Bogotá: The Best Things to Do
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Bogotá rewards a slower first day. The city sits at 2,640 meters, and most visitors feel a mild headache or fatigue before they feel much else, so treat day one as a warm-up: an easy walk, an early night, and the bigger climbs saved for once you’ve adjusted. Once that’s out of the way, here’s what’s actually worth building a trip around.
Museums worth the entry fee
Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) holds the world’s largest pre-Hispanic gold collection, roughly 55,000 objects, and the Muisca Raft, the gold-dusted votive raft behind the El Dorado legend, is the genuine centerpiece and has never left the country. Entry is about 5,000 COP, free on Sundays, closed Mondays. Museo Botero costs nothing except on Tuesdays and pairs Fernando Botero’s own rotund-figure paintings with his personal donation of a Picasso, a Monet, and a Dalí, an unusual combination for a free museum.
La Candelaria on foot
Start at Plaza de Bolívar, ringed by the Cathedral, the Capitolio Nacional, and the Palace of Justice. Casa de Nariño, the presidential palace, runs a changing-of-the-guard ceremony visible from the plaza on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, free to watch. Chorro de Quevedo marks the spot the city was founded in 1538 and is still ringed by chicherías serving chicha, the fermented-maize drink with real Muisca roots. Iglesia de San Francisco, the city’s oldest church, has a gilded altarpiece worth stepping inside for, and Quinta de Bolívar, Simón Bolívar’s former residence, is a quieter stop nearby.
Monserrate, once you’re acclimatized
The hilltop church at 3,152 meters is Bogotá’s signature view, reached by cable car or funicular for about 35,000 COP round trip, or by the hiking trail, considerably safer than it used to be but still one to do in daylight and with company, not solo. Give it your second or third day rather than your first.
Street life and open streets
A graffiti tour through Bogotá’s tolerated mural scene, semi-legal since a 2011 policy shift, runs about 2.5-3 hours and is tip-based; it’s the fastest way into the neighborhood and political context behind the walls. Ciclovía, every Sunday and public holiday since 1974, closes about 120km of streets to cars from 7am to 2pm, the oldest and largest program of its kind anywhere and a genuine only-in-Bogotá experience. La Santamaría bullring, a historic landmark, now hosts cultural events rather than live bullfights, worth knowing before you assume you can book a fight.
Markets and neighborhoods
Usaquén, a former colonial village absorbed into the city’s north, runs a Sunday flea market worth an unhurried morning. Paloquemao Market is the best single spot for Colombia’s exotic fruit, lulo, feijoa, guanábana, granadilla, mangostino, and uchuva among them. La Macarena, arty and foodie, rewards an afternoon of just wandering.
Green space at altitude
Parque Simón Bolívar and the Jardín Botánico give the city’s high-Andean setting some breathing room without leaving town; our Bogotá hiking guide covers the páramo day trips beyond them, and our day trips guide covers Zipaquirá and Guatavita in full. For a day-by-day plan that strings all of this together, see our Bogotá itineraries .