September 11, 2026
Is Cali safe? This year the question has two halves, and an honest page has to answer both. The first is the one people have always asked about Cali, the city with the highest homicide rate of any large city in Colombia, and the answer to that one has not changed: the violence is real, it is concentrated in comunas a visitor never enters, and the things that actually happen to tourists are the ordinary Colombian ones, a phone, a taxi, a drink, a walk that should have been a car. The second half is new. On August 10, 2026 a magnitude 7.4 earthquake killed 154 people in Cali by the mayor’s office’s count, and for the rest of this year “is it safe” also means: is the hotel inspected, is the hospital working, what happens if it shakes again. We run six tours in this city, our guides live in it, and this is what we tell our own guests, with the police’s numbers, the Personería’s breakdown, the city’s earthquake balance and the British and American travel advisories, all read on the date at the bottom of the page.
What the city is and what is open is in our Cali guide; the places themselves, with hours, are in our guide to things to do in Cali.
The short version
Yes, for a visitor who follows the rules of any big Latin American city: Cali’s homicides happen in the east and on the southwestern hillside, among young men, with firearms, mostly on weekends, and not to tourists; theft from people is the crime that reaches visitors, and the police’s count of it has fallen by a fifth two years running. Sleep in San Antonio, Granada, El Peñón or the south, walk the center only in daylight, never hail a taxi on the street after dark, never accept a drink you did not watch being poured, and treat dating-app meetings as the scam they often are. Since the earthquake, add three questions: is the hotel open and inspected, where is the nearest private clinic, and where is the stairwell. And read the paragraph on the Pacific below before you book a whale or river day, because the British government advises against all but essential travel to the western part of the department, which includes Buenaventura, and that can affect your insurance.
Two questions, not one
Crime and earthquakes are different risks and they need different habits, so this page keeps them apart. The crime rules are about where you are, when, and what is in your hand; they are the same as in Bogotá or Medellín with the volume turned up, and they are entirely within your control. The earthquake rules are about the building you sleep in and what you do in the thirty seconds after the ground moves; they are new to most visitors and they are mostly about asking two questions before you book. Neither risk is a reason not to come. Both are reasons to come with a plan, which is the whole point of this page.
The numbers, as the authorities publish them
Homicides first, because they are the number Cali is known for. The national police’s open dataset records 986 homicides in Cali in 2022, 1,005 in 2023, 950 in 2024 and 1,068 in 2025, and 663 in the first seven months of 2026 against 571 in the same months of 2025, a rise of 16 percent. On the 2018 census population of 2,227,642, the 2025 figure is a rate of about 48 per 100,000, the highest of any large Colombian city and among the highest in the Americas. The Personería, the city’s public ombudsman, published the anatomy of 2025 in March 2026: 1,061 by its count, 82.5 percent by firearm, 93.5 percent of the victims men, 61 percent of them between 18 and 34, Sunday the deadliest day, and five comunas, 15, 14, 18, 13 and 21, accounting for 43 percent of the deaths. Four of those five are the eastern district of Aguablanca and the fifth is the hillside of the southwest.
Now the number that actually concerns a visitor: theft from persons, the police’s category for pickpocketing, phone snatching and street robbery. The same open data records 24,426 cases in Cali in 2022, 23,271 in 2023, 21,992 in 2024 and 17,985 in 2025, a fall of 18 percent in a year, and 7,796 in the first seven months of 2026 against 10,191 in the same months of 2025, a fall of 23 percent. Take the trend with a grain of salt, because a police count only sees what people report; but it is the count that exists, it points the right way, and it says what our guides say, which is that the city is not getting more dangerous for the people who walk through it with their phone in their pocket.
The map: where the deaths are, and where you will be
Cali is a city of 22 comunas and the two Calis barely touch. The comunas that carry the homicides are on the eastern flat, Aguablanca, comunas 13, 14, 15 and 21, and on the southwestern hillside, comuna 18; they are working-class districts with their own long history, and nothing in them is on a visitor’s map. The visitor’s Cali is a strip along the river and the western hills: the center and San Antonio in comuna 3, Granada, Versalles and the north of the river in comuna 2, El Peñón and San Fernando toward the south, and the residential south around Ciudad Jardín and the road to Pance. Those are the comunas where you will eat, dance and sleep, and their problem is theft, not murder. The earthquake drew a different map: by the mayor’s office’s own balance three weeks in, the hardest-hit comunas were 18, 17, 19, 2 and 3, that is, the southwestern hillside, the well-off south, the west around El Refugio, and the north and center where most visitors stay. Comuna 18 is on both lists. Put the two maps together and the practical rule falls out: choose your neighborhood for crime the way you always would, and choose your building for the earthquake by asking whether it has been inspected.
