South America

Montreal

Canada

Medellin

Colombia

💃 Medellin at $629 RT from Montréal

With price drops like these, there's no harm in double-dipping :-)

Dallas

United States

Washington DC

Cartagena

Colombia 🦥 in $250s RT

Is this a sign for you to escape Europe's peak grim-season?

Berlin

Germany

Bogota

São Paulo

Brazil

Paris

France

Stockholm

Sweden

Stuttgart

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Oslo

Norway

Dusseldorf

Frankfurt

Hamburg

Hanover

Bremen

Colombia & Brazil ☀️ in €550s-€610s rtn & prem eco in €980s-€1160s rtn

Say adiós to your troubles and mucho gusto to sunny Cartagena!

Fort Lauderdale

Cartagena, Colombia 🌴 in $240s-$280s RT

London Heathrow

England

Lima

Peru

Panama City

Panama

Cusco

Dublin

Ireland

Peru, Panama & Colombia 🌴in £890s-£1050s/€1000s-€1070s rtn

Hi, welcome to Jack’s Fast Fares drive-thru. May I take your order?

Edmonton

Ottawa

Halifax

Vancouver

Calgary

Quebec

Bogota, Colombia 🍔 in $560s-$680s RT

Something about Manizales had piqued my interest. Maybe it was its appealingly niche status as “The Third City of the Colombian Coffee Region”, maybe it was because it sounded like it should be the name of a superstar Colombian midfielder from the 80&#39;s, or maybe it was my friends in Medellin saying “nobody visits Manizales, why are you going there?” so off I went.


Manizales does have two notable features: the biggest cathedral in Colombia, and a bunch of thermal baths in the countryside just outside the city. I had enough time to do both, so in the morning I ventured into the city centre. What I didn’t know at the time, but would soon discover, was that Manizales also has the friendliest man in Colombia.

The cathedral was pretty big, and I was about to be quite impressed when I suddenly remembered that I&#39;m from England where we have some much, much bigger cathedrals, which actually made this one look more like the local Baptist church next to the estate at the top of my road (which does its job, don&#39;t get me wrong, but isn&#39;t a pinnacle of impressive size). Perspective, eh? As in many Colombian cities, there was also a main square with a big statue of Simon Bolivar the independence liberator, but contrary to most statues of him and indeed all reliable accounts of his appearance, this one depicted him as a giant bird.

Then it was time to head out to the thermal baths. I flagged down a taxi, easy enough in the city centre next to bird-livar, and an hour later I was soaking myself blissfully in the middle of nowhere. I stayed until 7pm when the complex was closing, then noticed nobody else was around, and realised that finding a taxi back into the city was not going to happen. The only option? The local bus. I knew it existed but there was no timetable, nobody else waiting, just me standing sweatily at the side of the road for a good 20 minutes, mildly panicked that I was stuck there. Finally, through the mystical steam of the thermal environment, a bus emerged. And then I met Jorge.

Jorge was a bus driver, 45 years old, pale and podgy with a thinning mop of brown hair, a sunny disposition and a lopsided smile. He was a simple guy with a simple purpose: to get people from A to B. But Jorge had another dream: Jorge had always wanted to be a tour guide!

Unfortunately, Manizales gets very few tourists, so Jorge had never realised this aspiration. But when a slightly disoriented English guy got on his bus at the first stop on a balmy Tuesday evening, and asked in broken Spanish to be told when it was the right place to get off, Jorge couldn’t believe his luck. A tourist! In Manizales! Finally! Indeed, it was too good an opportunity to miss. And thus commenced Jorge and Joey&#39;s road trip.

After insisting I sit literally inside the driver&#39;s cabin with him, over the next two hours Jorge treated me to a full tour of everything he felt that Manizales had to offer. Sure, he spoke extremely rapid, colloquial Spanish that I only understood about half of, and sure, he was meant to be driving a set bus route for all the other passengers he picked up, but kept going way off-piste to their bemusement, but being able to show the city to a foreign visitor was not something that happened every day. He also utilised our time together to show me pictures of his wife, kids, brothers, sisters, parents, uncles, aunties, cousins and second cousins. On his phone. Whilst driving the bus down major road at 50mph.

