Playa Blanca is the beach nearly everyone means when they say they are going to Barú. It is a strip of white sand roughly 2.4 kilometres long on the western shore of the island, about 45 minutes from Cartagena by road shuttle or by speedboat, and it is the single most visited stretch of coast anywhere near the city. It deserves its reputation and it also deserves a straight description, which is harder to find than you would expect. We live on the other side of the same island, so we have no beach club to sell you there and no reason to oversell it.
Is Playa Blanca worth going to?
Yes, if you go early and treat it as a half day. The sand is genuinely white and the water off it is clear and shallow, which is why the photographs look the way they do. What the photographs leave out is the density. Organised day tours out of Cartagena generally leave the city in the morning, with departures clustered around nine, and turn around in the afternoon. That means the middle of the day is when the beach holds the most people it will hold all day, and it is also when the vendors work hardest. Arrive before the tour boats and you get an hour or two of the version you were picturing.
If you are travelling with people who want quiet water and no negotiation, Playa Blanca is not the beach for them, and you should plan around that rather than hope.
Getting there from Cartagena
There are three usual routes and they suit different people.
- Speedboat from Cartagena: the fastest option, around 45 minutes, and the one most day tours use. It lands you on the sand directly.
- Road shuttle or private driver: Barú is reachable by road from Cartagena, and a driver or shuttle takes roughly the same 45 minutes. This is the flexible option if you want to leave when you want to leave.
- Taxi or a car of your own: possible, and there is public parking at the beach. Recent guidance from local operators puts the day parking fee at around COP 40,000, though that is the kind of number that moves, so carry cash and ask on arrival.
Most visitors arrive on a packaged day pass at one of the beach clubs along the sand, which bundles a lounger, lunch and the transfer. It is the least friction for a first visit.
Agree the price before you accept anything
This is the one piece of practical advice that matters most, and it comes up in visitor reviews more than anything else about the beach. Playa Blanca is worked by independent vendors selling chairs, shade, drinks, food, massages and boat rides. The service is real and the sellers are not doing anything underhand, but prices are agreed person to person rather than posted, and confusion at the end of the day is the most common complaint people record.
Settle the number out loud before you sit in the chair, before the drink is opened, before the massage begins. Carry small notes in Colombian pesos. Visitors who make clear arrangements up front consistently report a good day; those who do not, do not.
The other side of the island
We are on Barú too, on Cholón Bay, which sits on the sheltered inner side of the island rather than the open western shore. The two places share an island and very little else. There is no beach club here and no strip of sand with vendors on it. Our shoreline is mangrove, the water in the bay is flat, and the noise at six in the morning is birds.
We are six rooms across three houses: Villa Orquidea, with the Estrella, Cuerno and Fuego rooms; Casita Veranera, with the Rhizo and Avi rooms; and Casita Laguna, which has its own private pool, outdoor bathroom and gazebo over the water. The houses were designed by Simón Vélez and Gustavo Pinto in guadua bamboo, which is the reason people who know Colombian architecture come here rather than the reason most guests arrive. The whole place can be taken as a villa if you want it to yourself.
Getting to us is by boat. The crossing from Cartagena runs 30 minutes to an hour on our own boat, and door to door from Rafael Núñez International Airport is about an hour. Our boat has limited capacity, so reserving your place on it matters more than reserving a table anywhere. If you turn up unreserved and there is no space, the wait for the next crossing is long.
Doing both in one trip
The sensible version, if you want the famous beach and a quiet night, is to take Playa Blanca early in the day on your way through the island and come to the bay afterwards. You will have seen the sand at its best, avoided the two hours when it is at its worst, and finished somewhere you do not have to negotiate for a chair.
What we would not recommend is the reverse: leaving the bay in the middle of the day to go and stand on a crowded beach. The bay in the early afternoon is the better of the two by a distance, and that is not a sales pitch so much as a description of where the crowd is.
Practical notes before you go
Bring cash in small denominations, sun cover you can actually sit under if you are not paying for a lounger, and no valuables you would be unhappy to carry across wet sand. There is no left-luggage arrangement at a public beach. Plan your return before you go out: the day-tour boats leave on their own schedule and they will not wait.
Our resort fee is USD 20 per night, and foreign residents pay no tax on hotel accommodation in Colombia. For Colombian residents, IVA is already included in the rate.