After people learn why we’re moving internationally as a family, the next question they ask us is “of all the places in the world, why Medellín, Colombia?”
Here’s a little bit more about how we decided where to move and our Top 7 reasons we chose Medellín.
A little background
(consolidated and simplified from our journey over the last 2 years)
We’ve long wanted to live in Europe, but given the time zone difference, cost of living, and difficulty of acquiring visas, we had set that aside. But we were intrigued when we heard that Buenos Aires, Argentina is like Europe… but in South America. We could have a Europe-ish feel with similar time zones to the US, lower cost of living, latin culture, and we could learn Spanish?? Sounded dreamy.
So, as our first post (ish) pandemic travel, we visited BA for 2 weeks in the spring of 2022. And we *loved* it. That’s a whole story in and of itself. But suffice it to say, after that trip, we planned to move to Buenos Aires.
However, in early 2023 when we began to dig into details for the visa we thought we could get in Argentina, we realized it would not work as we thought. Big sigh.
But during that process, we also learned about a *new* 6-month digital nomad (DN) visa in Argentina. Which got us searching to find out what other countries might have one. Which led us to find out that Colombia also had a brand new DN visa. In our international-move-considerations of 2022, we had considered Colombia, but there wasn’t a super viable visa path for us there. So, we dropped the idea. But with the new DN visa – available for up to 2 years for individuals who earn income in another country, and their employer writes a letter saying they can work from Colombia – we had a wide open door.
So, we decided to do another scouting trip and spent a week in Medellín in April 2023. Long story short, we liked it enough to switch our plan from Buenos Aires to Medellín!
The process of *comparing* the two cities was such a tricky one, because they are both incredible places, but with very different pros and cons. That might be for another post.
Here are the top 7 reasons we chose Medellín
(in no particular order, but loosely starting with the highest drivers).
- Spanish language – The spanish spoken in Colombia is considered among the purest and easiest to understand in the world. From my comparative experiences in Mexico, Spain, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Argentina, I can say I had/have the easiest time understanding the Spanish in Colombia. In our case where we were choosing where to go to become bilingual, we felt Colombia would be a solid choice.
- Visa + expat hub – As mentioned above, the 2 year Digital Nomad visa in Colombia was far and away the most straightforward visa we had come across that met our needs and timeline. Alongside that, Medellín is filled with expats, lots of whom work in the tech industry (like Spencer). Which means lots of coworking spaces, cafes, and reliable high speed wifi. We definitely *aren’t* choosing to live in the areas most frequented by expats, and we *are* choosing to immerse ourselves in local culture and make local friends. But it’s nice to have the infrastructure and also be able to easily meet others who have chosen similar paths.
- Climate – Medellín is called “the city of eternal spring” due to its year-round moderate climate. With highs of 75-80 and lows of 60-65, and lots of sunshine every day all year round, it’s truly a lovely place to live. Don’t get me wrong, we loved our four season climate in many ways. But it also sounded lovely to spend a season in a warm (but not too hot) climate, not have to shovel snow in winter, rake leaves in fall, or be drenched in swampy sweat in summer. And not have to switch out our clothing twice a year (any parent knows the *ahem* joy of this task ha!).
- Travel opportunities – Given that we’d like to spend our international years exploring and traveling, we want to have a ‘home base’ from which we can easily explore lots of other cities and countries of interest to us. High on our list are places like Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica. Colombia is a definitely a great home base to access all of those!
- Mountains – I like mountains well enough, but my husband *loves* mountains. We lived in the Pacific Northwest for 2 years, and one thing my husband missed most when we moved to northern Virginia was being able to see and experience mountains. A big win for him to live in a city surrounded by mountains!
- Daily life – A lot of small things fit in here. We love coffee and my husband loves cycling. Both are huge in Colombia. We also felt in comparison to Argentina (where dinner time *starts* at 8pm, and is often more like 9 or 10pm, even for families), that the Colombian daily rhythm (where dinner at 6 is still on the early side, but not impossibly so) would be less of an adjustment for all of us. And finally, the pace of life in Medellín – not a capital city, but still a sizable city – felt more suitable for us for this season. A bit less hectic, people a bit more patient, and yet still all the amenities of a modern global city.
- Transport time – We aren’t necessarily optimizing for return trips to the US, but it certainly is a bonus that it takes half the time to get to Colombia (5-6 hours of flying time) as Argentina (12-13 hours of flying time). Gosh we loved BA, but maaaan it’s far! Also a win for visitors considering coming to see us!
And that about sums it up!
Even thinking about how all of this made sense ‘on paper,’ it was still a big leap to make the decision after a week of visiting, especially knowing how much we loved BA! But with much prayer and conversation, we decided our international adventure would be in Medellín. We are so grateful for the immense privilege to be able to make a choice like this. And deeply grateful for the many friends and family who have encouraged us and cheered us on!
Stay tuned for our next post on *how* we actually executed on packing up our life in the USA and what we did with all our stuff!