When the final passenger left the bus and Jorge&#39;s shift was over, he decided we should go for pancakes, which I wasn&#39;t going to argue with because it was 9pm and I was starving. This entailed us stopping at a roadside pancake place, where Jorge threw the pancake lady some free bus tickets in exchange for her passing some pancakes through the window for us to eat, and we enjoyed them heartily.

Jorge then informed me that he&#39;d left the best site in Manizales until the end: his own house, where he introduced me to his teenage daughter, Lucia. She seemed far less perplexed at my presence than she ought to have been, given that her father had just made an impromptu new best friend from the UK on his evening shift, and with a sigh told me “he’s always doing things like this”. We had a cup of tea together while the bus idled on the street outside his house, while they regaled me with tales of Manizales life and I kept wondering whether he owned the bus outright or whether the company just didn’t mind him taking it for a little longer.

Finally, it was time for the journey to end, and back onto the bus we went. He dropped me at my hostel, we bid each other a fond farewell, he closed the bus door, gave me a salute, and off he went. I was never to see or speak to him again, but I was filled with gratitude, pancakes, and the makings of this tale.

Manizales is off the general Colombian backpacker trail for a reason, but with spontaneous travel comes unique experiences and plot twists such as this one. The pancakes were really delicious as well.

Story from Joey Le

Mind the (Daríen) Gap
It was 2014, and the golden age of Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum, so in a hostel somewhere in Honduras I put all my trust in the all-knowing website to find me a solution to getting across the Darien Gap. Would I regret doing this? Absolutely.

A couple of months before, I had flown to Cancun with my now-husband Will and we had made our way South through Mexico and Central America. We were naïve, penniless and were having the time of our lives. The plan was to continue to South America but the closer we got, the more we learned about the lawless jungle at the end of Panama- strictly inadvisable to idiot tourists like us, full of a spectrum of perils and probably certain death. But how to get to Colombia?

Three ways: You can book a boat tour from Panama City through the picture-perfect San Blas islands taking a leisurely week snorkelling and exploring before arriving in SA. Or you can catch a tiny plane that leaves every three days or so and fly right over the jungle and the ocean, onto Columbia. The third option was discovered from advice on Thorn Tree Forum- You can get a boat that will take you straight across from Panama City (or nearby) and bypassing the swimming adventures around the islands, you will be deposited to your destination. The problem with the first two more appealing options was the budget. Ours was a shoestring. We could only keep going until we ran out of money so spending as little was possible was the priority.

Number three it was then. Thorn Tree gave us a mobile number. Just one number. I couldn’t find any websites with links to book the boat or any information on the journey. The post just said that if you called the number, you would be collected and taken to the boat. Alarm bells should have been clanging loudly but as I mentioned previously, we were care-free and stupid, so on we went and boarded a night bus to Panama City.

On arrival, with stingy eyes, we called the number from a phone box in the bus station. No answer. Pinning everything on this, we kept trying and eventually a man told us to go to a nearby hostel and await pick up. We were excited and relieved to be saving hundreds of dollars, but the hours passed by and it dawned on me how this journey was no longer in my own hands. Somebody else was taking the reins. Did I trust this person? I didn’t even know who they were.

We were eventually taken in a 4X4 to the edge of shallow water full of reeds, and into a small boat that after half an hour, dropped us off at the home of a man called Black Iguana. He lived with his family on a miniscule island, and we would stay with him until the next boat picked us up to take us onwards. Black Iguana’s place was a two-storey shack type structure with no electricity and no running water. There was a French man lolling in a hammock. He didn’t know how long he had been there or when the boat would come. I reassured myself that this was only a short pitstop.

Three days later, we were still eating tinned sardines and looking searchingly for any boat. The sea was mesmerising but there was nothing to eat, our phones were long dead, and we went to the toilet directly into the water. We were suspended. You could walk to the end of the island and back in 5 minutes. Time solidified and I thought that I had gone mad, that I was going to live here forever and this was life now, with Black Iguana. I shrieked when I heard the rumble of a small boat and finally- onto Colombia! Or so we thought.

Eight punishing hours we sat at the front of this tiny vessel in the open sea- stopping sometimes so the Captain could fill up the tank with another can of fuel. The swell felt enormous and I spent my time thinking of my family and how much I would miss them because we would not survive this voyage.  Even Will who is always calm under pressure thought that this was it for us. Arriving at a military base in the bright sun actually felt like a miracle. Welcome to Colombia? No- this was still Panama. My second involuntary shriek of the longest day ever. After being harshly interviewed by soldiers we were let loose in that small concrete jungle and told we would be picked up the next day. The next day! There was still no food to buy and no shops but there were huge toads everywhere. What a strange mixture of truths. We managed to scrounge some bread and some tinned beans. There were two older Czechoslovakian guys that had joined us on our boat ride and one of them had a huge spider tattooed over his bald head. We spent the night with them and a few others in a big room in the only ‘hotel’ – the walls covered with Cuban graffiti writing about following the American dream.

The next day we were taken to yet another island- this was one technically Colombian and full of locals coming to relax on the beautiful beaches. I found a poison dart frog- bright green and black and we felt our hopes rising. Another night and another boat trip with our Czechoslovakian and Cuban brethren and we finally arrived in Colombia. In South America! We had made it! It took us over a week, and we paid more money than the other options would have cost. We had a new terror of the open sea and an experience we would never, ever forget. We had skirted around the Darien Gap and got to our next destination in one piece. Just.

Story from Mic 

We took a flight to Panama City, our flight was at 6am. As we got to the airport our flight got delayed by 6 hours. Travelling with Wingo airlines for the 1st time we didn’t know how much we could trust this low budget Copa airline subsidiary. Meanwhile we had only booked 4 nights in Panama City so time was crucial. We desperately wanted to get to Panama City-so in the mean time we tried booking Copa airline willing to pay $1500Cad each for a route we paid $500Cad originally with wingo. For some divine reason, the due to technical issue our flights were just not getting booked. Finally we gave up and decided to take a risk with Wingo and to our surprise the flight did take off at 12. 

Cliamx- 2 days later we got an email from them saying they have given us a $500 coupon each! Basically our flights were free to Panama City! Divine comedy- great service example by Wingo!

Story from the Treehugger

An amazing deal getting me direct flights from London to Bogota where I travelled around Colombia for a week enjoying great food, meeting awesome people and seeing the elusive sloths in person! 

Postcard from Lucy 

Just got back from a trip to Colombia with flights you highlighted last November! Been a long time waiting but 100% worth it. 

The picture is from the fortress in Cartagena, which might just be the most humid place on earth!

Postcard from Charlie

I am so so excited about discovering Colombia and flying long haul for the first time! I am planning to explore, for example: Medellin (a very green city), Cali (the Colombian salsa capital), Cartagena, Baranquilla etc.
I heard many back and forth opinions about Colombia, saying it is not that safe.. I think media exaggerates..
What do you think?

