Medellin Colombia: Safer Than You've Been Told

Paula is joined by Neil H Solomon — entrepreneur, author, and nomad — who gave up everything in the US in 2018 to travel the world. Now based in Mexico City, his other great love is Medellin, Colombia. In this episode, he breaks down the myths, shares the real numbers on safety, and makes a compelling case for why Medellin belongs on your bucket list.

About Neil

Neil walked away from a corporate career at 35, built a business from scratch, scaled it 12x to 300 employees, then engineered himself out of the day-to-day so he could travel. In 2018, he became a full nomad, visiting around 70 countries. He now splits his time between Mexico City and Medellín.

Connect with Neil: the1percentdoor.com

Is Colombia Safe?

Neil's answer: yes — with the same common sense you'd use anywhere. The stat that stops most people: Medellin has the same murder rate as Denver, Colorado. Most crime is opportunistic, so don't flash expensive jewellery or gadgets and you'll largely be fine.

What Makes Medellin Special

Medellin sits in a natural bowl surrounded by mountains, with over a million trees planted in the last decade. The locals call it the City of Eternal Spring — perfect weather year-round, cool and crisp higher up the mountain, warmer in the valley. And somehow, impossibly, no mosquitoes.

Where to Stay

Stay in Poblado — that's where expats, digital nomads and international visitors base themselves. Warmer in the valley, cooler with better views higher up the mountain.

Things to Do

• Botero Museum — dedicated to Medellín's most famous son, Fernando Botero. Essential.
• Comuna 13 — once the most dangerous neighbourhood in the city, now transformed into an open-air attraction with outdoor escalators, murals, food and music.
• Sunday Ciclovía — streets close to cars and fill with walkers, runners and cyclists.
• Shopping — almost everything is made locally in Colombia; the malls are vast and full of things you won't find anywhere else.
• Day trips — coffee plantations and mountains within a couple of hours.

Food & Cost

Neil's top food pick: chicharrón (deep-fried pork belly — Colombia does it best). The international food scene is strong. In Bogota, don't miss Leo — chef Leonor Espinosa's seven-course tasting menu, around $100 USD.

Tipping is 0 or 10% — restaurants will ask. Credit cards work almost everywhere; carry a little cash for beauty services.

Getting there: Uber or taxi from the airport, around $30–40 USD. Arrive at night if you can — coming out of the tunnel into a bowl full of lights is unforgettable.

The Beauty Scene

Manicures, massages, hair treatments — all delivered to your door for around $30–40 USD total. Neil gets his nails done on his balcony. Dental and cosmetic work is also world-class at a fraction of what you'd pay elsewhere.

Neil's Book

The 1% Door — about entrepreneurship, freedom, and building a life that doesn't require you to show up every day. the1percentdoor.com

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Transcript

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— Introduction

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Colombia still has a difficult present, but it it's nothing about safety, is the difficult part. The difficult part is that Pablo Escobar created a huge business. Huge. And his business was to convert farmers from growing whatever crops they grow into the coca plant. And the coca plant is used in South America a lot. The indigenous and the locals will chew on the leaves because it's very good, it's

— Meet Neil: Corporate Executive to World Nomad

SPEAKER_04 0:31

a stimulant. But you need like a hundred pounds of leaves to do anything as far as like the drug. So they just chew on it and it it's like coffee for them. That's that's what they do, it's their tobacco.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

And it had no value forever until Pablo Escobar and his groups gave it value.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

And so that that is still a problem.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Welcome to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast. I'm your host,

— The Wake-Up Call at 35

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Paula, and this is season two. On season one, I talk to expats about their favorite holiday destination. On season two, I'll be doing things very differently. I'll be chatting to expats about where they currently live, why they chose that destination. All those secret hidden gems that only locals know, you know, like favorite restaurants, best neighborhoods, things that tourists don't. Welcome to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast. I'm your host, Paula, and today my guest is Neil, and he has an amazing story, and he has an amazing destination to talk about. So let's get started. Well, it's morning here. Morning, Neil. How are you?

SPEAKER_04 1:43

Good morning. Good morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

So let's hear a little bit about your story. How did you get to where you are right now?

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Oh well, poof. You know that that's a complicated story. But I'll kind of I'll give you the the the 30,000-foot view. So I uh I was trained by the US system to be a very good employee and I was a good student, and I went all down all that path and and the wife and the family and all that. And by 35, I realized this is exactly the wrong path. And how did I get stuck?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

And I was in a bad situation because everything prior to that seemed right. And I don't know if anybody

— Scaling to 300 Employees — Then Walking Away

SPEAKER_04 2:29

else has had this problem before, but it's like this realization that oh my God, what have I been doing my entire life? And so that was a a bit of a struggle. I mean, I did go through some depression and all that kind of stuff, not nothing like very serious or anything, but sadness. And I realized I needed to change. I didn't want to be an entrepreneur, I always wanted to be like this Fortune 500 executive guy. And then after I was that for 15 years, I'm like, oh my God, this is not what I can do. And so I did the hard work of changing and became a whole different person to become an entrepreneur. I did that for a while and then realized, oh, I have all these other skills. I can now really grow the business. And I scaled it like 12x, uh, had a 300 employees and all kinds of things. And then I went for school for engineering. So I have this very logical

— Using Travel to Test His Business Systems

SPEAKER_04 3:25

mind. And and what I wanted to do is with that mind was to say, okay, how do I make this business? Because I I read Robert Kiyosaki and all the other, how do I make this as I'm an investor in this business? That I it doesn't rely on me and I don't have to do all the work. And so now I created systems to start replacing me, and I used travel as the way to test it. And what I mean by that is this I had a system in place, but I would never I would show up every day at the job. And and you can't test the system if you're there every day, because you do do like exceptions. You make exceptions to the rule, and you don't let the rules stick, and the exceptions kill the whole system. So I booked a trip to go backpacking in a group, my my girlfriend at the time, who became my wife, to

— Where Neil Lives Now: Mexico City & Medellin

SPEAKER_04 4:20

be in South America to go through Chile, Bolivia, and Peru for six weeks on this adventure trip. And there when I did it, it was oh nine or oh eight, and the cell phones weren't something you could use. So I had to make sure that everything ran when I was away, and that was the test. And the test got longer and longer until in 2018 I decided to be a nomad. And then I gave up everything in the United States and just traveled until COVID, and then

— Is Colombia Safe? Busting the Myths

SPEAKER_04 4:52

I had to settle back in. And I still travel a lot, but I I stopped nomading.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Okay. And so where are you today? Where are you now? Where do you live? And where are we talking about?

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Oh, well, so today I'm in Mexico City. I have an apartment. I have an apartment in Mexico City. If you know the area, it's called Condesa. There's a lot of expats, a lot of young people, a lot of digital nomads are here. Very, very, very uh international. Very international. And what we're gonna talk about, my other favorite place is Medellin, Colombia.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

I'm so excited. I'm so excited because it's it's a place Colombia's always been on my bucket list, but I've always been scared to go. So you're going to you're gonna break all those myths for me and you're we're gonna start talking about Colombia. And you're gonna so so tell me. It has got a complicated past, right? Yes, yes. We've we've all watched and we all know all about Pablo Escobar. So tell me, is is it safe there? Is it does it still have that reputation? Has it changed? Yeah. I've got so many questions.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

So Yeah, so Colombia still has a difficult present, but it it's nothing about safety, is the difficult part. The difficult part is that Pablo Escobar created a huge business. Huge. And his business was to convert farmers from growing whatever crops they grow into the coca plant. And the coca plant is used in South America a lot. The indigenous and the locals will chew on the leaves because it's very good, it's a stimulant. But you need like a hundred pounds of leaves to do anything as far as like the drug. So they just chew on it and it it's like coffee for them. That's that's what they do, it's their tobacco.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:50

And it had no value forever until Pablo Escobar and his groups gave it value.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

And so that that is still a problem

— What Happened After Escobar

SPEAKER_04 7:03

because the farmers were making very good money and now they don't. And the government is the US government is on them all the time to you know cut down on the drugs and all this stuff. But it's the farmers who are like, probably the same thing happens in Afghanistan. They farm poppies. And it's the same thing. You know when you think about just a farmer, not the whole global problem. So from a local perspective, the farmers have a problem. Now, all of

— The Numbers: Medellin vs. Denver

SPEAKER_04 7:33

the all of what's even more funny is as soon as they killed Pablo Escobar, the drug trade moved from Colombia to Mexico. Yeah because Mexico was bringing into the United States. You can watch it on Netflix, all those narco shows and stuff like that. It's really interesting how it happens. I won't go into that. But all of the drug trade in Colombia is actually now in Mexico, and I'm in Mexico, and I don't see the drug trade here either.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

There's drugs, there's drugs everywhere in the world. But the safety-wise, I want to give you two things. So men and women being alone feel different levels of safety in different countries. So I can only speak from a man's perspective.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Okay. And you and I Paul have talked about many countries and things like that. I've been to about 70. Some of them are on the most dangerous list and all that stuff. And I've never, in my entire travels, felt unsafe. Except when I was somewhere where I wasn't supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

I I was downtown in Medellin, actually. I was downtown in Medellin. I was walking from our apartment to downtown with my son. Lovely little walk. And he, I'm like, let's not go back the same way. Let's walk home a different way. So I went two blocks over and we're going to walk up a different street, 50 meters in, and I was like, we don't belong here. I said, we're going to go walk back the same way. But that was that was a neighborhood problem. And every city has a neighborhood problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:12

So if we're talking to travelers, not tourists here, if you're a traveler, you know you leave your jewelry at home, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

You know you don't bring the $10,000 purse.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

You know, you know you don't have the $20,000

— How Not to Be a Target (Anywhere in the World)

SPEAKER_04 9:27

tennis bracelet.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

These these people, some of them only earn a couple of thousand dollars a year. So if you have five years of income on your body and you're alone, you're a target. You're a target for honest people, actually. Because the honest people will look at you and they've never stolen anything in their life, but they'll say, Oh my God, I can have five years of income if I just take this stuff. That's the thing that goes through their heads. So don't give them a chance, number one.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

And you will have no problem at all. Now, let me give you the numbers, just quickly.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

All right. So here's the numbers. Do you fear falling or an accident or dying in your current situation this year? What is the level of fear that you have for that? If you would say it's intense, then then that's that's a big deal. If you'd say, no, I don't have any fear that I'm gonna fall in the shower and die, that I'm gonna get in a car accident and die, that I'm whatever. If you have no fear, okay, let me put it into perspective now. 55 people out of a thousand die in an accident each year, everywhere. Okay? If you're gonna die in another country, look up their murder rate. In Denver, Colorado, the murder rate is around 13 or 14. So it's about one out of four, like four times the people die in an accident that die in homicide. Okay, that's in Denver. Guess who has the same murder rate as Denver?

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Where are you at?

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Medellin?

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah. Oh, sorry, but yes.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Medellin.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Medellin, Colombia has the same murder rate as Denver. Are you afraid to go to Denver? If you're not afraid

— Solo Travel Safety Tips

SPEAKER_04 11:21

to go to Denver, don't be afraid to go to Medellin. If you're if you're and and so Mexico City also has the same murder rate as Denver and uh Medellin. You should really be afraid of going in the shower, though. Honestly. I want you to be afraid. Seriously, be afraid. You're four times more likely to die in the shower than you are in Medellin.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

It's very interesting, right? I think that as a solo traveler, I just take precautions, right? I don't really go out at night if it's not a lit up place. And I just make sure that I haven't got my headphones on when I'm traveling on my own in public transport. There's a whole heap of things that if you take it's it's just being street smart, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Yes. Yes. It's really simple. If you have nothing, most of it is about stealing. Okay? It's about it's about taking what you have because you're an easy target. And and most of the people who pickpocket are things, they're not. They're not dishonest people. They just see an opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

And I mean, I'm I there's bad people everywhere, and there's good people everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

And just stay away from the bad people. That's really simple

— Do You Need a Tour Guide in Medellin?

SPEAKER_04 12:34

to know where the neighborhoods are. There are neighborhoods you don't go. And when you walk down the street and you look around, you're like, this is not my neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

Just turn around. You'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah. Do you do you uh would you suggest getting a tour guide if you're traveling on your own?

SPEAKER_04 12:50

In in Medellin, no.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. No?

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Where I like tours is in places that I have no concept of. So I did a tour in Ethiopia.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

Because it's three days in a land cruiser to get to the Omo Valley where supposedly life started, and there's still indigenous tribes and you can see amazing things. But I'm not pulling up to an indigenous tribe in my Hyundai after driving three days through the dirt. That's just not happening. There's no hotels. There, yeah, so those are the ways I do trips. I also do do tours in India.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

Uh when I when I do like hiking, multi-day hikes, I do tours. Um but city tours, no. I mean, like a daily city tour. Like there's a lot of cities that have the free tour.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah. But not not necessarily for for safety reasons.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Not at all. Not at all. So there's so many, many, many people around the world that are in Medellin. There's so many co-working spaces. There's so many young people. And there's so many police because that is their Columbia has just a few things. They've got

— Where to Stay: The Best Neighbourhoods

SPEAKER_04 14:13

coffee and they've got tourism. They got some oil too. Okay. But but they don't really have much in the way of making money besides the drug trade, and that doesn't go through the government's coffers.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah. So so tourism is on their radar, so they want to be good. They want to be nice to you, they want to be good to you. So what are some of the neighborhoods you can think of that you might you might suggest that a traveler come to?

SPEAKER_04 14:42

Absolutely. So in in in in Medellin, there's this area called Poblado, which is the main touristic type area, but it's also where all the expats and and all of the digital nomads are. And if you have a chance to look up photos of Medellin to give you an idea, it's sort of like a bowl. It's like this big bowl. And and the the center is where the where the local airport is, and then there's mountains all around it. And there's high rises that go all the way up the mountain. And in Medellin, in the last, I don't know, decade or so, they've planted over a million trees. So wherever you look, it's

— City of Eternal Spring (and Zero Mosquitoes)

SPEAKER_04 15:26

green. There's high rises and is trees everywhere. So it's you're in like this rainforest. It's and and the weather, it's it's called the city of eternal spring. That's the that's its nickname. And here here's the biggest reason to go.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

And I don't know why this is. They have no mosquitoes.

unknown 15:50

Ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Oh, I'm I'm there. I'm there.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

Ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

That's so good.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

I mean, no mosquitoes. I I was like, this there's rain all the time. We're in the jungle. Why are there no mosquitoes? There's no

— Best Time to Visit

SPEAKER_04 16:02

mosquitoes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

And is the what's the you said it's an eternal spring. So what what is the best month then, do you think, to travel, if that's the case? Anytime?

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Yeah, it's a pretty much an any time thing. And what's really interesting about Medellin is depending upon the weather you like, it depends on how uh high up the mountain you should be. So if you want it warmer, stay in the valley. If you like it cool and crisp at night, stay near the top. The view is

— Shopping, Local Brands & City Life

SPEAKER_04 16:32

amazing at the top, too. It's amazing, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And can you hike? Like, is it a hiking place then?

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Yes, it is. It is, but not like multi-day hikes. There are some, but no, it's more like a city. It's just a city people live. The shopping is tremendous. And as a world traveler, you know that everywhere you shop in every country seems to have the same, the same stores. I don't know why. There's very few that are different. It's all like the the international brands. There's a Zara everywhere, right? In Colombia, almost everything is made in Colombia. And they have very few things that are made outside. So you're gonna see all kinds of things that you can't buy anywhere else. It's kind of cool. The malls, the malls are fantastic. I mean, there's hundreds of stores inside. They're giant, the gyms are fantastic, the food is great. Colombian food in general is marginal, but it's very international.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah. So what what kind of I don't I've never I don't think I've ever had Colombian food. It's funny that you say yesterday in Singapore I walked past a restaurant that was a Colombian restaurant, and I was like, actually, I don't know what what kind of food that is. So what what are the type of foods that you would try

— What to Eat in Colombia

SPEAKER_00 17:51

and what is your favorite?

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Yeah, so they have this thing called chicharón, which is which is pork. It's it's like they they cut this piece off the skin and underneath, it's sort of like pork belly. It's sort of like pork belly. I don't know if you know pork belly.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Yeah, so but they deep they deep I don't usually do fried foods, but they deep fry this food and it's unbelievable. And there's a lot of places that have ch chicharron in Central and South America, but Colombia does it the best. They also have a bunch of other fish dishes and things like that, but it's really not a foodie place. It's not a foodie place. The international food scene is very good. The typical things are it's it's a poor country, so the typical things are pretty marginal and a lot of them are fried, but the food scene is very good in Medine.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

That's good to know. And is it a tipping culture then?

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Sort of. Sort of. So they will ask you, do you want to include a tip on your check?

— Tipping & Cash vs. Card

SPEAKER_04 20:43

And the they will only add 10%. So it's either zero or ten percent. There's no middle ground. Oh wow if you use a if you use a credit card.

unknown 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Um, if you want to tip them more, that's great. They don't expect a tip. But I always do the I always do the 10%.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah. And I guess it's an affordable city to visit.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Uh you know, I was just checking that before we got on air. And and the first thing I did was I was like, okay, let me check New York City versus this. And to have the same life in New York

— How Affordable Is Medellin Really?

SPEAKER_04 21:14

City that you would have in Medellin, yeah. It would cost you twelve thousand dollars a month in New York City.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

And it would cost you three thousand six hundred, and this is US. Three thousand six hundred in Medellin. So it's thirty percent, seventy percent less than New York City. Now you can take your city down from New York from there.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Unless unless you live maybe in Monaco. I don't know. Well, you live in if you're in Singapore, it's kind of expensive.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I I understand. Like, I mean, I think it's one of those places that is starting to become quite popular to come visit now. You know, people are trying to look at affordable vacations because the world's gone crazy. I mean, accommodation in the US at the moment that I found last when I was there last month was crazy. Like it's so expensive. It doesn't matter where I was, it was so expensive. Yes. Yeah. Maybe I'm comparing it to Asia or Southeast Asia, where you know, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:14

Well, well, what's really happening now, and I don't know, it's a different turn than the conversation we're talking about, is currencies. Currencies have been all over the place. Colombian currency versus the US dollar, its peak about two or three years ago was 5,000 to 1. And so everything was super cheap. Now it's 3,200 to 1. So the US dollar has dropped like almost 30%.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

More than 30%.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Yeah. 40% versus the Colombian peso. So if you had all your US dollars and a year and a half, two years ago put them in Colombian pesos, and now today you move them back to US dollars without like getting any interest, you'd have forty percent more money.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah. And do you is it is it a place where you could use a card or do you have to have currency? Like do you have to have cash?

SPEAKER_04 23:12

It's no, it's credit cards everywhere. Credit cards everywhere. Yeah, you have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Like should you have some cash on you?

SPEAKER_04 23:20

Yeah, yeah, I I typically do because one of the best things about Colombia, first of all, is it's is is is is affordability. But second is if you looked at the people of Colombia, both men and

— The Beauty & Wellness Scene

SPEAKER_04 23:34

women, they tend to be beautiful, stunningly beautiful. Okay. So they have this mix of European, indigenous, African. And local. And the beauty is amazing. So the whole country is into beauty. What that what that means is if you want your nails done, it's super cheap. If you want your hair done, it's super cheap. And they have all these treatments that if you've ever seen like a real Colombian woman's hair, it just it's all black. Most of them are all black, but it shines brilliantly. And every hair is straight. They have unbelievable skills with that kind of stuff. They also have unbelievable skills with anything to do with cosmetic surgery or dentistry or things like that. And at a price that's probably 50% or less than what you would find in other countries.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And so I mean, I've lost my training.

SPEAKER_04 24:37

That's what you need cash for. You need cash to pay to pay the girls for the nails. And they come to your house, they'll come to your house and do the nails right there. I've got this great balcony in my apartment. And they cut and I get my nails done in the apartment and I get a massage. And I think the whole thing is like $30 or $40. And you can do it every day. Every single day.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, you've sold me. You've sold me because it's so expensive here in Singapore. Like so expensive. And to get from the airport to the city, is it two things? Is it is it far and is it is it better for public transport or do you need to get a car?

SPEAKER_04 25:15

Yeah, so definitely get either a taxi or some kind of Uber type thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

Uber is kind of tricky at the airport because the police don't like

— Getting from the Airport to the City

SPEAKER_04 25:27

that they're picking up with Uber. That happens in a lot of countries. But it's doable. I order an Uber every single time. Yeah. Don't don't don't get the bus. It's not it might save you a little bit. I want to say it's maybe 30 or 40 US to get to the center city. And if you come at night, this is the best time to come because all the lights you you come out of this tunnel from the airport and you get you're on the top of the bowl, and it's just lights everywhere. And it's the most beautiful scene. And so if you could ever come and the first thing you could see is out of your taxi, coming out of that tunnel into the city is one of the most beautiful scenes in the entire world.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Because I tend to not come at night just because of safety reasons, but you're you're suggesting definitely come at night.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Well, you can always take a car up there and drive around. Okay. Because it's really it's really fun to see. But every time I go, uh the from Mexico City to Medellin, the the times are really weird. Like a 5 a.m. flight or an 11 p.m. flight. It's it's like strange kind of times. Bogota is much easier because that's the capital city. Medellin's a little more complicated because it's not.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Mm-hmm. And there's plenty to do there. Like if you if I spent if you had a friend coming in and you were taking them around for, say, three days, is there plenty to do? What would you do what besides shopping? What would you do?

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so art wise, there's an artist who passed recently, a couple years ago. His name was Butero. I don't know if you know Butero. He he makes those fat people. I don't know if you've ever seen his work. His work sells for tens of millions of dollars kind of stuff. So he's the most famous artist.

