Cartagena for digital nomads

Best cafes

Cartagena's cafe scene is a small map with a deep stack: a walled colonial centre where the morning starts late and the espresso runs short, a thin ring of Getsemaní side-streets where the doors stay open until midnight, and a few outliers further east where the city eats breakfast on its way to work. The twelve below were chosen by what they actually do, not by the postcard wall they sit against. Some pour third-wave Colombian coffee with the care of a tasting room; some are working bakeries with a counter you stand at; one is a juice bar that has outlasted three café trends. The list rotates through the walled city, Getsemaní, and the neighbourhoods east of the Castillo, so a visitor with a week can stop at most of them on foot or in a short taxi. None are scored against TripAdvisor; they are scored against each other and against the obvious tourist room two doors away. Hours are quoted from the venue's own listing because hours, in this city, are the most honest fact a cafe gives you.