Santa Marta

A city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, east of Cartagena, and the jumping-off point for Tayrona National Park.

Harry’s verdict is the most negative he gives anywhere in the cluster. He says outright that Santa Marta is not as nice as he expected, that it doesn’t seem very interesting, and — at the end of the day — that it was disappointing and just not his thing. He is careful to qualify it twice: he may not have explored enough, and he is sure it works for other people. Nothing in the video contradicts him, but nothing much tests him either; he spends the day working.

Safety

Walking back at around 10 p.m. in the dark, a man followed alongside him asking for money. Nothing happened and Harry treats it lightly — he jokes about the stories people tell of being mugged in South America — but it is the closest thing to an incident in the cluster and it happened on his first night here.

Working here

This is the bundle’s clearest picture of Harry working rather than travelling. Facing several days in the jungle with no electricity or wi-fi, he spends the day getting four videos edited and scheduled so they publish while he is off-grid.

• A co-working space inside a hostel, flamingo-themed, with private offices to rent and an open room he had almost to himself.
• A day pass: around £4–5, or $5 (from video – unverified), including tea, coffee, water and wi-fi.
• Speeds of about 12 Mbps down and 12 up. He calls that not great but workable, says he doubts anything better exists locally, and notes it beats his hostel.

See book for the wi-fi when you work on the road — this is the version of that problem solved by working ahead rather than by booking around it.

Practical facts

• A barber shop: a fade and a full shave for 25,000 pesos, which he puts at about £5–6 (from video – unverified) and calls very good value. He didn’t ask the price first. He asks for the fade not to be taken too high and it is anyway — his read is that the instruction was lost in translation, and he likes the result regardless. The barber is Venezuelan, one of the few direct signs in the cluster of Venezuelan migration into the Colombian coast.
• A meal of fish with potatoes and vegetables: $7 (from video – unverified), which he calls substantial and good value.
• Cash: he withdraws 300,000 pesos, and says he prefers BBVA cash machines as reliable with a good exchange rate. He warns that the denominations run high enough to catch you out.
• A taxi to the Tayrona park area: 120,000 pesos, about $30 (from video – unverified), for a journey of roughly 45–50 minutes. He is clear a bus would be far cheaper and that he paid for the flexibility of leaving when he wanted after a day’s work.
• A sun hat bought in the street before heading for the jungle.

How he books

He names the tools he uses in Colombia: Hostelworld for hostels, hotels.com for hotels, and Airbnb. He picks by trip shape rather than by price — a hostel here because he wants to be near the park at dawn.

Obs: he also links a fourth Airbnb-booking site in the description and recommends it on camera, stating it is not sponsored. It is not named here — the bundle doesn’t name a business the creator directs viewers to through a link, whatever the arrangement behind it.

Harry’s tips

• Front-load the work before you go off-grid. Four videos scheduled bought him four days without having to think about wi-fi.
• A private room in a hostel is the compromise worth paying for. He wanted the sociability of a hostel and somewhere secure for a laptop and camera, and says he’ll do more of this for the rest of Colombia.
• Other travellers are the best source on what to do next. See the Tayrona page — an evening with people arriving from and returning to the park got him the entrances, the campsites and the routes.
• Don’t work on your bed with the drives on the mattress. He knocked a hard drive onto the floor and lost a lot of unbacked-up footage — the second drive he has broken in a few months, and he says both were his own fault.

Source videos

• A Day In My Life Living In COLOMBIA 🇨🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuJASkbvem4