Financial Planning: Before You Date In Colombia

Note: Every article you read on this website is from direct human perspective and will never be AI generated. This is because the perspectives we have to share do not already exist on the internet, are not commonly expressed by travelers on threads or even Redditors, and most who figure out the information we are sharing are living happy, undistributed, quiet, successful lives and they don’t really share this information with others. Why? Because they’re generally happy 🙂

Happiness, for me, began when I saw that there was a world outside of the world that I knew. And I liked what I saw. So I began to experience it deeper and I found greater enjoyment.

The first time I came to Colombia, I had not idea what to expect. I arrived in Cartagena, as most first-time travelers do, walked down the streets of Cartagena and felt like Michael Jordan.

If you’ve ever had 100 people looking at you, wanting to be close to you, celebrating you, and wanting to hold your hand as you walk down the street — or if you’ve ever been to Cartagena circa 2017 on a Friday night — you know what I’m talking about.

After working a decade in various jobs in a low-pulse city, where you look like everyone else, the feeling of validation and being wanted by not just someone, but everyone, is an absolute rush for many travelers who come into Colombia.

It can compel you to do things you never would have done in both positive and negative ways. It can evoke excitement, exploration, and desire to travel more in both positive and negative ways. As a man, it can make you feel valuable again. Perhaps, because you are valuable. Very valuable.

From accurately realizing your value, you could heal. Or you could usurp your power. You could grow. Or you could dominate over others. You could build an entirely new foundation for your life. Or, you could party hard and act like it never happened. Or, all the above.

Foreign men who travel to Colombia have a lot of choices to make, and that’s why this platform exists. I’ve purposefully created this community and platform for authentic men, who are not infallible men, who are considering the choices you are making, or will make, in Colombia.

Let’s set you up with a solid framework for Financial Planning before you travel:

If you’re coming to Colombia for a vacation and you plan to explore some short-term dating, that’s great! You’re going to spend some money exploring the nightlife for a couple weeks or less and likely not going to need to plan beyond your vacation.

But if you’re coming to Colombia to date for more than a couple weeks, eventually start a relationship, and potentially move here for your remote career or retirement, I recommend that you need to have at least $120,000 in cash savings.

I didn’t just make this number up.

After an initial 2 week travel here, I’ve spent more than 6 years and 40 individual travels to Colombia. Personally, I’ve spent more than $150,000 here for various travel costs, experiences, investments, consultants, and visas. I’ve learned a ton, but also learned that you can spend a lot of money and time here, especially if you don’t have a plan for what you really want.

If you ever need to switch it up and go back to your original country, and rebegin, you want to make sure you’ve got enough cash to cover your entire hero’s journey.

You may think you know exactly what you’re getting into, financially, in Colombia before you travel or build a life here. But after you’ve experienced the beauty of Colombia and the draw of its culture, women, food, hospitality, real estate, financial savings, beaches and natural life — you don’t want to set yourself up now for an unattainable dream.

Have your savings prepared before you put yourself in front of an illusion. Whether it’s a vacation or life transformation, you want to make sure the life experiences you want are an attainable reality.

Flights

Usually, you’ll fly into Bogota, Medellin, or Cartagena through your airline.

In The United States, I’ve found Spirit Airlines to be absolutely sufficient for the hop-skip flight from Columbus, Ohio to Florida to Colombia. You’ll save about $200-$500 on your flight cost through a comparable budget airline.

If your flight is just about 2 hours to Florida and 2.5 hours to Colombia, the cost savings is worth it. However, we all know it becomes “not worth it” when you’ve got a major delay, cancelation, or overnight situation that majorly disrupts your travel and you can’t do anything about it.

When you arrive in Colombia, you want to have some cash on hand but attempt to pay with a credit card (no international fees like Chase Sapphire) every time you make a purchase. Why?

Aside from the $5 ATM fee, you’re going to get hit with an 8.5% conversion fee every time you convert your US checking or savings account into Colombian pesos at every ATM.

You’re going to need cash on hand, so there’s a couple ways to dodge this fee if you’ve got to take out significant cash.

But before we do that, there are 2 ATMs that you can always trust to work for cash withdrawals: BancoColombia (600,000 limit) and ServiBanco (2,000,000 limit).

In smaller cities like Santa Marta, Riohacha, or Barranquilla, there are no Ubers. You can’t use the app to get one. You’ll have to pay cash for transportation through apps like In-Drive, or more commonly, you’ll go to a larger street where mototaxis and taxis are passing by, and jump in.

This seems easy, right? Well, there’s a cash management issue. In Santa Marta, there seems to be a major shortage of small bills (called “sencillo”). That is, ATMs will give you 50,000 and 100,000 bills. Maybe a couple of 20,000’s. What you really need is a lot of 2,000 and 5,000 and 10,000 bills. Especially if you’re traveling around a lot, it’s actually tricky to stack up these smaller bills and keep them because you’ll use them for everything.

True story: In one week, I was in taxis 3x without small bills and the taxis didn’t have change for a 50,000 bill. What happened in these situations, we ended up driving around until we found a convenience store where I bought something I didn’t need to get smaller bills.

Solution? Still figuring it out. At the bus station I offered to pay the store owners to exchange 200,000 for as many 2,000, and 5,000, and 10,000 bills as possible. They were so kind they didn’t accept the payment, but I’d be willing to pay 10,000 or more ($3) just to have a lot of small bills in Santa Marta, Riohacha, and Barranquilla.

Same issue goes for food services like Rappi. You can sometimes pay and tip through credit card payments, but sometimes the app has issues foreign credit cards. You might need cash in this scenario. Plan ahead. Get smaller bills.

