You can find very inexpensive tickets to Cartegena on Spirit Airlines. In addition, if you use their credit card, you can use miles to reduce the price in about half. Our tickets cost less than $150 round trip. We travelled at the end of April 2017 and the weather was extremely hot at that time. We recommend researching the weather and trying to find a time when it is a little bit cooler.  

Cartegena is a vibrant, traditional alive city. We stayed in the "old city" and that is where the majority of action is happening. We recommend staying in that area as well.  You can walk the streets and there is tons of shops, people selling hats and sunglasses outside and lots of other shopping options. In addition, there are tons of restaurants and areas of entertainment throughout the old city. The old city is slower during the day and people come out in the evening when the temperature lowers. There are horses passing by regularly and young men that will come and rap for you in hopes of a tip. We took a carriage ride, it was romantic and it was a great tour, but definitely don't eat within two hours of the ride as you bounce up and down throughout the ride.  

We rode a "chiva" bus where they played spanish music and Vallenato and Cumbia. As you board the bus, you get a small bottle or rum or aguardiente to share with your friends. People sign along with the music and take turns dancing for the crowd as a narrator gives tour information and you see the city. The bus stops at an old castle and there are dance performers and they gave us arepas to eat. After that, they took us back towards our hotel while performing music.  

We went to a salsa club that was very packed and very hard to move. The cover was about $8 US. However, they had a band of about 8 people that played excellent traditional salsa music. People danced but it was hard to move.  We stumbled upon a reggaeton club on the way back from the salsa club and it wasn't near as packed, had an adequate amount of people, no cover, great music and table seating available. 

The next morning, we got up early to catch our boat at the Pier. The boat was $75 per person and we were able to bring drinks, food and whatever necessities we needed. We stopped by two islands and spent most of the day out on the boat. We all had a great time and we were able to purchase food at each island. The first island had massage professionals that would give massages while relaxing in the water. They had amazing fish and seafood plates to share. On the second island, we ordered lunch and then returned back to the pier.  

The last day we sat at a restaurant and listened to music and watched dancers. We needed to relax after two days of nonstop activities. Cartegena is a beautiful city with a vibrant culture and entertainers. The prices in Cartegena are extremely reasonable and inexpensive. Our hotel was $85 per night. Part of our group was unhappy with the hotel selection, whereas others enjoyed the hotel. For very nice accomodations, look for hotels along the beach strip or expect to pay more for nice hotels in the old city area. Cartegena appeared to our group to be very safe and comfortable and we can't wait to return and experience activities that we were not able to experience up to this time.