What actually happens to visitors here
In the order they reach people. The phone: snatched from a hand on a downtown street or through a car window at a traffic light, which is why the center is for daylight and the phone lives in a pocket, not a hand, and why in a car it stays below the window line. The taxi: hailed on the street late at night, with the ride ending somewhere other than the hotel; the answer is a car you called, and the British advisory says the same in its own words, use licensed telephone or app-based taxi services and avoid unlicensed taxis. The drink: scopolamine, which the British government describes plainly as a drug criminals use to temporarily incapacitate victims, administered through food, drinks, cigarettes, aerosols and even paper flyers; in a salsoteca that means you watch your drink poured and you do not accept one from a stranger. The date: the same advisory warns that criminals use dating applications and websites to identify and lure foreign nationals travelling alone, working in teams, with women easing the victim into a false sense of security before the victim is incapacitated and robbed; meet in a public place, tell someone where, and do not go to an apartment. The cash machine: use one inside a bank or a mall, in daylight, and not the one on the street corner. And the protest: they happen regularly across Colombia and start at short notice, they can turn violent, and they can close the Panamericana south of the city, so if one is on the news, stay out of it and let us reroute. That is the whole list. It is the same list as Bogotá’s, and the people who follow it have ordinary trips.
The earthquake: buildings, aftershocks, hospitals
The facts as the authorities give them. The mayor’s office’s official repository had, at its September 8 update, 154 dead, 1,657 injured and 24 buildings in total collapse, with 765 buildings declared uninhabitable by September 5, demolitions of the most damaged structures beginning in the first week of September, and a pico y placa license-plate restriction on private cars on weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The Colombian Geological Survey counted 325 aftershocks in the first week, 21 of them above magnitude 3 and the strongest a 4.8 forty-four minutes after the main shock, and said aftershocks can last for weeks or months as the rupture zone settles. The hotel association’s census of August 22 found 33 lodging establishments in the department with some level of damage, 3 percent of the stock. The region’s main public hospital, the Hospital Universitario del Valle, lost part of a tower on August 10 by the Pan American Health Organization’s first report, and the churches of the center, the Museo del Oro Calima and the Teatro Municipal are closed for structural reasons. None of that makes the city unsafe to visit; all of it changes what you ask. Before you book any hotel, write and ask two things, whether it is open and whether the building has been inspected since August 10, and prefer the one that answers without being offended. In the room, know where the stairs are. If the ground moves, the rule everywhere is the same: drop, cover your head, hold on, stay away from the windows, and do not run for the stairs until the shaking stops; then leave the building calmly and stay outside until your hotel says otherwise. Carry travel insurance that covers a private clinic, as you should anywhere in the country, and know that the private hospitals in the south of the city are where we would take a guest.
The Pacific question: Buenaventura, the whales and your insurance
This is the paragraph we would rather not have to write, and the one you most need to read. The British Foreign Office, in its Colombia advice updated on September 3, 2026, advises against all but essential travel to the western part of Valle del Cauca Department, including Buenaventura, to the municipality of Jamundí, just south of the city, and to the western part of Cauca Department. The United States’ advisory for Colombia, at Level 3, Reconsider Travel, since April 2025, does not name Cali or the Valle at all and puts its Do Not Travel areas in Arauca, Cauca outside Popayán, Norte de Santander and the Venezuelan border. What that means for our tours: the whale-watching day sails from Buenaventura into the Uramba Bahía Málaga national park, and the San Cipriano reserve sits in the municipality of Buenaventura on the old road to the port, so both are inside the area the British government names; the Popayán day by private car runs through Jamundí, which the British advisory names, and then through Cauca, which the American advisory places in its Do Not Travel category everywhere except Popayán itself. We run those days, with our own drivers and guides who know the road, and we have run them for years, but we will not tell you the advisory does not exist. If your travel insurance is British or is written against the FCDO’s advice, check whether it covers you in an area under an all-but-essential warning before you book, because many policies do not. If your insurer follows the American advisory, nothing on our Cali menu is inside a Do Not Travel area. The city itself, the hills, the river, the zoo and the salsotecas are outside every advisory line.
Getting around safely
Three rules cover it. In daylight, walk: San Antonio, Granada, the Bulevar del Río and the neighborhoods around your hotel are walking places, and the center is too until the shops close. After dark, ride: every night out ends in a car you called, Uber operates in the city around the clock, licensed taxis can be called by app or by phone through your hotel, and the 2026 tariff sets the minimum fare at 7,100 pesos with a night and holiday surcharge and the airport as a special case, all of which is in the Cali guide. Between neighborhoods, use a car too, because Cali is flat and spread out and the walk between Granada and San Antonio crosses the center. The MIO bus system is the city’s own and cheap, but with a phone in your hand and no Spanish it is not where we would start. Our tours pick up at your hotel with a vehicle that waits, and our transfers from the airport in Palmira are operated by Safe Transfers, our transfer company, with the driver inside the terminal and the price fixed; the airport taxi rules, and the fixed rate set by Palmira’s transit authority for the second half of the run, are in Safe Transfers’ Cali airport page.
