Cartagena - Colombia

You’re probably still a bit gun-shy about visiting Colombia, put off by the country’s long history of cocaine-fueled mayhem. Travel qualms diminish or subside entirely, however, when you’re the guest of a trusted local who assures you that Pablo Escobar is dead and buried. Which may explain why a class of well-connected travelers has recently been alighting in the Caribbean port city of Cartagena and raving about the place upon their return.

Call them “sophistonauts” — those wide-roaming urban nomads, often third-culture kids, expats or grown-up diplo-brats who tend to live outside their countries (plural!) of citizenship and bounce around a social web connecting them to equally geographically flexible, curious confreres. The sophistonauts have not been visiting Colombia because they are braver than you and me. Nor have they been going for Cartagena’s balmy climate or the city’s peculiar colonial architecture or its rowdy history of pirates and plunder. The sophistonauts are flocking to Cartagena because they’ve been invited, in this case by proud Colombian friends eager to show off their favorite national beauty spot in full flower after decades of abandonment.

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