Where to stay in Cartagena: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

The old city is Cartagena’s reason for being, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984 and small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes. Centro is the grander half, with the cathedral, the clock tower gate and the church of San Pedro Claver; San Diego, to the north, is quieter and more residential, its little plazas ringed with restaurants. Walk the ramparts at sunset and you will see why people keep coming back.

Staying here means staying somewhere with a past. Two former convents are now the city’s most famous hotels, and dozens of 17th- and 18th-century houses have been turned into boutique places with a handful of rooms around a courtyard pool. Many have roof terraces looking over the domes. It is the most expensive part of town and can be noisy late on. It is also the one that first-time visitors rarely regret.

Just outside the main walls, Getsemaní was for centuries the working-class quarter, and it still has the neighbours sitting out on their doorsteps to prove it. Now its narrow streets are strung with flags and umbrellas, the walls are covered in murals, and Plaza de la Trinidad fills every evening with street food, dancers and anyone who fancies a cold beer on the church steps.

The hotels have followed the crowd. Restored colonial mansions here have rooftop pools and terraces with wide views over the old city, at prices a step below those inside the walls, and there are bigger modern places near the convention centre. The clock tower is a short walk away. Choose Getsemaní if you want to be among the bars and the music; avoid it if you are a light sleeper.

South of the walls, a long finger of land pushes out between the Caribbean and the bay, and on it stands modern Cartagena: white apartment towers, shopping streets, casinos and a strip of beach lined with sunshades. Bocagrande is the main stretch, El Laguito the tip, and Castillogrande the calmer, more residential side facing the bay.

The beaches are handy rather than idyllic, with greyish sand and plenty of vendors, but the hotels are large, well equipped and often good value, with pools, sea-view balconies and direct access to the sand. Families and anyone who wants a swim before breakfast will be comfortable here, and the walled city is five to ten minutes away by taxi. Romantics should stay inside the walls instead.

North of the old city, past the airport, the coast opens into a long, straight beach backed by the fishing village of La Boquilla and the newer towers of Los Morros. The sand is broader and far less crowded than in Bocagrande, the sea breeze is constant, and fishermen still work their boats from the shore.

The hotels are modern beachfront resorts with several pools, kids’ areas, spas and tennis courts, and views straight out to the Caribbean. The airport is about five minutes away and the walled city around ten, which makes this a clever compromise: a beach base that is still close enough for dinner in the old town. There is little to do on foot beyond the resort and the sand.

Keep going north and the city falls away. Around the fishing village of Manzanillo del Mar, roughly 17 km from the old walls, a handful of large resorts have the coast more or less to themselves, one of them inside the gated Karibana estate beside its 18-hole golf course. This is where Cartagena does the full Caribbean package holiday.

Everything is on site: enormous pools, swim-up rooms, kids’ clubs, spas and several restaurants, with all-inclusive the norm. It works well for families and for anyone who wants a week of doing very little with one or two excursions into the old city. If you plan to be in town most evenings, the taxi rides will add up, so stay closer in.

Cartagena’s best beaches are not in Cartagena. They are on Barú, the long peninsula to the south, and in the Rosario Islands, a coral archipelago protected as a national park about an hour away by boat. Here the sea finally turns the shade of turquoise you were promised, the sand is white and the mangroves and reefs are full of life.

Hotels range from treehouse-style bungalows and a French-accented luxury beach resort on Barú to simple private-island lodges in the Rosarios, with a big all-inclusive in between. Days are spent snorkelling, paddling and swinging in hammocks; nights are dark and quiet. Split your trip if you can: a few nights among the balconies of the old city, then a few out here.