea of what I'm up against if I ever choose to take a substantial longer trip. I guess a lot of things in this report apply to the other places I've visited.

I'm obviously a newb, but I still wanted to throw it out there to present a simple tourist experience of someone who doesn't look local and who doesn't speak Spanish but still wants to explore a bit on his own. The security situation sucks in all these places. I am hoping that this thread will spark some interest and people with more knowledge will share their experiences...

Can you share in more detail about yourself being robbed?

more details on this plz. i assume this happened outside the touristy areas. were you just wandering around or doing anything in particular? was it evening/after dark? what do you mean by "fought"? i mean you weren't actually trying to fight 3 people (with knives no less) rather than just surrender your stuff immediately right? or did they like, tackle you when you were trying to run away, or attack you before demanding your stuff? for you to try running i assume you're either in pretty good shape or were very close to some kind of "safe" area?

and last but not least, pics?

nice TR, sorry you got robbed =\

Bogota is a chilly, sprawling slum.

Medellin is not Bogota.

? trip report is not about medellin afaik -.-

I think it just brings the sanity of OP into question :P

I spent about 6 months in total in Colombia, 2 months total in Bogota.
Bogota is not the nicest place in Colombia, but imo it's definately not as bad as you make it look like. Bogota is not that different from a lot of cities in Latin America, it's ugly, but I wouldn't call it a slum.

I have to agree, Bogota is not a pretty city. But again this goes for a lot of cities in Latin America, if you are used to a tipical European or American city it might look like a slum.

This is also pretty common in other countries in Latin America.

About security in general:
Of course you get more attention if you look like a foreigner, but I never felt really unsafe in Colombia.I walked around quite a bit in the center and I walked from the center to Zona T several times (also after dark). Only one time on a Sunday night in the center some bum kept following me and asking me for money, I went into the Transmilenio station and he went away.

Can you clearify what you mean by "tourist cocoon", what areas of the city do you mean?

Yes taxi drivers in Bogota try to rip you off (again pretty standard in Latin America, especially if you don't speak Spanish), but in general in other parts of Colombia they never overcharge me. The difference is in Bogota they use a meter that corresponds with a scheme that tells you how much you have to pay (in other cities the meter tells you how much you have to pay), this makes it a lot easier for the drivers to screw you over.

The Transmilenio on the other hand is a very fast and safe way to travel in Bogota.

Everybody has a cellphone, they use the "minutos" guys on the street to make calls because it's cheaper. And again people begging on the streets, pretty normal in cities in Latin America.

Very true and the people in Bogota are not even that nice compared to people from other pars of the country. I would like to advise you to go to Colombia again and spent some time outside of Bogota, you won't regret it. Colombia has so much to offer: mountains, beaches, deserts, jungle, Spanish colonial towns, nice people, different climates.

I actually liked Bogota, lots of good restaurants, bars and nightclubs. Stayed like one month and never felt unsafe. But then I speak Spanish, maybe it makes a huge difference.
Other than that, Bogota is not beautiful, but it is fairly regular by South American standards. Who goes to Latin America to see beautiful cities anyways?

I don't think you're a newb, it is just a bit surprising that you had these reactions. But it's okay...getting robbed definitely will have an effect on the way you perceive a place.

But tbh by Latin American standards the fact that Bogota has a "tourist cocoon" is actually very desirable and a bit unique. Cities like Managua, Tegucigalpa, Guatemala City, San Salvador, San Pedro Sula, etc, have nothing of the sort. The best you have in most of these places are newer, wealthier, suburban-style areas that offer somewhat better security but a totally terrible tourist experience. At least Bogota has some interesting areas.

But yeah, in general, cities in Africa and Latin America aren't worth going much of a distance for, with rare exception.

I'd be interested to hear more about the robbery as well. To be honest if you resisted the robbers you are somewhat lucky to be alive. I've heard in the Ecuadorean press of a gringo getting approached by robbers at an ATM in Quito who said "no" when asked for the money and was shot on the spot, without another word. The guys can be totally ruthless.

I'm OK with using fare charts, the problem is that they would just run the meter by taking 'the long way'. In all instances, it was retardedly clear that they are taking me for a ride. Maybe the other 40% they only screwed me a little. haha.

Chapinero and North seem to be the richer, blander, touristy areas. Rona T seems like the spot where every tourist hands out. These areas feel like a US city and I thought it was safe. But it felt like the US... I didn't want to only stay in these areas.

Everywhere else in the city, things seem to get patchy. Even around Centro, at night, if you walk off the main avenue where the casinos are, it is sketchy.

A little further South is La Candelaria - which I think is a big reason to come to Bogota - things totally change after sunset. The police completely disappear, and shady people come out. Lots of dark alleys and potential for trouble.

So far, the above mentioned areas probably cover about 20% of Bogota - the North East Area. So what is my impression of the rest of the city? Well, the rest of the city is just pure sketchiness. South and South West are slum, and going West gets slummier by the block as you head closer to the airport.

I mostly walked around, rented a bicycle, and later rented a motorcycle. I did the motorcycle outside the city a little bit but not enough to make any sort of impressions.

OP how do you compare Caracas to Bogota? I hear Bogota is a lot safer than Caracas.