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Travelling to Colombia? Why not sail from San Blas to Cartagena?
As a favour to us, if we provide you with information about this great trip, then we'd love it if you booked through us. It costs you no more and you'll be supporting this service that we provide. You'll also be sure that when you're sailing from San Blas to Cartagena, or sailing from Colombia to Panama, that it's a boat that we trust enough to recommend to you.
Soon we'll also be opening a Mamallena hostel in Cartagena, Colombia. From there we'll be able to provide all the information for the boats leaving from Cartagena to Panama.
Sailing from San Blas to Cartagena has become one of the great backpacker journeys of the world. Where else can you spend 3 days sailing through beautiful white sand islands, covered in palm trees and amazing beaches, then 2 days of sailing to finally arrive in the amazing colonial fortress city of Cartagena. Theres only one way to do this, and thats sailing from San Blas to Cartagena.
If you decide to sail to Colombia you'll enjoy 2-3 days sailing in the beautiful San Blas islands. This is an opportunity not to be missed. White sand tropical islands are waiting to be explored. Snorkling, swimming and just relaxing on the deck of your yacht. If you can, catch your own seafood. Also experience the traditional lifestyle of the Kuna Islanders.
Then it's 2 days of (hopefully, but maybe not.......!) plain sailing to Cartagena.
Prices have been steadily increasing and prices currently range from $400 to $525, depending on the boat. The quality of boats can vary, but we feel that most of the boats we deal with are some of the best operating between Panama and Colombia. The price may also seem high, but consider what you're receiving. The price of one way flights can range between $300 and $500, and thats for a 1 hour flight! Sailing from San Blas to Cartagena over 5 days just seems like a better deal!
The traditional route sailing from Panama to Colombia is to Cartagena via the San Blas islands. Some captains also offer a trip to the Panama/Colombian border. It's still a 4-5 day trip but you'll sail through the entire group of islands and finish in the Colombian town of Sapzurro. From there you'll take a boat to Carpurgana, a boat to Turbo and then buses to Cartagena, Medellin or where ever you're going. Most prices for this sailing experience are between $400 and $500. It'll then take another day or so and $100 to reach your destination. The area around Carpurgana is beautiful and known as a Colombian beach resort town. There are hotels and hostels there and transport to Turbo leaves at around 7.30am each morning($25).
Few of these yachts travel to a strict schedule so it's never sure that a boat will be ready to leave when you are. We maintain a list of yachts that are ready to leave for Colombia and when we hear from you we'll send you our current list. It can be an idea to ask for the departures list in advance as more boats are starting to set departure dates in advance. We do take reservations in advance as well and they can sometimes fill fast. The list of sailings will have the name of the boat, the date of departure, the port of departure, cost etc etc.
Please remember, these aren't our trips. We help both you and the captains arrange the trip but each captain is independent and operates as they wish. That said we do limit the boats that we with and over the years have weeded out the ones that we feel don't met up to our standards. We're not in the biusiness of our clients having a bad time so we actually care about who you go with. But also p
rices and experiences may not be exactly as you see here!!!! And remember, we want to know how your trip goes. If it's bad, we'll know not to use that captain again. If it's good we want to tell others so they can have the same great time you did. But no matter who you go with we know you'll love sailing to Colombia.
Check out some more information on sailing to Cartagena. If you don't have the time to sail to Cartagena then you may like one of our 3 day San Blas island tours
How to make a booking to Colombia
Theres 2 ways to make a booking on one of the sailing boats between San Blas and Cartagena. You can either email us at mamallenapa@yahoo.com and we'll send you out a fact sheet, or you can come directly to the hostel. Hope we hear from you soon!
Over 5 years ago Hostel Mamallena was the first hostel to starting booking the boats to Colombia. In that time we've gained lots of experience and you can be assured that we'll give you first hand, unbiased information about each of these boats.
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