Visiting Filandia, Colombia - Part 1

Filandia is a small town of about 15,000 inhabitants, located in the province of Quindío in Colombia, on the western part of La Cordillera de los Andes. Filandia is situated at almost equal distance between the cities of Pereira and Armenia, which are both good places to fly into if you want to visit. The airlines that fly are Viva Colombia, Copa and Air Panama.

Filandia is famous for its coffee production and attracts tourists from all over the world, without being a touristy place. My guess is that tourism just recently started here, which is why everything is still extremely authentic and cheap, compared to Panama, the US or Europe.

The reason for my visit is that my parents recently moved here from Panama to start a new life. I’ve been here for only 3 days now, and I absolutely love it. Well I almost absolutely love it. The only thing I could do without is the cold in the evenings (you definitely need a good sweater and a jacket as it drops to about 13 degrees Celsius at night), and it does rain a lot.

me dressed like winter at night

Aside from that, I can’t imagine a nicer town to live in. The people are unbelievably friendly and welcoming here (I received a big hug from the hairdresser who was so excited to meet me after giving me a $3 haircut!), and random people will stop to talk to you in the street to chat just about anything.

No harassment of tourists happens here, and nobody tries to sell you anything. It’s just pure, genuine friendliness which is very rare in this world nowadays. It’s so weird that you can’t help but feel suspicious at first, until you realize that WE are the ones that don’t know how to be kind and friendly to strangers anymore.

Filandia is also very special from an esthetic point of view, and I will leave you here with a few pictures of the town and its people.

I will write more about Filandia soon as I will be visiting my parents regularly, and I will get a bit more into details about daily life here in future posts.