Travelling by bus in Colombia is the most popular means of transport, it’s the cheapest way to travel, and it’s also less polluting than flying (even if bus pollution is big in Colombia).
Although Colombia has ancient railroad lines running throughout the country, it has no functioning rail network, and this is unlikely to change. So, if you want to remain a responsible tourist, use the bus as much as possible to get around Colombia!
Travelling by bus in Colombia is the way to go when you want to take the time to feel the country. If there is one well-developed transport network in Colombia, it’s the bus network.
There are buses almost everywhere, from the small buseta with just a few seats to the large luxury buses, and the coverage of the country is very extensive.
Disclaimer: we apologize in advance for any grammatical or syntactic errors, as our native language is not English (we're a Colombian-French couple), so we hope you'll forgive us and still enjoy the information we share with you! Please note that all the information on our blog is based on our own experience, and is checked and updated regularly.
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Bus safety in Colombia
Travelling by bus in Colombia
Is it safe to travel by bus in Colombia? Is it safe to take a night bus in Colombia? Many of you have asked us about safety in Colombia. The answer is yes!
Bus safety
Yes, traveling by bus is safe in Colombia. It’s the most popular means of transport, but there are a few precautions to be taken:
- For long-distance buses, if you put luggage in the hold, you must be given a corresponding ticket , which will enable you to retrieve it when you get off and claim it if necessary.
- If you have hand luggage with valuable items, take it with you on the bus, but keep it in a safe place: make it inaccessible, under your legs, against the window, hide it as much as possible so as not to tempt the devil, the famous “No dar papaya” mentioned in our post on safety in Colombia..
Driving in buses
When we talk about safety, we should also mention the conduct of bus drivers in Colombia. On this point, it will be difficult to give you any advice, as you won’t have any power to change things… You just have to know: bus drivers in Colombia are rather sporty!
On mountain roads, this can sometimes be a bit scary… buses don’t hesitate to overtake trucks or other vehicles in the mountains… it can be a bit bumpy on bends, or on bad roads… you’ll see, you get used to it!
Distances and travel times by bus
Travelling by bus in Colombia
In Colombia, distances have a different flavour. Forget your habits, forget your travel time estimates as if you were at home, forget situations where reason should prevail. The fact is, Colombia has its reasons that reason doesn’t know!
Geography
Colombia is bisected almost along its entire length by the Andes – in fact, by three mountain ranges! This means that in Colombia, you often have to cross mountains to get from point A to point B, which considerably lengthens journey times.
Road conditions
If we add to this the fact that road conditions sometimes leave something to be desired, with chaotic stretches where buses have to travel at walking pace, the average speed of a bus journey in Colombia is considerably… slow. But that still leaves plenty of time to see the sights!
Count in hours and days
Distances in Colombia are counted in hours, not kilometers. Take this into account when planning your itinerary, as you’ll often need to allow 1 day’s travel to get to your destination of choice!
While you’ll usually find direct buses on the routes between major cities, to get to villages you’ll usually have to make a connection and change buses.
Find bus schedules, fares and companies
Travelling by bus in Colombia
There are several ways to find bus schedules and fares: the most convenient is to use the new online bus ticket booking platforms, but you can also find information on bus terminal websites, and the most accurate is simply to go to the bus terminal to find the information and catch the next bus!
Use online booking platforms
Here are four platforms offering online bus ticket purchase and information on timetables and fares for the main bus routes. These three platforms offer much the same services, although there will be differences in language and payment currency.
- Pinbus: Colombian company, payment in pesos
- Veliz Viaje: Colombian company, payment in pesos
- Busbud: Canadian company, payment in all currencies
- Redbus: Indian company, payment in pesos, euros, dollars
Rates
There’s no difference between the different platforms, which advertise exactly the same fares for similar journeys. It’s when you pay for your ticket that the platforms differ:
- Pinbus: 7% charge on each ticket
- Feliz Viaje: 7% charge on each ticket
- Busbud : 7% charge on each ticket
- Redbus: does not charge (how do they make money? No idea.)
Bus network coverage
The 3 platforms focus on the main roads, so you won’t find any short-haul routes. That said, there’s a strange heterogeneity in the results between the different platforms, probably due to the agreements made with the bus companies. We really advise you to compare journeys on the three platforms, because strangely enough, they don’t always display the same results. When one doesn’t offer any buses for a certain route, the other will, on the contrary, give you the right bus company!
Use timetable websites
There are now a number of sites that provide basic information on bus journeys between two destinations: timetables, fares, bus companies serving the route, etc. Not all journeys are available on these sites.
Not all routes can be found on these sites, but there are plenty of them, including the main destinations
- Horarios de buses: this Spanish-language site will give you all the information you need about your journey. The site doesn’t cover every town and village in Colombia, but it does offer 80 different destinations, timetables, fares and bus company contacts.
It remains to be seen whether these sites are regularly updated, as timetables and bus companies can change. This is where double-checking by contacting the bus terminal may be a good idea.
Use bus station / bus terminal websites
It may sound simple, but we don’t necessarily think about it, and it turns out that bus station websites in Colombia are often good sources of information, especially for short journeys.
