The short answer: fly to Bogotá or Amsterdam first
There is no direct London to Cartagena flight, so you connect once. We can't advise on the cheapest routes, and fares move too quickly for us to be useful there, but for convenience we recommend two: London to Bogotá direct with Avianca, then onward to Cartagena with Avianca, or Amsterdam to Cartagena with KLM. The second has the advantage of putting you on Colombian soil only once, at the airport you actually want.
Either way you land at Rafael Núñez International Airport (CTG), which sits on the city side of Cartagena rather than out in the countryside. That matters for the next leg, because the water is close.
Which of the two routes we'd pick
If you are travelling light and want the fewest moving parts, take the KLM routing through Amsterdam and arrive straight into Cartagena. One connection, one bag transfer, and no domestic hop at the end of a long night.
If you would rather fly direct out of London, Avianca to Bogotá is the route, and you pick up the onward leg to Cartagena from there. Give yourself a real margin on that connection. A domestic transfer at the end of a transatlantic flight is the part of the journey most likely to come apart, and Bogotá is a large airport to cross in a hurry.
We are not a travel agency and we don't sell flights. What we can tell you is what our guests actually do, and these are the two routings we recommend when we're asked.
From the airport to our door: one hour
From Rafael Núñez to Casas Altas, door to door, is one hour. We can arrange that transfer in both directions. Write to us with your flight numbers rather than your arrival dates, because the timings we plan around are the landing time and the boat, not the calendar.
The final stretch is on the water. The crossing from Cartagena to us takes 30 minutes to an hour on our boat, and we are on Bahía de Cholón, on Barú Island. There is no road you can simply drive to the end of and be here.
Reserve the boat, not just the room
Book the boat when you book the stay. Our boat has a limited capacity, and if you are not reserved and there is no space, it is a long wait until the next crossing. This is the single thing we would most like arriving guests to take seriously, and it is the one most often left to the last minute.
The same applies to the journey out. Leave us three hours before your flight departure time. That is not a padded number designed to rush you; it accounts for the crossing, the drive, and the airport itself.
Planning the day you land
A long-haul arrival and a boat crossing do not always sit well together. If your flight gets in late in the evening, consider a night in Cartagena and the crossing the following morning. You will see the bay in daylight, which is a better first impression of where you are staying than a dark channel.
If you land in the morning or early afternoon, come straight out. You will be at the house by the middle of the day with the whole afternoon ahead of you, and the hour from the airport passes quickly.
What the journey looks like end to end
| Leg | How | Roughly how long |
|---|---|---|
| London to Bogotá | Avianca, direct | Transatlantic, overnight |
| Bogotá to Cartagena | Avianca, domestic | A short hop |
| Amsterdam to Cartagena | KLM, direct | The alternative to the above two |
| CTG airport to our door | Transfer we can arrange, ending by boat | 1 hour |
| Cartagena to us, on the water | Our boat | 30 minutes to 1 hour |
| Leaving: our door to your flight | Transfer we can arrange | Depart 3 hours before takeoff |
A note on where you are arriving
We are six rooms across three houses on Bahía de Cholón, built by Gustavo Pinto and Simón Vélez in guadua bamboo. The mangroves of Barú begin at the shoreline. That is the whole of it, and it is why the last hour of the journey is by water rather than by road. If you would rather have the arrival explained in more detail before you book, our guide to reaching Barú from Cartagena covers the crossing on its own.
Write to us with your routing once you have it. We would rather answer a question about a connection six weeks out than meet a guest who missed the last boat.