— 3 Days in Medellin: What to Do

SPEAKER_04 27:24

He was born in Medellin. They have a big museum for him, and that's worth seeing. There's another place called Comuna Trace, which is community 13. And that community was the most dangerous place in Medellin

— The Botero Museum

SPEAKER_04 27:42

during the drug era. And the government made a deal with the locals to turn it into a tourist attraction. And now the locals, yes, it's amazing. It's amazing to see. And when you go there, you'll see why it was so difficult to take away from the narcos. It's it's like a fortress. It's impossible to get into. But they made escalators going up the hill. It's outside escalators. There's all these

— Comuna 13: The Most Remarkable Transformation

SPEAKER_04 28:11

little shops and food and people dancing and singing and doing everything to try and get money from the tourists. It's beautiful. I mean, it's it's kind of tacky, but it's beautiful. And and what's really beautiful about it is that they helped the people who were caught in the crossfire have a life. And that's what I really care about. If you go on a Sunday, they shut down many of the streets, and it's for exercise only. It's yeah, it's it's walking and walking, walking for kilometers running, dogs, people, and and again, they're unbelievably beautiful. It's like it's like, is everybody a model here? I feel so, so terrible. You know, they're they're walking around in bikinis and their shirts off for the guys. I'm like, who are these people? You know, but it's fun to watch. Yeah, and it's a really nice walk, okay. Let's see, what else? There's there's there's places outside the city to go see, mountains, coffee, plantations, those kind of things. There's something that's a couple hours away that's lake with a huge mountain rock next to it. That's not my thing, but a lot of people go to that.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

Three days, you'll just scratch the surface.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

What you'll what you'll find about Medellin is if you find the right place to stay, it's the most peaceful. It's the most beautiful. It's the most relaxing. I sleep outside

— Sunday Ciclovía

SPEAKER_04 29:38

on the balcony.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 29:40

I do. I do. I don't sleep outside anywhere. I haven't done that since I was a kid. But this I have this bed, it's like a like a bed for a pool kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

And it's the weather is so nice. And it's not loud and no mosquitoes. So you can sleep under the stars. It's it's it's really different. Really different.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Wow. I feel like you've convinced me that it must be on my bucket list for next year or the year after.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Yeah, so if you're going, if you're going to Colombia, I recommend starting in Bogota.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Go to Bogota, do all the cultural stuff. Do all the Colombian cultural things, beautiful. And and the restaurants are world-class. There's the best chef and female chef in the world in Bogota. Her name is Leo. Yes. Okay. Amazing food, all from Colombia, really interesting things. And it's not that expensive. I mean, it's one of those where the guy comes with the towel and tells you all about the food, and you get seven courses and you have no choices. And it's and like that would be, I don't know, a thousand dollars someplace. It's like a hundred in Bogota. Yeah. And so those are the kind of things there's museums there, there's shows, there's a lot of cultural things there. Then come to come to Medellin and and experience that the beauty there.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on today. Can you just let everyone know how to contact you? I'll put it all in the show notes, but if someone wants to contact you,

— Should You Visit Bogota Too?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

how would how would they get in touch?

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Yeah. So I wrote this book called The 1% Door, and you can just quitthat.com and you'll get our website and it has my contact information. You can reach me that way. I'm also on the social media and let us say names and things like that. We can talk about travel. We can talk about how to nomad or you know what expat life is about or how to take

— Leo: A World-Class Restaurant You Need to Know

SPEAKER_04 31:40

that first step or any of those kind of things. Or fear.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah. Yeah. We talked a lot about that before we got out got on. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on, Neil. I know that's uh I'm really excited to visit and hopefully I can get you on again soon and talk about it. Oh, I'd love to come on whatever you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

We can talk about Mexico. You can talk about we could talk about Ethiopia too.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Yeah, you know what? You sparked my interest before when you talked about that. I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting.

— How to Connect with Neil

SPEAKER_00 32:10

So yeah, we'll definitely have to get you back on. So again, thanks again. Neil for coming on. So thank you for listening to or watching wherever you are to Truly Expat Travel Podcast. And until next week, safe travels.

unknown 32:25

Bye.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Thank you for joining me on the Truly Expat Travel Podcast. If you liked this episode and you found it valuable, then why don't you go ahead and like and subscribe so that you don't miss an episode moving forward? I've got some amazing guests and some fantastic destinations coming up. But if this is the episode and this is the destination that you really want to go to, then I suggest you head over to truly expatravel.com where you'll find travel guides and deep dive into this sort of destination. If that's not what you want and you can't find an episode that is a destination you want to travel to, then head over and follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok because I'm pretty sure you'll find something there. In the meantime, safe travels and I'll see you next week.