I’ve lived in both cities but I keep going back to Santa Marta.
That surprises people. Medellín is the default answer when someone asks where to base themselves in Colombia, and I understand why. It has the metro, the coworking spaces, the café density, the eternal spring weather everyone raves about.
But I’m on the coast every winter now, and I’d much rather be here for the beach lifestyle.
This is not a case for Santa Marta being objectively better. It isn’t. Medellín beats it on infrastructure and it isn’t close. What I want to lay out is where the money actually goes in each city, what you give up on the coast, and why I think a lot of digital nomads pick Medellín by reflex when Santa Marta suits them better.
What you actually pay to live in each place
Let’s start with rent, because that’s the line that decides your budget.
In Medellín, a furnished one-bedroom goes for $600 to $1,200 in El Poblado and $400 to $700 in Laureles. Envigado and Sabaneta run cheaper. If you’re not locking into a long-term lease and booking through short-term rental websites like Airbnb for month-to-month rent, then those numbers can easily double.
In Santa Marta, a modern one-bedroom in a safe neighbourhood runs $500 to $1,000. Two-bedroom units are $800 to $1,200. Beachfront in El Rodadero or Bello Horizonte is $800 to $1,500. Without a long-term lease, those numbers are also double if you’re using Airbnb.
Look at those side by side and the gap doesn’t look dramatic. That’s because I’m comparing Santa Marta’s beachfront to Medellín’s inland. Nobody in Medellín gets an ocean view at any price.
The gap opens up everywhere else. A casual meal here is $3 to $6. Buses are 50 cents and a taxi across town is $2 to $5. My Claro plan is 40,000 pesos a month, about $10, for 60GB. Coworking is $50 to $150, against $80 to $180 in Medellín, and I mostly don’t bother because I work from home or from Café de Pombo.
| Santa Marta | Medellín | |
|---|---|---|
| Furnished 1BR, good area | $500 to $1,000 | $400 to $700 Laureles, $600 to $1,200 Poblado |
| Beachfront 1BR | $800 to $1,500 | Not available |
| Comfortable monthly total | $1,200 to $1,800 | $1,200 to $1,800 |
| Casual meal | $3 to $6 | $4 to $8 |
| Coworking | $50 to $150 | $80 to $180 |
| Utilities | $50 to $100, AC pushes it up | $90 to $180 |
The monthly totals land in the same place, which is the part people get wrong about Santa Marta. If you rent a furnished place through Airbnb and eat out constantly, you’ll spend Medellín money here.
The savings show up when you stop being a tourist. Sign a local lease, shop at the market instead of Éxito, and your fixed costs drop well below what the same lifestyle costs in Laureles.
Medellín has the better infrastructure
Here’s the honest part about Santa Marta vs Medellín.
The metro works in Medellín. You can live in Laureles, get to Poblado in twenty minutes for pocket change, and never think about it. Santa Marta has buses and taxis and that’s it.
Internet is more reliable in Medellín. We’ve fixed that at our place with fibre and a backup, and I’ve written about the speeds we get, but city-wide, the coast still has dead zones and outages that Medellín mostly doesn’t. If you take client calls all day, you need to choose your building carefully here in a way you don’t have to there.
Flights are the bigger one. José María Córdova connects Medellín to most of the hemisphere. Santa Marta’s Simón Bolívar airport is 15 minutes from El Rodadero, which is lovely, but almost everything routes through Bogotá, Medellín or Panama City. Add half a day to most trips home.
Then there’s healthcare, coworking density, laptop-friendly cafés and the sheer number of specialists and services a city of 2.5 million supports. Santa Marta has around 500,000 people.
The heat is the last thing. It’s hot here year-round. Not Cartagena or Barranquilla hot, but pretty damn hot at times. Medellín sits in the low-to-mid twenties most days and you never think about air conditioning. I like the heat, but I know people who lasted two months on the coast and went back to the valley.
If any of that is a deal-breaker for you, go to Medellín. I’d rather you read this and pick correctly than show up here and be miserable if you don’t like the tropical heat.
The neighbourhood decides everything in Santa Marta
Most people who dismiss Santa Marta stayed in the wrong part of it.
They booked a hostel in the historic centre, found it loud and a bit rough after dark, walked the city beach (which is not good), and left with the impression that the place is a two-day stopover on the way to Tayrona National Park.
