Safety in Colombia

Colombia has the highest number of bird species in the world. However it is rarely visited, due to its bad international reputation.
When Colombia comes on the news, it is only bad news.
What a pity! Most of the troubles however are located in small parts of the country mainly on the borders with Venezuela and Ecuador. In large parts of the interior illegal armed forces have left.
These parts harbour the best birds and that is where we are going.
Besides general crime is rare, making it in my opinion safer than the surrounding countries!!

Over the 7 years that we brought birders to Colombia, we never encountered problems.
Often it takes a while to take the decision to come, but once in Colombia, they all felt safe and they all loved it. Many came back year after year.
Not surprising because Colombians are nice and helpful people with a very good sense of humour.

Very different (and surprising) from the neighbouring countries, Colombia has many local and passionate birders from all parts of the country.
They explore the whole country, finding new areas and new species.
Thanks to them we know also more about the distribution of species and the safety of a birding site.

Up to now we offer 3 different tours in Colombia:
  • The classical Central-Colombia trip (specialized in the Andean endemics),
  • The North-East Colombia Trip (Santa Marta endemics, Guajira half-endemics and Eastern Cordillero endemics) and
  • the Amazonian trip (around Leticia).

    Jurgen Beckers


    Some recent articles about Colombia:
  • "Colombia on the rise"
  • Lonely Plant: "Colombia in top 10 tourist destinations 2006"
  • "Violence wanes, tourism up"