Medellin Travel Guide Portal

The original design concept for Medellin Travel Guide was to make it into a portal, a gateway if you will, to finding information about visiting or traveling to Medellin Colombia.  Inclusive of our rental apartments, penthouses and realestate for sale listings we have with our clients, the portal is now well over 180 pages in length.  Too big and too cumbersome for many surfers although our unique visitors continues to grow at a 20% month over month rate.

We tracked some data points, for the past 4 months, of which topics were of the greatest interest to our site visitors and decided to publish an easier to navigate more user friendly website with short snippets of information and links back to individual pages on MTG is there was interest in more detail on a particular subject.

 

It had a natural selection of about 5 main topics;

Accommodations;

Getting Here;

Realestate;

Things to do;

and, Services

 

From those broad categories, we took the top 33 most frequently visited pages/topics and created www.medellinvisitorsguide.com  In some cases, you will be taken to a specific page on Medellin Travel Guide but will never leave the Medellin Visitors Guide Site.  We used the KISS approach in determining if less intensive information would meet your needs for Medellin Information and just created new pages or whether the information on MTG was succint enough to just link you to that specific topic.

A splash or landing page was created about a month ago and we have been periodically working to complete the site.

 

Today, we have re-launched www.medellinvisitorsguide for your perusal.  We hope it meets your needs for information about traveling to or visiting Medellin Colombia.  You can always find more detail on many more topics on Medellin Travel Guide but you may just find what you need on Medellin Visitors Guide as well.

 

Thanks for visiting and helping to make Medellin Travel Guide the #1 English web site about Medellin Colombia on the internet.

 

Regards,

 

MTG

Medellin

Wow!  I am rapidly coming up on my 1 year anniversary of living in Medellin Colombia. It has gone by really fast but has been an excellent experience.

First of all, the climate of this city just cannot be beat. I have neither an air conditioner nor a heater.  I like to tell people when it gets warm, I open my windows!  When it gets cool, I close them!  How is that for energy efficiency?  I have only worn a light windbreaker jacket twice that I can remember.  If it is raining or drizzling in the evenings, it can get chilly.

Secondly, the Paisa people are some of the friendliest on the planet.  Maybe it is because they do not get a lot of tourists here and we are an oddity but rarely a day goes by that I am not stopped by a local, asked where I am from, see their surprise when they find out I am living here and taking Spanish lessons and am genuinally welcomed as a Gringo Paisa. (that always elicits smiles).

Thirdly, the women of Medellin are perhaps some of the most stunning in the world (and I have traveled to 74 countries so that is a pretty good basis for the comment).  They are warm, friendly, very family oriented, sincere (well, most anyway), have fidelity in a relationship, love to party, dance, rarely ever go outside their home when they are not looking their finest and make wonderful girlfriends. A Medellin Girl is a great catch!

The food, well, to be honest, it is not the best.  Very bland, high in calories and fat.  These people eat more garnishments on their hamburgers and hot dogs than I have ever seen. Many times, they have to eat them with a fork.

Cost of living.  It started out pretty good but the declining value of the USD has admittedly put a dent in my spending patterns.  It is still not bad though. I rent a 1,300Sf Apt for $650 per month.  My utilities (including cable TV, HS Internet, local phone, electricity, water, sewer, garbage etc) is about $150 per month and I live in the highest strata area of the city. (Strata: They have 1-6 here.  The lowest strata pays a lower amount for their utilities.  The higher stratas pay more.  It is a way to help the poorer people and works quite well.)

Transportation? I take, taxis, buses and the metro almost everywhere I go.  Much cheaper than a car and you can get a taxi almost anywhere 24 hours per day. 

Clothing?  Haven’t had to buy any but you can spend a lot or a little, just like in the US depending on how you value shop.

Language:  It is still a barrier at times but my Spanish is coming along well.  I would say I am at an intermediate A or B level.  Learning the idomas and modismos (local slang or colloquisms) is the tough part. Some days I just look at them and shake my head.

Am I going to stay?  You betcha! More Spanish classes, more exploration of this beautiful city and it’s surrounding countryside and more posts on WordPress about living here.

If you want to know more about this gem of a city, check out my website at www.medellintravelguide.com If the info you need is not there, you probably do not need to know about it!

Chou

MTG

Medellin Universities

Medellin Universities are considered a center of educational excellence throughout Colombia and the rest of Latin America and many students seek to attend school here. Many degrees are transferable to other countries.

Many Medellin Universities offer undergraduate as well as Masters and PHD programs. In the Public Universities like the University of Antioquia, students pay according to their abilities and family incomes so no one with a desire to attend and meeting the minimum requirements is ever refused entrance. The Private universities like EAFIT are only for the most well to do families.

It is possible for people as young as 15 to enter the public Universities if they have completed their “secondaria” education (equivalent of our HS graduation).

Many of the Universities offer long term Spanish classes for foreigners.

Most schools begin classes at 6:30 AM and extend until 10:00 PM Mon-Sat.!

Medellin Travel Guide

This BLOG is going to be dedicated to anything and everything about Medellin Colombia.  A beautiful, modern, upscale city with a wonderul climate, low cost of living, excellent medical facilities, universities, shopping malls and more.

Our website Medellin Travel Guide is under construction and we will be posting on the internet soon.  In the meantime, we will use our Blog to begin introducing world travelers to all the great things about Medellin Colombia.

Welcome and feel free to post or ask questions about any topic.