La Palmera Hostel and Coffee Shop — Hotel in Cali

Bustling, vibrant hostel with super friendly hosts. We loved the feature wall of posters from the local La Linterna print shop. Free salsa/bachata classes every day were great fun and the highlight of our stay here. The rooftop area has a great view over the city.

The hostel is in a good location close to San Antonio and the Parque del perro (where there are lots of bars and restaurants). We felt safe walking around the area in the daytime.

A few things could be improved. The co-working space and the other seating wasn't comfortable for working. The chairs are too low for the tables/the tables are too high for the chairs!

We also felt the water system was unnecessarily convoluted. There was inconsistent pricing from different staff members. Charging per refill of water just felt a bit cheap. Maybe charge per day, or even better, don't charge at all for drinking water.

We felt that there wasn't any proper quiet/chill space in the hostel. There's energetic music all day in the main lobby which carries through to the co-working and other common areas as it's all very open plan. There was a hammock outside our room but from there you could still hear noise, and there was an unfortunate smell from the drains.

There weren't many places to lay out clothes etc in our private room - I had to put a lot of things on the floor. We didn't get an itemised receipt on checkout.

Basically if you're looking for a fun place to meet people, socialise, go out dancing and want a bustling party vibe you will love it! If you want somewhere a bit more chill with good places to work, maybe...

Greeted with a high five from Jose upon arrival and immediately you feel the vibe and feel very much part of the La Palmera family.

All the volunteers go above and beyond to ensure you have a incredible time whilst in Cali. Free daily Salsa lessons which lead into great nights out and they ensure we all go out together and enjoy the best of the salsa scene and return back to base safely.

The hostel itself is an absolute gem, rooms equipped with all the mod cons a backpacker will need such as personal fan, plug, lockers, curtains. Etc. Great common areas, incredible coffee (try the V60), a beautiful terrace and 2 in-house tattoo artists (thanks to Annitta for the incredible hand poke tattoo, I love it) .

Jose and staff go way above any other hostel I have been too, they offer the very best advice on how to enjoy Colombia and made my excursion to La Barra swift and kept in touch during some unforeseen roadblocks to make sure I returned back safely. They also helped us book football tickets and made sure we got to the stadium and even managed to organise a win for Cali!!

If looking for a hostel in Cali you need not look any further, this is right up there with the very best hostels I have stayed in on any of my travels...

We stayed two nights in the hostel but could have easily stayed longer! The hostel has such a nice vibe with different areas to chill, a rooftop with sunbeds and a bar and in the evening the table on the rooftop gets pushed aside for a one-hour salsa class (which you don’t want to miss if you are in Cali!). It’s big enough to meet different people but not too big to feel anonymous (I believe they have around 30-35 beds in total). The best permanent guest is the super friendly 5-months old dog Alma 😍

Although we didn’t cook ourselves several people said that the hostel has the best kitchen they have encountered considering that they have 8 cooking fields so that several people can cook at the same time.

The dorm beds were comfy too and each bed comes with black sun-blocking curtains on each side to give you privacy and a long sleep-in (if you need it). Additionally each bed has a small fan which helps in the city too :)

One specific shout out to the Palmera Hostel team that helped me recover my sunglasses after I had already left Cali. The Palmera Team not only found the glasses in the dorm where I had forgotten them but also found another traveller who brought them to the next stop on our trip to meet me. Thank you...