Health, heat, water and the small things
Cali is hot every day of the year, 30 degrees by early afternoon, and the sun at 1,000 meters and four degrees from the equator burns fair skin fast; the hat and the sunscreen matter more here than the umbrella, and so does water, because IDEAM is forecasting a very strong El Niño for the last quarter of 2026 and heat is the first thing it brings. Dengue is present in the Valle in every year and the weather service warns that El Niño favors the mosquito, so use repellent at dusk, especially on the river and whale days. Drink bottled water unless your hotel tells you otherwise. For a medical problem, the private clinics in the south of the city are where we would go, and the public hospital is not the place for a visitor this year; both are reasons to carry insurance that covers private care. The altitude is not a factor. The full weather picture is in our Cali weather guide.
Women, solo travelers, families, LGBTQ travelers
Women traveling alone have the same rules as everyone plus the drink and the date, which are the two that are aimed at them, and the salsotecas are friendlier than their reputation: a woman asked to dance can say no and it ends there, and the floors are full of Caleñas who came with their friends. Solo travelers should take the salsa lesson before the first night out, because arriving at a salsoteca alone and unable to dance is the loneliest way to see Cali; with a lesson behind you, it is the best. Families do well here in the daytime, the zoo, the river, the cats and the Pance park are built for children, and the only adjustment is the heat. LGBTQ travelers are in a big city that is open by Colombian standards, with a nightlife that has never hidden; the rules are the same as for everyone, and the dating-app warning applies to every orientation. In all four cases the sentence that matters is the one about the car: every night out ends in one you called.
What we do differently, and what we cannot promise
Every tour we run in Cali is guided by someone who lives here, picks up at your hotel with a vehicle that waits, and carries all-risk insurance. This year each tour is checked against the day before we confirm it: the Cristo Rey reservation made, the salsoteca chosen from the ones that are open, the day trip rerouted if a road is closed. What we cannot promise is that nothing will happen, in a city where a thousand people a year are killed and where the ground moved a month ago; what we can promise is that you will be where the visitors are, at the hours the visitors are, in a car when it matters, with a guide who knows which street is which, and that when this page changes we change it in both languages the same day.
Questions travelers ask
Is Cali, Colombia safe for tourists in 2026?
For a visitor who stays in the western neighborhoods, walks the center in daylight, calls a car at night and watches their drink, yes. The homicide rate, about 48 per 100,000 in 2025, is the highest of any large Colombian city and it is concentrated in comunas visitors do not enter; theft from persons, the crime that reaches tourists, fell 18 percent in 2025 and 23 percent in the first seven months of 2026 by the police’s count.
Is Cali safe after the earthquake?
The city is open, the airport never closed, and the hotels that passed inspection are working. Ask any hotel whether it is open and whether the building has been inspected since August 10, know where the stairs are, and carry insurance that covers a private clinic. Aftershocks can continue for months, by the Geological Survey.
Is Cali more dangerous than Medellín or Bogotá?
By homicides, much more: Cali’s rate is several times Bogotá’s and higher than Medellín’s. By what happens to tourists, the list is the same in all three, and the habits that keep you out of trouble are the same too.
Which areas of Cali should tourists avoid?
The eastern district of Aguablanca, comunas 13, 14, 15 and 21, and the southwestern hillside of comuna 18, which together carry 43 percent of the city’s homicides by the Personería’s count; and the center after dark. None of them is near anything on a visitor’s list.
Is it safe to take a taxi in Cali?
A taxi you called, or an Uber, yes; a taxi hailed on the street at night, no. Licensed taxis are yellow with white plates and run on the city’s tariff; the airport run has its own fixed component, which is on the Cali guide.
Is the whale-watching tour from Cali safe?
We run it, with our own drivers and guides, and the boat and the park are the safe parts of the day. The honest complication is that Buenaventura is in the area the British government advises against all but essential travel to, which can affect a British insurance policy; the American advisory does not restrict it. Read the Pacific paragraph above and decide with your policy in hand.
Is Cali safe at night?
The salsotecas and restaurants of Granada, San Antonio and the north are, with a car both ways and your drink in sight. The center, the river boulevard and any walk between neighborhoods are not, after about ten.
Plan it with us
Every tour we run in Cali picks up at your hotel, and our transfers from the airport in Palmira are operated by Safe Transfers by Cielo.Travel. Write to us on WhatsApp with your dates, or start with our Cali tours page, and we will tell you what the week looks like before you decide.
Sources
The facts on this page were checked on September 11, 2026 against the following sources: the national police homicide dataset on datos.gov.co; the national police theft-from-persons dataset on datos.gov.co; the Personería de Cali’s 2025 homicide report; the DANE’s 2018 census profile of Cali; the Alcaldía de Cali’s official earthquake repository; the British Foreign Office’s Colombia travel advice; the United States’ Colombia travel advisory; IDEAM’s release on El Niño of September 10, 2026; and the Colombian Geological Survey’s aftershock count, the hotel association’s census and the Pan American Health Organization’s report as published in the Colombian press in August 2026. Where a figure comes from a route calculator or a ticket seller rather than an authority, the text says so.