Postcard from George

Iceland

Greece

Japan

Georgia

How to do Christmas differently this year: 5 unexpected places to get festive

Cuba

Spain

Halloween is around the corner, so it&rsquo;s time to share some of the JFC team&rsquo;s creepy travel experiences. A few of them, you might want to recreate for yourselves, others&hellip; not so much.
<h3>Lauren says&hellip; </h3>
&ldquo;<a href="https://jacksflightclub.com/travel-hub/welcome-to-the-weird-world-of-atomic-tourism">I'm a sucker for anything remotely abandoned</a>, I find it so fascinating to see how buildings are just left to decay. These are some of the most interesting and spooky that I've visited:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A derelict <a href="https://diplomatictimes.net/2018/12/22/cubans-still-embrace-derelict-abandoned-sports-complex-in-havana/">sports complex</a> in Havana, Cuba, still used by locals despite its decrepit condition.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Tenerife&rsquo;s abandoned <a href="https://therealtenerife.com/posts/the-abandoned-leper-village-of-tenerife/">leper village</a>, built to control an outbreak but ultimately never populated thanks to revolutionary treatments.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The now-famous <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-manuela-hacienda-ruins">holiday home of Pablo Escobar</a>, a shell of what it once was after being blown apart by a bomb in 1993.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/0fe770a0dc6a6d95295c08ca00814c4f17670903" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<a href="https://www.chescaislost.com/legend-wistmans-wood">Wistman's Wood in Dartmoor</a> National Park is also one of my faaaave spooky places. It's so quiet and eerie! The trees are so unusual and twisted, but just remember to keep your eyes peeled for the hellhounds&hellip;&rdquo;
<h3>Akasha says&hellip; </h3>
&ldquo;I once went exploring around <a href="https://adamxphotos.com/2018/08/22/explore-220-ballyvourney-de-salle-college-county-cork-ireland-september-2017/">Col&aacute;iste &Iacute;osag&aacute;in</a>, an abandoned Christian Brothers boarding school in County Cork, Ireland.
The school had a brutal reputation for abusing its students, and you could feel the sadness as you walked around it. The desperate messages scrawled on the walls only made it all the more eerie and depressing.
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/0eee9b95e5ee061de9fa0136e579d429a544501f" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
It was also known locally as a place where people would go to do seances and perform rituals. I&rsquo;d thought those were just rumours, until I got there and saw the open books on the floor about exactly that.&nbsp;
It was also one of the filming locations for a film called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_for_a_Raggy_Boy">Song for a Raggy Boy</a>. The storyline had some uncomfortable parallels with the school&rsquo;s own history, which only made the experience all the more grim.&nbsp;
<h3>Fran says&hellip; </h3>
&ldquo;We were doing a late <a href="https://blog.atlasobscura.com/trips/night-hike-pitch-black-in-the-amazon">night walk in the Peruvian Amazon</a>, near the three-border point with Colombia and Brazil. It was super dark, and we only had a tiny torch on our head. It was two of us, plus the guide, and thousands of tiny spider eyes staring at us.
At some point, we heard some noises coming from a bush close by and our guide froze, whispering, &ldquo;it may be a jaguar, don't move.&rdquo; I thought to myself, &ldquo;bye mum, it's been fun.&rdquo;
He got close to the bush, stomping on his old hiking boots and shook the leaves with his machete... it was a tapir mum with her baby! Our guide got SO excited and said it had been three years since the last time he saw a tapir. Took me a few seconds to start breathing again!&rdquo;
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/f8653772b4742a9fe2e54fd25eb118d1277fda2b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<h3>Robin says&hellip; </h3>
&ldquo;I fell asleep on a <a href="https://travelnevada.com/outdoor-recreation/sand-mountain-recreation-area/">remote sand dune mountain in Nevada</a> whilst star gazing.&nbsp;
I woke up in the middle of the night, no moon to light the sky, and panned my torch about. There was a quick, reflected flash from two forward-facing predator eyes away in the distance, on the crest of another dune.&nbsp;
My heart rate elevated. &ldquo;They don't have cougars in Nevada, do they?&rdquo; I wondered&hellip; (<a href="https://www.ndow.org/species/mountain-lion/">they do</a>).&nbsp;
