The Best Resorts to Book in Colombia

We’ll be frank: there are more beautiful hotels than Tamacá, with its old-fashioned concrete-block design and its rooms sporting functional wood veneer. But sometimes what you need is an undemanding, non-extortionate base. There are also prettier towns than Santa Marta, the town it’s in. But you’re here for the wildly romantic beauty all around: golden beaches, the Sierra Nevada mountain range, rising from the coast to icy peaks, and indigenous villages lost in rainforested valleys. It’s all doable on day trips.

Cartagena, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, is one of South America’s more enchanting colonial cities: set behind cannon-encrusted walls, it is cut by cobbled streets of ochre and lemon Spanish mansions, with spicy smells wafting from seafood restaurants and vibrant with bars and salsa clubs. This old-fashioned all-inclusive (with family-size pools and balcony rooms squeezed into concrete annexes) sits on a broad sandy beach a 20-minute shuttle ride away from the city, just close enough for you to dip from day to nightlife, with disco naps in between.

You couldn’t accuse the Conrad of hemming you in on holiday – not given those awesome expanses of turquoise Caribbean Sea. Check out the vast complex of swimming pools for all ages. Wander the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus golf course. And rest awhile in your cavernous balconied room, enjoying its meditative contemporary white palette, lent splashes of color by locally sourced art. The only downside? The secluded beach is tennis-court tiny. That and the fact that Cartagena – the jewel in colonial Colombia’s crown – is a half-hour drive away.

On a beach edged by wild forest an hour from Cartagena, this jungle hotel lays on Robinson-Crusoe-barefoot luxury. Rope-floored, palm-thatched cabins have mosquito-netted four posters and Caribbean-view balconies. Some are conjoined – ideal for families. Cartagena is an easy day trip away, and you’re never lost for things to do, from glass-bottom sea kayaking and snorkeling over the coral to heli-trips to ruined pre-Columbian cities in the mountains.

Towering over a Caribbean beach just south of Santa Marta town, this big resort is a favorite among Colombian partygoers and families. It has a pool, tennis courts and a golf driving range; what it won’t deliver is quiet intimacy – even in the garden bungalows. The rooms to book are the balcony suites on the upper floors of the main building – for their sweeping, sunset-over-the-ocean views. Best of all are the Sierra Nevada mountains a half-hour drive away, fringed with the gorgeous, empty beaches of Tayrona National Park.