Playa La Piscina — Attraction in Magdalena

Beautiful day trip with family… Tayrona Park info for families …

I went yesterday with my family (4pp, kids 10 & 13yo) and my sister’s family (4pp, kids 5 & 8yo). Here are some tips and facts that might help your family have a great time in the park:

A) Timing… gates open at 8am, but best to send 1 adult ahead at 7:30 to get in the queue (while rest of family grabs some breakfast and save the kids patience). I went at 7:45 and there were already about 50pp ahead of me. We finished the payments and backpack checks about 9am. Then jump in a colectivo (mini-van) with others for a 10min ride to the start of the trail. You can walk the road (4km?), but with kids I’d recommend saving their energy for the more challenging and interesting main trail. From the start of the trailhead (~9:15am for us) to La Piscina beach was about 2:20min (5.25km) with lots of breaks along the way. We stayed at the beach until about 4pm, then 6 of 8 people took horses back (45min ride), while 2 of us hiked back (60min at fast pace, no kids in tow!).

B) Costs/Food/Water… They accept VISA for park fees (73,500 COP / person, keep your receipts) and you also need to pay cash (7000/pp) for insurance. The colectivo ride is 5000 COP / person each way. Water and food stalls are setup by entrepreneurs along the trail and sell bottled water and ice cream for about double the cost of outside the park. Restaurants and food stalls are inside the park near the beaches and have good food, again for about 2x what you’d pay outside the park. If you have younger kids, or are not feeling like doing the hike, then you can rent a horse for 1-way or a return trip (50,000 COP / horse / way). They had my sister and her 5yo on same horse, while the 8 & 10yo also shared a horse with some complaining that it was too squishy. Note that if you hike out later in the day it’s best to buy water wherever you can find it since many places are sold out or start to close.

C) Other Tips… we brought a couple masks/snorkels and you can swim out to the inner side of the reef to see corals/fish. Some people also saw rays and fish closer to the beach (sandy bottom). Despite being cautious with sunscreen/shade/hats, several of us still got sunburns so re-apply sunscreen often!! We also brought a few small beach toys (ball, goggles, etc) for the kids and that was good… They had a blast playing in the water and...

When arriving on the entrance you have to pay for insurance and for entrance (total 80k for foreigners). If you're the type of person who likes to take two buses (1 to the entrance and 1 to the start of the trail) where you have to pay separately, then walk for 2 hours (sign said 50 mins) in the super warm and humid air while being bitten by mosquitoes to end up on a mediocre beach with a nice palm trees and not so clean water, that's the beach for you - for me it was...

The beach is much more relaxing and swim able because of the rocks that break the waves before coming in, great place to eat right at the front small seating but great priced food, water was calm, not much seating under shade so on a hot day I’d bring a tent, lots of sunscreen we had a mix of overcast and sun so it was fine. The walk from the other beach main one was I’d say 20 minutes each way worth the...