I panned the torch around again. The eyes are closer than before. I start walking slowly away&hellip; Probably just desert fox. Probably.&nbsp;
I try the torch again. Four eyes now.&nbsp; Loping. Even closer, only another ridge away. Probably just curious. Probably.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/2aaaa8b2605ac22f7e32ce07bd6134cedde0b693" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
Confident walking away quickly turns into a terrified, careering run down 400ft of sand dune in the dark back to the safety of the car. Foxes (probably) laughing.
<h3>Katy says&hellip; </h3>
&ldquo;After a late flight into Georgia earlier this year, our coach transfer to Tbilisi got held up by a landslide on the motorway around 50 minutes into a 3.5hr journey. There was no way around it, so the driver parked up in the main square of a small town in central Georgia for the night.&nbsp;
We were free to leave and find somewhere to stay for the night, but we quickly realised that accommodation in <a href="https://wander-lush.org/things-to-do-in-zestafoni-guide/">Zestafoni</a> was few and far between&mdash;especially at 11pm. Plus, with snow up to our calves, none of us fancied abandoning the warmth and occasional Wi-Fi of the bus.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/d6e583e7984d7d3ac1e66067684e8d67bfd512a3" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<h6 style="text-align: center;">&ldquo;I &lt;3 Zestafoni&rdquo;</h6>
After a restless night aboard the coach with 40-odd others, it became clear that the driver had no idea when we&rsquo;d be able to move again. Thankfully, the one passenger who spoke both Georgian and English knew that the first commuter train out of there would leave at 6am, headed to Khashuri, which would perfectly circumnavigate the closure. So off we went.
Tickets acquired, we made our way towards the <a href="https://wander-lush.org/trains-in-georgia-country-tips-map/">beaten-up, single-carriage Soviet relic</a> on the platform. It was still dark, there was no indication that this train would take us where we wanted to go, and we couldn&rsquo;t speak the language. As I grabbed the handles by the door to pull myself up into the unlit train, my partner jokingly said the words, &ldquo;welcome to the abattoir.&rdquo;
And that&rsquo;s when the stench of raw meat hit me like a ton of bricks. As I moved through the first compartment, I was greeted by huge plastic containers full of mystery cuts of mystery animal, accompanied by grubby older guys in dusty work clothes. I quickly averted my eyes and made my way onwards through the darkened compartments.
Eventually, in the second-last of 8 compartments, I found a couple I recognised from our bus and joined them&mdash;this felt safe. Ish. We sat down on the solid bench seats, knowing we had a couple of hours of discomfort ahead of us, but at least there would be safety in numbers, right?
A few minutes later, the train started squeaking ominously along the platform, still in complete darkness. Sleep-deprived and basing our whole onward journey on the word of one seemingly kind man on the bus, we began to accept that we may be chugging along to our deaths.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.jacksflightclub.com/id/bda9fe02b599a64ba6e13d57cf0ba9addc4c6f1b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<h6 style="text-align: center;">My friend Mary, tired and suspicious of our surroundings</h6>
And then the light in our compartment came on. And then it went off. And then it flickered for the next two hours. All we could see out the windows was the occasional glowing neon cross on the hillside, which only added to the discomfort.
Then the darkness lifted somewhat, and the sky became navy blue, allowing us to make out the snowy, <a href="https://youtu.be/BoP-KlDyoRI?si=VY9wPv1t8CK962vt&amp;t=14">mountainous landscape of the Imereti region</a> around us. It was breathtaking. The train meandered on for a couple of hours, squeezing in an unfathomable number of commuters along the way. But eventually we arrived in Khashuri, victorious.&nbsp;
Holding our breath, we manoeuvred our way off the train past containers of meat and into the snow. Then we remembered that we still had to get to Tbilisi.

Colombia

CA$544-CA$544 RT

Colombia in $250s RT

Colombia & Brazil in €550s-€610s rtn & prem eco in €980s-€1160s rtn

Cartagena, Colombia in $240s-$280s RT

Peru, Panama & Colombia in £890s-£1050s/€1000s-€1070s rtn

Bogota, Colombia in $560s-$680s RT

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Jack’s Fright Club - the creepiest travel experiences from the JFC team

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