Tayrona National Natural Park

Tayrona National Natural Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Tayrona is the park of jungle-backed beaches east of Santa Marta on Colombia's Caribbean coast, an hour from the city and four from Cartagena, and it is sold in three ways: the hike, the boat and the stay. The entrance ticket, bought online in advance or at the El Zaino gate, is priced higher for foreigners and includes the compulsory insurance; the park caps daily numbers and closes three times a year for the indigenous communities. The day tours from Santa Marta and Taganga collect at the hotels, drive to El Zaino, take the shuttle to the trailhead at Cañaveral and walk the two hours through the forest and along the beaches to Cabo San Juan, the double bay with the hut on the rock that is the park's image, with a swim, lunch at the restaurant and the walk or a boat back;

the versions with a guide explain the forest and the Tayrona ruins. The boats from Taganga reach Cabo San Juan in forty-five minutes on the open sea, rough in the windy months and good in the calm ones, and the sailing day trips from Santa Marta anchor off the beaches without landing inside the park. The two- and three-day tours stay in the hammocks or tents at Cabo San Juan or the glamping at Cañaveral and add the Pueblito ruins trail or the Playa Cristal sector at Neguanje on the western side, which has the best snorkelling and is entered by boat or by road from Santa Marta. The diving trips from Taganga use the reefs at the park's western edge. Independent visitors take the bus from Santa Marta market to El Zaino, buy the ticket and walk in; the hammocks at Cabo book out in season.

Visiting Tayrona National Natural Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1969 and covers about 150 square kilometres of land and 30 of sea where the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest coastal mountain range in the world, falls into the Caribbean, so that rainforest and dry forest run down to a coast of granite boulders, coves and beaches within sight of snow peaks; it was the second most visited park in Colombia in 2022 with more than half a million visitors. The coastal trail from Cañaveral runs through forest of ceibas and figs, with howler monkeys, cotton-top tamarins, capuchins, sloths, iguanas and the blue morpho butterflies, to Arrecifes, whose beach is beautiful and deadly for swimming, then to La Piscina, a lagoon of calm water inside a reef, and to Cabo San Juan del Guía, the two beaches on either side of a rocky cape with the palm-roofed shelter on its top, where the hammocks hang and the sea is safe.

Beyond the cape, the trail climbs to Pueblito, the stone terraces, stairways and paths of a Tayrona town of the twelfth century, an ancestor of the Lost City in the mountains behind, where the Kogi people still hold ceremonies; the park is sacred to the four indigenous peoples of the Sierra, who close it each year for cleansing. The western sector at Neguanje and Playa Cristal has the coral and the calm water, Bahía Concha near Santa Marta is the family beach, and the sea off the park has the reefs and the wrecks that the Taganga dive schools use. The park holds 108 mammal species and 300 birds, the oncilla and the jaguar among the cats in the interior, and its climate is hot, with the dry forest of the west turning to rainforest towards the east.

Tayrona National Natural Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open daily from 8 am to 5 pm, with entry until about 4 pm, and it closes for about two weeks in February, June and October for the indigenous communities' ceremonies. The dry season from December to April is the sunniest and the busiest, with strong winds in January and February that roughen the sea for the boats;

the rains from May to June and from September to November bring showers, a green forest and muddy trails, and the shoulder months of July, August and December are the balance. The trail is hot, so walk in the early morning. Allow a full day for Cabo San Juan, two with a night in the park. Santa Marta and Taganga are the bases, the Lost City trek starts from the same coast, and Minca is the cool hill village behind Santa Marta.