Cartagena eSIM
In Cartagena you connect to Claro or Movistar, whichever is performing better where you are standing. The typical speed across the country is 38 Mbps. Your data starts working the moment you land, before you reach the immigration hall.
- Networks
- Claro and Movistar
- Typical speed in Colombia
- 38 Mbps typical, 9 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans that cover Cartagena
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $9.89 | $9.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $6.30 | $18.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $6.38 | $31.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $5.19 | $51.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $4.59 | $91.89 |
How Colombia compares across South America
- Regional typical speed
- 33.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Claro, Movistar
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Uruguay, 48 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Peru, 35 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Bogota, Cartagena, Medellin
Landing at Rafael Nunez International Airport (CTG)
- Airport
- CTG / SKCG
Getting into Cartagena
- Road from Rafael Nunez Airport to downtown and the walled old town (CTG), about 10 minutes
Worth knowing about Cartagena
- The airport is about a ten-minute drive from downtown and the walled old town, and roughly fifteen minutes from the modern Bocagrande area.
- Cartagena's airport is inside the city, in the Crespo neighbourhood in the north, wedged between the Caribbean coast and the Cienaga de la Virgen marsh - the transfer to the old town is a short urban drive, not an intercity run.
- The airport changed operator in March 2024, when OINAC took over under a ten-year contract, so older signage and contact details may be out of date.
- TransCaribe now takes open payments. You can pay a fare by holding a contactless Visa debit or credit card, or a Visa card loaded in Apple Pay or Google Pay, directly against the validator.
- TransCaribe validators accept only one payment per Visa card per hour, so a couple travelling together cannot tap the same card twice.
- Decree 017 of 15 January 2026 set the TransCaribe fare at 3,900 Colombian pesos from 23 January 2026, up from 3,400 pesos.
- Cartagena's municipal free wifi network appears in the wifi list under the name ZONA WIFI MUN CTG.
- To use Cartagena's municipal wifi you select the network, fill in a form with your details, accept the terms of service and the personal data policy, then press enviar.
- Fourteen municipal wifi zones were inaugurated in December 2021, among them Plaza de la Aduana, Bocagrande, La Boquilla, El Pozon, Ternera and El Bosque.
- An earlier MinTIC batch put free wifi in Plaza de la Aduana, Casa de la Justicia Chiquinquira, Cancha Sintetica La Maria and Ciudad Bicentenario, rated at 20 megas and running 24 hours, seven days a week.
- Colombia's national Zonas Digitales must run a captive portal. A device connecting for the first time registers, and its MAC address is then recognised so later visits start a session directly.
- The Zonas Digitales captive portal must end a user session after two hours, though the user may reconnect if network capacity allows.
- Since 1 September 2025, CRC Resolution 7684 of 2025 requires a Colombian operator to collect and verify the buyer's document type, document number and document issue date before a prepaid SIM can be activated.
- The same resolution says that for foreigners whose identity document is a passport, the operator registers the user's information and may use the mechanisms available to it for later validation.
- Rafael Nunez airport handled 7,756,298 passengers in 2025, a rise of 3.27 percent, of which 1,752,903 were international. Aerocivil certified it as an international aerodrome.