Short answer: if this is your first trip and you only have three or four nights, sleep in the Walled City. The old town is the reason most people fly to Cartagena, and you shouldn't experience it as a day visitor who has to catch a boat at 5:30pm. Add island nights when you want to swim, sleep with the windows open and stop looking at your phone.
We're on the island side of that decision, so here's what we think each one honestly gives you.
Stay in the Walled City if you want evenings
The Walled City earns its nights rather than its days. It's a compact grid of colonial streets inside the old fortifications, and the pleasure of it is walking after dark when the heat drops and the balconies fill up. Being able to fall out of a restaurant and be home in ten minutes is worth paying for, and it's the one thing an island simply cannot give you.
Two things near the centre we send people to without hesitation. Getsemání, just outside the wall, is the old working-class neighbourhood that now has most of the city's street art and the best late hours; go in the early evening and walk, don't plan. Castillo San Felipe de Barajas is the hilltop fortress on the edge of the centre, all tunnels and ramps; go first thing in the morning, because there's very little shade on it and by midday the stone is punishing.
Stay on the island if you want mornings
We're on the southern shore of Tierra Bomba, about 25 minutes from Cartagena on our boat, facing open ocean. What you get out here is the opposite of the old town: space, a pool, sand, and a day that's shaped by the boat schedule rather than by dinner reservations. We have eleven rooms and up to 30 people can sleep on the property, so it never feels like a large hotel.
We're also quiet midweek and livelier at weekends. If you want the calm version, come Monday to Thursday. If you want music and people, Friday to Sunday is when locals come out to us.
What the island actually costs you
We'd rather you know this before you book than discover it on arrival.
- No car, ever. We're on an island and there is no bridge. It's a boat, or a helicopter if you're feeling flush.
- The boat schedule is the schedule. Boats leave Muelle de la Bodeguita at 10am, 11:30am and 5pm, and come back from us at 4pm and 5:30pm. Spontaneous late dinners in the city don't really work from here.
- No phone signal. There's none on the island, which is why we ask you to use WhatsApp to reach us rather than calling.
- Not step-free. We're at the end of a boat ride and a 200 metre sandy track. We're sorry to say the hotel wasn't built with accessibility in mind and we aren't wheelchair accessible.
- Weekends are for over-12s. We love well-behaved children during the week, but Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are for the over-12s so everyone, parents included, gets a day off.
- There's a $20 per night resort fee. City hotels plug into public utilities. Out here we make our own arrangements, and that fee is part of it.
The answer most people should pick: both
Three or four nights in the centre, then two or three out here at the end, is the split that works. Do it in that order. The old town is better when you still have energy for it, and the island is better when you don't.
If you're with us for more than a week, you don't have to choose at all. Residents staying over a week are welcome to take the odd night at our sister property, Townhouse, right in the middle of the Walled City, and you can go back and forth on our boats as often as you like.
Booking notes worth reading before you commit
Check-in with us is from 3pm and check-out is by 11am, but as long as there's no private event you can use the beach club before you check in and until 5:30pm on the day you leave, which makes a late flight much less annoying.
On cancellations, we refund 50% of the value of your stay if you cancel more than 30 days before check-in. Inside 30 days the deposit is neither refundable nor transferable. That's stricter than a city hotel, so book the island nights when you're sure of them.
And reserve your boat crossing. Our capacity is limited, and turning up hopeful is how people end up waiting a few hours on a dock in the sun.