I live in El Rodadero, 10 minutes over the hill from the centre. Complete different city and atmosphere with a world-class beach that Colombians actually holiday on, supermarkets, a gym, restaurants, a jogging path, security in the buildings, and people out walking at night so it feels safe to be out late.
Bello Horizonte is quieter and more residential. Los Cocos near the Santa Marta marina skews older and retired people. The beach neighbourhoods stretching toward the airport, Pozos Colorados and Playa Dormida, are where the newer towers are going up.
The historic centre is cheaper for a reason. Taganga is great for diving and short on infrastructure. Minca is beautiful but the internet will probably let you down if you don’t have Starlink.
Pick El Rodadero or Bello Horizonte and the infrastructure argument mostly goes away. I go into the neighbourhood breakdown in more detail in my digital nomad guide to Santa Marta.
Buying is where the cost gap gets ridiculous
This is the part of the comparison between Santa Marta and Medellín that is important because you could probably live more cheaply in many nice, safe areas of Spain or Portugal than in a premium neighbourhood in Medellín today.
A comfortable two-bedroom in Laureles or El Poblado starts around $245,000 and goes up from there. Medellín’s median apartment is around $117,000, but that median includes Robledo and Manrique, not the neighbourhoods you’d actually want to live in. Prime Poblado is running COP 9 to 14 million per square metre.
In Santa Marta, beachfront condos start around $80,000 to $120,000. Inland apartments in good areas are $50,000 to $80,000. Ocean-view luxury runs $150,000 to $300,000.
So for the price of a decent Laureles two-bedroom with no view, you can own something on the Caribbean here outright. Foreigners buy with the same rights as Colombians, no permit and no residency needed. Closing costs are around 3 percent and the whole thing takes four to eight weeks. HOA fees run $50 to $150 a month and property tax is very low at 0.3 to 1 percent of assessed value.
Once you own, your monthly number collapses. No rent, no gringo pricing, no annual increase. That is when Santa Marta stops being cheaper than Medellín by a bit and starts being cheaper by a lot.
The catch: build quality varies a great deal here, Colombian banks won’t finance you, and salt air is hard on buildings. Hire an inspector and a bilingual attorney. I’ve written more about this in my guide to buying real estate in Santa Marta.
The ultimate beach and mountain lifestyle destination
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the tallest coastal mountain range on earth. Pico Simón Bolívar hits 5,775 metres about 42 kilometres from the white sands of the Caribbean Sea.
What that means in practice is that I can swim in the Caribbean in the morning and be in the cloud forest by lunch. It takes me about an hour to get to Minca and when I want a full unplug, I stay at the world-famous El Dorado Bird Reserve on Cerro Kennedy for the weekend, at Medellín’s elevation and climate when I want to sleep under a blanket again.
There are 19 endemic bird species up there, huge waterfalls you can swim in, and the Lost City trek if you want four days in the jungle. Tayrona National Park is 45 minutes east and when I want to go surfing, I love Costeño Beach and Palomino (which also has great river tubing) about 90 minutes away.
Medellín has Guatapé and the pueblos, and they’re definitely worth the trip but the beach is a flight away. I love getting up early and swimming in the morning on Playa El Rodadero and Medellín just doesn’t offer that kind of beach lifestyle.
Pick Medellín if you want a big city lifestyle
You want a real city. You’re building a network and the nomad scene matters to you. You need reliable infrastructure for client work and can’t risk an outage. You want to fly home without a connection. You hate heat.
Pick Santa Marta if you can want a laid back beach lifestyle
You’re outdoors more than you’re out at night. You want to swim and watch the sunset every day. You’re thinking about buying and you want your money to reach further. You’d rather be early somewhere growing than late to somewhere that’s already expensive.
That last one is the bet I’m making. Poblado rents now rival some US cities. Santa Marta is where Medellín was a decade ago, with an airport 15 minutes from the beach and prices that haven’t caught up to the interest yet.
Come for a month before you commit to anything. Stay in El Rodadero, not the centre. If you want somewhere to land that already has fast internet and a group of people to eat dinner with, that’s what we built.
He runs a cultural ecotourism company called Sacred Treks, where he ran some retreats in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and fell in love with this area of Colombia.
You can follow him on Instagram @kaaist
- Everything You Need To Know About Santa Marta - September 10, 2026
- What $100,000 Buys You in Santa Marta, Colombia in 2026 - September 6, 2026
- Coliving In Medellín: A Guide For Digital Nomads (2026) - September 1, 2026
