Santa Marta
Santa Marta, officially the Distrito Turístico, Cultural e Histórico de Santa Marta, is a port city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea in northern Colombia.
Santa Marta, officially the Distrito Turístico, Cultural e Histórico de Santa Marta, is a port city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea in northern Colombia. It is renowned in Latin American as the place of death of Simón Bolívar.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Santa Marta
6 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino
The Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino is an hacienda or quinta built in 1608, famous for being the death place of Simón Bolívar on December 17, 1830. The hacienda is located in the corregimiento of Mamatoco within the tourist district of Santa Marta, near the Caribbean Sea in northern Colombia.
3.2 km · national monument of Colombia · Wikipedia - 02University of guspireña
The University of Magdalena, is a public, departmental, coeducational, research university based in the city of Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia. It received high quality institutional accreditation from the Ministry of National Education on August 26, 2016, for a period of four years, being the second public university in the region to receive such accreditation.
3.1 km · Colombian university · Wikipedia - 03Estadio Eduardo Santos
Estadio Eduardo Santos is a multi-use stadium in Santa Marta, Colombia, used mostly for football matches. It is the largest sports facility in Magdalena Department with a maximum capacity of 23,000 people.
1.1 km · multi-use stadium in Santa Marta, Colombia · Wikipedia - 04Estadio Sierra Nevada
Estadio Sierra Nevada is a football stadium in the city of Santa Marta, Colombia. The stadium was opened on 11 November 2017.
5.7 km · football stadium in Colombia · Wikipedia - 05Museo de Oro Tairona
Casa de la Aduana is a colonial building located in the Plaza de Bolívar in the city of Santa Marta, Magdalena. It is the regional headquarters of the Gold Museum, which is part of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia.
900 m · national monument of Colombia · Wikipedia - 06Rodadero Sea Aquarium and Museum
The Rodadero Sea Aquarium and Museum is a public aquarium and maritime museum located in the Inca Inca Cove off the Rodadero beach in Santa Marta, Colombia. It was opened in 1965 by Captain Francisco Ospina Navia.
4.4 km · aquarium and maritime museum in Santa Marta, Colombia · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Things to do
You can go to the 1 beach near the port. Nearby is the
From Wikivoyage: Santa Marta, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
There are a lot of eating options. They seem to be good at roasting and grilling chicken. They do a good job of grilling beef, tough but flavorful. Seafood is plentiful and relatively inexpensive with lots of shrimp and seafood cocktail vendors. Most varieties of fruit are available even those more common to cold climates.
From Wikivoyage: Santa Marta, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Santa Marta
- Airports
- Ernesto Cortissoz (BAQ), 74 km · Rafael Nuñez (CTG), 168 km · La Chinita (MAR), 281 km
- Barranquilla → Santa Marta71 km · quickest by road, 1h 50m · COL$17,000–22,700
- Cartagena → Santa Marta170 km · quickest by road, 3h 45m · COL$39,100–52,150
- Medellín → Santa Marta576 km · quickest by air, 7h 55m · COL$371,570–571,730
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Santa Marta
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Santa Marta. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inIf carrying a big backpack, you might be rejected by some colectivo drivers.
- Get inFrom Santa Marta centre to the Terminal de Transporte you can catch a bus/colectivo with the sign "UCC TRANSPORTE" on Carrera 1.
- Get inBuses are available: from Cartagena: 3½ hours from Barranquilla: 2 hours from Medellín: 15 hours from Bucaramanga: 9 hours, COP$80,000 (Copetran, Brasilia) (Jan 2024) from Bogotá: 16 hours from Riohacha: 2½ hours from Taganga: COP$2,000 (Sept 2021) with minibus or taxi for COP$10,000 (Aug 2016) from Cúcuta: 14 hours, COP$120,000-140,000 (Mar 2023) 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.
From Wikivoyage: Santa Marta, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-08.
- 01450 km
- 021,214 km
- 031,245 km
- 041,303 km
- 051,377 km
If you know how people move in Santa Marta – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Santa Marta
- Tagangavillage in Magdalena, Colombia3.2 km