Solo travel in Cartagena is easy in the way that old walled cities usually are: short distances, plenty of places to sit, and enough going on that nobody notices whether you arrived alone. We get solo guests most weeks, some for a day out here and some for a week, and this is the practical stuff we end up telling them over WhatsApp before they come.
We're a beach club and an 11 room hotel in Bocachica, on the island of Tierra Bomba, 25 minutes by boat from the city. So treat this as one side of the trip rather than the whole thing.
What a day out here costs on your own
The day pass with boat transfers is $40, and that's the whole crossing, both ways, on our boat. Then you choose a sun lounger, $5 to $30 depending on where it is, and pay for whatever you eat and drink. A VIP daybed in front of the pool is $50 and a beach cabaña, which is quieter and closer to the sand, is $30. Those bigger beds fit three people lying down, so on your own it's usually the cheap lounger and the difference spent on lunch.
Reserve before you come. Our boat has limited capacity, and if there's no space on it, the wait for the next one is long.
The boat, and the bit people get wrong
We leave Cartagena from the Muelle de la Bodeguita at 10am, 11.30am and 5pm. Coming back, boats leave us at 4pm and 5.30pm. The crossing is 25 minutes and usually smooth, and it's considerably calmer than the run out to the Rosario Islands. Getting on and off does take some agility, so wear something you can move in and don't carry more than you can hold with one hand.
If the tide is very high or the sea is rough we use the dock in the village instead, about a mile away, and you finish the journey riding pillion on a motorbike taxi. Solo travellers tend to enjoy this part more than couples with luggage do.
Weekday or weekend, which is the real decision
We're quiet during the week and livelier at weekends. Fridays, weekends and holidays fill up with locals from Cartagena, there's always music, and it feels like a party you've been let into. Midweek you can have a long lunch and hear yourself think. Neither is better. If you've come to read a book, come on a Tuesday.
Things worth doing alone
- A one hour dive: we're a PADI Dive Resort and our house reef sits about eight minutes' swim off the beach. You don't need experience for a discovery dive, and it's a good solo activity because you're paired with an instructor anyway. Snorkelling from the beach, on the other hand, doesn't work: the reef is at six metres and the surface water is often choppy, so we'd rather tell you now than watch you try.
- The Bocachica village tour: a five minute motorbike taxi, then you walk the village with us, see the San Fernando fortress and have a beer with the people who live here. Bocachica has no paved roads and no running water, and it has more character than anywhere on the tourist track. Come with the right expectations and not a shopping list.
- A private dance class: salsa, champeta, which is the local Afro-Colombian style, or zumba. Two left feet are fine. As solo activities go it beats another hour on a lounger.
- Mountain biking: up to an hour on the island's trails with your own motorbike escort. Go early, before the sun is fully up, not at two in the afternoon.
- A day in the Walled City: plenty of our guests base themselves here and take the 10am boat in reverse, spending the day walking the old town and coming back on the 5pm. Our one day walk through the Walled City is the route we actually send people on.
One to skip if you're on your own: the ceviche cooking class is built for two, wine included, so it's a better fit for couples or friends travelling together.
Staying the night as one person
Our room rates are per room, based on two people sharing, and they include a day's access to the beach club and facilities per night. That's the honest maths for a solo traveller: you pay for the room, not for a seat. Some people find that fine for a night or two on an island with 11 rooms and no crowd to disappear into. Others would rather do the day pass and sleep in the city. Both are reasonable, and we'd rather you picked the right one than the expensive one.
Practical notes nobody mentions
There's no phone signal on the island. None. The wifi, though, is genuinely good most days, good enough for video calls about 95% of the time, and we can put you at a table in the shade near power sockets if you need to work for a few hours. Message us on WhatsApp rather than calling; we answer reservations between 9am and 9pm.
Bring a towel. Our own site has said otherwise in the past, but the policy is that you bring one.
The beach here is volcanic sand, so it's darker than the white sand in the Rosario Islands. It's natural, it's clean, and it faces open ocean. And door to door from the airport is about an hour.
We won't tell you the city is safe or unsafe, because that isn't ours to promise. What we can tell you is what the boat does, what the day costs and what the island is like, which is the part solo travellers usually can't find written down.
See you on the boat.