You’ll always find
- the names of the bus companies serving your destination
From there, you can go to the bus company websites, where you’ll usually find timetables and fares for your journey. You can alsocall the terminal or the bus companies, who will quickly be able to tell you about the fares and departure times of the buses you’re looking for.
You can also find
- bus company contacts: website, telephone, e-mail
- bus departure times
- journey times
- fares
Now that’s happiness.
Use your language and your legs
Finally, once you’re in Colombia, you can of course ask around, at your hotel or hostal, in a store or on the street. But the most effective solution is to go to the bus terminal and find the information at the source!
The different types of bus in Colombia
Travelling by bus in Colombia
Autobús, buseta, colectivo, chiva, flota… not to mention Transmilenio, Transcaribe, Transmetro, Megabus, Metrolinea, Metrobus… so many different names for public road transport in Colombia!
To help you understand the differences, here are a few details on each of these means of transport.
Tip
Tips for choosing your bus
You’re at the terminal and you don’t know how to choose between the different companies for the same journey. Sometimes, the quality of the buses is not at all the same from one company to another. So before paying for your ticket, we advise you to ask to see the bus ! That way, you’ll be able to assess the comfort and make an informed choice.
Air conditioning
On long-distance journeys, drivers tend to set the air-conditioning in the bus to -12°C… so we really advise you to wrap up warm, and take a sweater, scarf, hat or whatever you need to keep warm during the journey!
Your
Drivers also tend to play music at full volume, so if you’re sensitive to noise, bring along your earplugs.
Bus
Large-capacity buses are used for long-distance journeys. Most of the latest models offer a high level of comfort, with extendable seats, footrests, toilets (which don’t always work), air conditioning and sometimes even Wi-Fi (which doesn’t always work).
Luggage is placed in the holds. Most of the time, you pay for a real ticket with numbered seats. On long journeys, the driver often makes at least one stop at a roadside restaurant so you can go to the toilet and grab a bite to eat.
Buseta
This is a small bus with a capacity that can vary from 10 to 20 people. Sometimes oddly shaped, they can be found in towns and villages all over the country. In big cities, the Buseta may be part of the public transport service and be subject to well-defined stops, but more often than not it’s possible to take a Buseta with your arm raised at any point, and to get off, you ask the driver for a stop.
To pay in a Buseta
Anything’s possible: you can be asked to pay before you get on, or we’ll stop by during the journey, or you can pay just as you’re getting off by asking the driver for the fare, but in any case, get your change ready!
Colectivo
It’s any small means of collective transport, even if it often takes the form of a small bus with a few seats, it can also be a shared cab, a Willis jeep, a dump truck or anything that can transport several people at the same time..
Chiva
Atraditional Andeanbus with a wooden body painted in a variety of colors. You can still find them traveling between mountain villages. The Chiva’s truck-like engine is well suited to the rotten tracks and slopes of mountain roads. Luggage is carried on the roof.
Bus with reserved lane
Transmilenio in Bogota, Transcaribe in Cartagena, Transmetro in Barranquilla, Megabus in Pereira, Metrolinea in Bucaramanga, etc., etc., etc. These are public transport buses in major cities that benefit from a system of lanes reserved from the rest of the traffic. To use it, the system is identical to a metro system, with automatic ticket machines, secure entrance and boarding platforms.
Puerta a Puerta
This is usually a VAN-type vehicle offering a shareddoor-to-door service. If all goes well, the driver will pick you up at your hotel and take you to the exact address of your destination.
Marsol on the Caribbean coast
Marsol is the best-known company offering this service on the Caribbean coast in Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta. It’s important to understand the system : you reserve a seat by telephone without paying, but there’s no guarantee of departure, since it depends on the number of passengers to reach the break-even point. If the threshold isn’t reached, the bus won’t leave, and apparently you won’t necessarily be warned.
Hello,
First of all, thank you for this incredibly informative blog!
Me and my boyfriend are planning a trip to Colombia and are trying to minimize travel time AND our ecological footprint (yep, squaring the circle ;))
Could you tell me if it’s easy to get around by cab outside the big cities, and if my estimate of around 25 euros / hour is right?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Stéphanie, thank you for your feedback and your compliments on our blog! It always makes us happy 😊
To answer your question, it’s impossible to tell you the hourly rate for cab travel outside major cities. First of all, most cabs can’t travel between different departments. You’ll have to use private drivers who are authorized to do this, and you can get in touch with agencies or hotels once you’re in Colombia. Or you can use more “informal” contacts, which are more risky.
But all in all, you can simply say that it’s very expensive indeed, because in Colombia, journeys are much longer than they seem. 100km in Colombia is not the same as 100km in Canada or Europe. So it can quickly add up to 200 or 300€ for a long trip between two big cities. Especially since your driver will have to make the return trip most of the time empty, or sleep on the spot, etc., all of which he’ll have to charge you for.
In the end, we think that for trips of 2 or 3 hours, it can be worth the cost, and we do it sometimes. But for longer journeys, it’s rarely worth it.
Hello
Thank you for this valuable information.
