--- type: Place title: Medellín description: Colombia's most famous city, seen deliberately from El Centro rather than the tourist quarters — eternal spring, a $20 Airbnb, Botero's statues, and Harry's clearest safety rules. tags: [colombia, medellin, el-centro, digital-nomad, street-food, safety, graffiti, markets] coordinates: {lat: 6.2697, lng: -75.6026} timestamp: 2026-08-07T13:40:00Z --- # Medellín A city of [Colombia](/countries/colombia.md)'s interior, in a valley ringed by mountains, and the country's most famous — Harry says so straight out, and says why: a violent past that has turned into the country's tourist and digital-nomad hotspot. **He spends his first day out in El Centro on purpose**, avoiding the districts visitors normally see, and says repeatedly that this is not a fair picture of the whole city — El Poblado and [Comuna 13](/places/comuna-13.md) are named as the parts he hasn't got to yet, and he reaches Comuna 13 the next day. Over a whole day in El Centro he sees almost no foreign tourists. ## What it is like - **The land of eternal spring**, which is what he is told locals call it: 20–30°C year-round (from video – unverified), and good weather in January. - **Green, and hilly.** He notes the greenery inside the city as unusual, and the valley setting with mountains visible at the end of the streets. - **A metro**, which he keeps calling ugly and liking anyway — an elevated line running between trees. - **Market stalls everywhere.** His summary of El Centro: a sprawling, busy, organised mess, selling everything you can think of, with the mountains behind it. - **Famous for its graffiti**, which he says is more colourful here than anywhere else he has been. - **A lot of casinos**, which he reads as a sign of an affluent city. ## Why people move here Harry sets out the digital-nomad case without being asked: **cheap, very liveable, good internet, a big population, plenty to do, and friendly people.** He says it is a city he'd like to live in one day. - **An Airbnb at $20 a night**, about £15.20 (from video – unverified) — kitchen, workspace, bedroom, fast wi-fi and Netflix on the television. His verdict is that the price is ridiculous. The one drawback is that the building is part building site. - **Food delivery through Rappi**, the local equivalent of the big delivery apps and recommended to him as fast. Two tacos and a juice came to **21,000 pesos, about $5** (from video – unverified), delivered in about 40 minutes. The app adds a **default tip of 2,000 pesos**, roughly 50 cents; Harry leaves it in on the assumption that tipping is expected, and the driver thanks him for it specifically. ## Safety The most detailed safety material in the cluster, and it is mostly Harry narrating his own risk-taking. - **He is knowingly on the boundary** between areas he has been told are safe and areas he hasn't, and says so while filming with an obvious camera. - **The local rule he passes on**: don't display what you're carrying — no phone held up, no visible valuables, and stay out of the wrong areas. He says there is a set phrase for it and that he'll put it on screen rather than attempt it; the phrase is not recorded here because he never says it. - **He walks into a street clearly given over to sex work** and turns back without filming it, saying he might be wrong and doesn't want to judge. - **A woman shouted at him for filming the crowd**, and another walked away the moment the camera came on. He moves on both times. - **He stops exploring at dusk**, as a rule and not a one-off: places are more dangerous at night, and he says he is willing to take risks but not those ones. He walks home in the dark anyway when the traffic makes a taxi pointless, and calls it a bit risky. - **Helicopters overhead**, which he notes usually means trouble somewhere. See [keep moving](/tips/keep-moving.md), which he states as a general rule here and then breaks for ten minutes. ## Plaza Botero The one properly touristy thing he does, and even here he notes the crowd is mostly Colombian. **Twenty-three sculptures by Fernando Botero** (from video – unverified) stand in the square, with a church and the mountains behind. There is a street portrait trade working the same square — Harry sits for a drawing done freehand with drafting tools, and a crowd gathers around him while it happens. ## Eating and drinking - **A grilled meat skewer with potato from a street cart, under £1** (from video – unverified), which he rates one of the best things he has eaten in Colombia. He never establishes what the meat was — it tastes like chicken and he is told it isn't — and the page doesn't guess. - **He eats street food against a lot of advice, deliberately**, and gives his reasoning: warnings about street food travel the same way warnings about dangerous places do, as a friend of a friend who got ill, and the place is usually fine. He is careful to say it's a decision each person makes. - **A sweet drink from a cart** — a fruit he can't identify, syrup and a pink topping he thinks is decoration. Very cheap, and better than he expected. - **An energy drink sold everywhere on the street**, which he says tastes exactly like Red Bull. **A detail he records without comment, which is the sharpest thing in the video**: he throws a mostly-finished skewer into a bin, and a man immediately takes it out and eats it. ## Money - **He walks a long way to reach a specific bank's cash machine to avoid withdrawal fees — and it has run out of money.** He uses another bank's instead. See [don't trust Google Maps](/tips/dont-trust-google-maps.md): the machine wasn't showing on the map either, and he found it by asking three people. - **300,000 pesos withdrawn**, about £60 or $75 (from video – unverified). - **A printed shirt: asked 25,000 pesos, sold at 23,000** — about $5 (from video – unverified). See below. ## The haggle he only did because of the comments Worth its own note. In [Cartagena](/places/cartagena.md) Harry paid over the odds for a painting and was criticised in the comments for not bargaining. Here he says on camera that this is why he is going to haggle — and then loses twice in a row. A seller refuses to move at all; a second stallholder and his neighbours hold at 23,000 against his 20,000, which he thinks they agreed between them. His own verdict is that five pounds is not a lot and it was fine either way. See [don't grind a price down to nothing](/tips/dont-grind-down-people-with-nothing.md). ## People His one general observation: **the older generation is markedly friendlier than the younger**, which he says is the reverse of his experience in Europe. ## Harry's tips - **Walk it, and go to the local part.** He states the rule again — arriving anywhere, walk around, it tells you what there is — and applies it by choosing El Centro over El Poblado. See [walk the city](/tips/walk-the-city.md). - **Stop at sunset.** His stated cut-off for exploring anywhere. - **Don't hold the camera or the phone up.** The local advice, which he passes on while conspicuously ignoring it. - **Don't stand still.** See [keep moving](/tips/keep-moving.md). - **Ask people rather than the map**, especially for cash machines. - **Check you still have everything** after any situation where a crowd formed — he does this out loud after the portrait. ## Source videos - [Solo in Colombia's Best City! Medellin 🇨🇴](/videos/OSwpryzqBaY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSwpryzqBaY - [Exploring Colombia's Famous Hood 🇨🇴](/videos/3CM7u88Xbgc.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CM7u88Xbgc — Comuna 13, and a lookout swing over the valley