Larger cities have Uber (although its illegal and carries fines for the drivers) more payment options. You probably won’t have this issue in Cartagena, Medellin, or Bogota.

In general, USA brand hotels are expensive in Colombia and far less interesting that the boutique hotels you’ve never heard of. You’re paying for a brand when you stay at a Marriott or a Western. It’s reliable, but completely unnecessary at 4X-10X the price.

With that, the best way to travel in Colombia is through modern AirBnBs.

• AirBnBs: In terms of overall value, you can get the same or better quality, space, and amenities in a modern AirBnB apartment building as you can in a hotel, and sometimes they have awesome pools, too.

• Nice Hotels: While they usually have spas and special services like 24/7 room service and restaurants. You can actually just pay directly for those services (except room service), go to the hotel, and utilize the spas or pool access you pay for when you want it. You don’t have to be a guest there.

Additionally, if you want that cleaning service, laundry service, or other things to make your stay more comfortable, great AirBnB hosts usually have access or know a way to get you access to the service.

Now here’s the caveat: If you’re dating in Colombia, and you make a reservation on AirBnB, you have a great date, and she wants to visit your apartment building’s pool… if you don’t have her registered as a guest when you make your AirBnB registration, by law, it can be difficult for her to enter. The host can easily decline your guest. This means, if you promise her a pool, you may have to make an additional reservation at a new AirBnb, hotel, or just delay the plan.

On the other hand, hotels usually allow unregistered guests to enter the reservation after you’ve booked it. You just check her in at the hotel lobby and register her. There are no laws against it.

We have a discussion on the details about this, and a listing of hotels and AirBnBs and their known policies in our Members Section.

Eating out in Colombia is generally 2X-8X less expensive than normal sized cities in the US. Compared to New York, 10X cheaper. But eating out can still add up, especially if you’re choose the high-presentation restaurants in a tourist area. 

• Rappi is a popular food delivery app where you can plan ahead for your cost of food. While delivery fees are $.50, you’re still going to average about $10 per delivery, or more. Most people do this or cook

• Cooking is always great, but you’ve gotta make sure you hotel room or AirBnB has a kitchen as you plan this option. Also, having some great dates and finding a woman who will grocery shop and cook with you is an excellent choice for cost savings in Colombia. Forming this team can be powerful from a financial savings perspective.

• But if you’re not planning to cook — the other way to play it is to find a cheaper AirBnB or hotel, that is comfortable for you, in a neighborhood that is not directly in a tourist area. In a neighborhood restaurant, you’ll end up saving 4X the price if you go to places with great food in portion and quality, with low presentation storefronts. They exist all over the place and they don’t expect for gringos to walk in, so it’s kind of fun when you do.
  
• Note: At the time of writing this, we’re actually setting up several “food clubs” for travelers that want to be a subscription service to get lunch and dinner delivered every day. Starting with the Santa Marta Food Club, if you’re staying in a comfortable spot in the tourist area (in this case, near Parque De Los Novios), we’ll give you a menu of lunch and dinner options, like Hello Fresh, and deliver the food directly to your hotel or AirBnB, each day, no cooking required.

Transportation costs are 5X-10X cheaper through Uber, than in The United States. However, if you’re an adventurous solo traveler, you can often save even more.

Most cities in Colombia have a massive motorcycle culture. You wouldn’t expect it, but you can jump on the back of most motorcycles, and get to most parts of major cities (except in Cartagenas where the historic district limits motorcycle entrance and will drop you off on the edges). The great thing about a motorcycle ride is, it will usually cost 4,000 – 15,000 pesos to get around. You hop on the back, hop off, and pay in cash.

For cities like Santa Marta, if you’re traveling around 100 times in a month, you’ll save about $300 on transportation by using motorcycles.

Note: when it rains, you need to get in a car. Motorcycles generally stop and do not operate during rain, because of the flooding that can happen on neighborhood roads and main roads.

There are a ton of Expedia websites for excursions and adventures, and they won’t always lead you wrong or take advantage of you. But if you’ve been to Colombia before, you can really hustle the cost of your adventures.

1. Pick up the contact phone number of the person presenting the adventure. Whether this is a guide through jungle or a boat trip, getting in touch with the person who directly organizes the adventure will create negotiable situations due to the obvious platform fees associated with Expedia, AirBnB, etc.
2. Look at AirBnB adventures, Expedia, and other platforms to cross-compare prices. You’ll find the same experience can often be priced differently depending on the platform, it’s target  market, and associated fees that increase or reduce its cost to present the adventure.
3. Utilize us at DatingInColombmia.com! While we haven’t vertically integrated into full-on adventure equipment, like boats, our connections across Colombia can help first-time and experienced travels plan your adventures at lower costs. Especially if you plan to pay for a guide, our community can support many different adventures with a ton of care and genuine friendship along the way.

Throughout this website, we have extensive information about reducing the costs of positive dating and also reducing the potential illusions in dating that can greatly impact your cost.

There’s a ton of information here, but in general — find a real, authentic woman to date in Colombia and you’ll be able to conserve and manage your investment in it, logically and valuably. Anything outside of an authentic woman is going to lead to all sorts of costs (which may be worth the thrill, for some). If you’re doing dating with a clear purpose, you’re going to have a much better time with the financial management of it. We help you take that path at DatingInColombia by first identifying your dream state.

If any of this speaks to you, whether a member or not, setup a call and let’s consider direct coaching that can support your goals.

• Financial Planning: Before You Date In Colombia
• Emotional Inventory: Before You Date In Colombia
• Mental Preparation: Before You Date In Colombia
• Physical Discipline: Before You Date In Colombia
• Spiritual Preparation: Before You Date In Colombia