We are arriving with our children (13, 12 and 8 years old) on July 26 at 2:00 am in Bogotá. We plan to spend 2 nights and leave for Salento by bus. The journey is quite long and we’d like to cut it in 2. Can you tell us where to stop to spend a night and with which company to travel safely?
Thank you in advance for your help
Ibrahim
Hi Ibrahim, we hadn’t seen your message, we guess you’ve found the answer to your question in the meantime! We hope your trip went well, so don’t hesitate to let us know how it went 😉
Hello. A thousand thanks for your site: a mine of information! A bible !
2 questions about our trip to Colombia, which we’re organizing a bit haphazardly as we’re leaving at the beginning of March. We went through an agency and we realize that booking on our own is half the price, but how do we manage the transfers? What kind of transport do you recommend? We’re doing a tour of Bogota-Salento-Medellin-Santa Marta-Carthagena-Bucaramanga, with the end of the trip taken care of by a Colombian friend’s brother. We’re going to book 3 bus flights.
for luggage, backpack or suitcase (15-day trip)?
Thanks again
Hi, it’s always difficult to advise one way of traveling rather than another, we’re all different, we all have different tastes, needs, limits, budgets and expectations. We can’t tell you much more than what we usually write all over the blog: the bus is the cheapest way to travel in Colombia, and you can go almost anywhere by bus. Long-distance buses are very comfortable, so you don’t have to worry about that, but you do need to be able to take your time, as the journeys are long, especially in all the mountainous regions.
After that, if you’re on a budget for certain journeys, you could consider taking a cab or a private vehicle with a driver.
Renting a car is also a great way to travel more independently, but you should be aware that it doesn’t solve the problem of journey times, which will be almost identical 😉 Flying shortens distances, and for certain remote regions it’s a compulsory means of transport, but for the rest it’s a choice you have to make, and you have to be sensible about it, as flying is the most polluting form of transport. So it’s a case-by-case decision, depending on all these factors.
As for luggage, both are possible. Lately, we’ve been traveling mainly with a carry-on suitcase and a small backpack each. This works very well, and when we have to go into town with our luggage, we take a cab.
First of all, thank you for all your advice, which is helping me enormously in preparing my trip. Do you know if I can take a bus from Cartagena to Santa Marta without booking? Indeed, I know that there are connections between these 2 cities, yet when I go to bus booking sites such as busbud, redbus and even the sites of the bus companies themselves, I can’t find any route for January 28 (except a bus from Copertran which will take me to Santa Marta at 11pm). Thanks in advance for your help. Roxane
Hi, don’t worry, the Cartagena <> Santa Marta line is very busy, there are buses 24 hours a day, departures are super frequent, you just have to go to the bus terminal on the day and take the next bus that leaves 😉 A word of advice, though: ask for a “big bus” and before buying the ticket, check the type of bus to see how comfortable it is 😉
Hello, thank you for your very informative and useful site!
We’re going to Colombia as a family in February with two children (aged 5 and 7)
We’re planning to visit the major cities without a car (Bogota, Medellin)… but we’re thinking of using the car for trips outside the cities (Salento, Villa de Leyva; desierto de La Tatacoa, Popoyan)..
What do you think, safety-wise?
Thanks a lot!
Thanks for your message 🙂 As for the car, we’re going to try it out starting next week, and we’ll do an article on the subject when we get back. In the meantime, you can check out the information we’ve gathered so far in our article dedicated to the subject: Renting a car for a road-trip in Colombia
Hola!
Merci pour votre superbe blog, c’est véritablement une mine d’or!
Quick question, having already done a roadtrip in the western United States, I thought the car was a good option for Colombia too! But I find that buses are much more conducive to adventure… But from a practical point of view, what do you do with your luggage, which weighs 15 to 20 kilos? With a car, you can stow it in the boot for the day, but on a bus…?
Thanks for sharing!
Yes, the bus is the most economical and well-developed way of getting around, but car rental is still in its infancy, the road network is not up to scratch everywhere, and driving is not always easy or tiring, as the distances are very long and the central part is all mountain roads… But it can be done very well to discover a corner over a few days, which is what we’re going to do for 1 week on our next trip, and to finally try it out. We’ve never asked ourselves the question of luggage, because most of the time we arrive somewhere by bus to stay in a hostal and discover the area, spending at least one night there… Then, when you go on a day trip and leave in the evening, you can ask your hostal to leave your bag there for the duration of the trip. Once, we had left our hotel, which was far from the village where we wanted to stay for a while before setting off again, and when we talked to our cab driver, she took us to her cousin’s and we left our bags there for the duration of the trip… well, there’s always a solution 😉
Hello! Thanks for all these useful tips, they’re invaluable when planning your trip 🙂
Quick question: are there night buses in Colombia?
If so, are they reliable?
Many thanks!
Hi, thanks for your message! 🙂 Yes, there are night buses, which are very common on long-distance routes, and can sometimes save a day’s travel on long journeys. Buses are reliable, you just need to take the usual precautions regarding personal belongings, putting them under your feet, or at least not easily accessible to avoid possible theft.