Cable car
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food
4.8 11,277 reviews
- guide
- metro
- cable car and bus tickets
- one arepa
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tours In Medellin, Compared
This guide compares 12 real Comuna 13 graffiti tours sold on booking platforms, from $15 to $119 per person. The difference between the cheapest and the priciest is not the murals, everyone sees the same murals. It is how you arrive: by metro and cable car, on foot with street food, in a private car, or folded into a full-day city tour. Group sizes run from a 15-person cap to groups of dozens, snacks vary from one arepa to five stops, and some tours throw in a spray-can workshop. Here is what each one actually includes.
29,343 traveller reviews sit behind the 12 tours compared here, and most cancel free up to 24 hours before departure.
Listings, routes and prices checked against every live booking page. How we check
Climb The Route
Tap a step to see what happens there and which tours include it.
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San Javier Station
Every walking version of this tour starts the same way: San Javier, the western terminus of metro Line B.
About 14 minutes from El Poblado
Cable car combos ride in through it:
The five walks meet nearby, in the Veinte de Julio section of San Javier.
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Line J Cable Car
One integrated fare covers metro plus Line J, with no extra charge for the cable.
Roughly 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Cable ride on:
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The Escalators
Six sections of double escalators covering 384 metres and replacing about 350 concrete steps, free for residents and visitors alike.
About 16 hours a day
On the itinerary of:
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Graffiti Alleys And Murals
The murals are tied to the hip-hop scene that grew here out of the conflict years.
From a one-hour walk to 80 minutes guided
All 12 tours walk the murals.
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The Viewpoints
Above the escalators the tour itineraries converge on the graffiti alleys, the galleries, and the viewpoints looking back over the west of Medellin.
Mornings are the standard recommendation
Viewpoints on:
Every Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour You Can Book
12 of 12 tours shown
Street food
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food
4.9 9,609 reviews
- local guide
- empanadas
- patacon with hogao
- butifarras
Street food
Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour
4.9 2,560 reviews
- local guide in Spanish or English
- mango-lime popsicle
- empanadas and snacks
- rap and breakdance shows
City combos
City Tour Medellín + Comuna 13: Paisa for a Day
4.9 1,915 reviews
- lunch
- bilingual guide
- transport
- walking tour
Cable car
Comuna 13 District Tour with Cable Car Ride
4.7 1,570 reviews
- English or Spanish-speaking local guide
- metro and bus tickets
- cable car ride
Street food
Comuna 13 Graffitour With Snacks Included
4.9 793 reviews
- small-group guide
- empanadas
- mango ice cream with lemon and salt
Cable car
Comuna 13 Tour with Cable Car Ride
4.8 729 reviews
- local guide
- metro
- cable car and bus tickets
- fruit tasting
Street food
Comuna 13: History, Snack & Graffiti Workshop
5 505 reviews
- local guide
- snacks
- ice cream and coffee
- graffiti workshop
Private
Private Comuna 13 & Escobar History Tour
4.9 259 reviews
- private bilingual guide
- private air-conditioned car
- water or coffee
Street food
Comuna 13 Street Art by a Local Guide, with Snacks
5 56 reviews
- guide who grew up in the barrio
- empanada
- artisanal popsicle
- coffee or chocolate
City combos
Pablo Escobar Tour + Comuna 13 with Transport
4.8 47 reviews
- hotel pickup and drop-off
- private vehicle
- driver-guide
Private
Private Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Metrocable
5 23 reviews
- hotel pickup and drop-off
- private transport
- all metro
- cable and toll fees
Twelve tours, four kinds. The cable car combos, three of them, ride the metro and Line J metrocable into the barrio and back, priced from $22 to $28. The street food and small group walks, five of them, meet you inside Comuna 13 at San Javier and spend everything on food, guides and shows rather than transit, from $15 to $24. The private tours, two of them, put you in your own car with a driver-guide and hotel pickup, from $79. And the full-day city combos, the last two, wrap Comuna 13 inside a bigger day of Medellin sightseeing, from around $52.
Each group below opens with a short read on what actually separates its tours, because within each category the differences are real but narrow: an hour here, a fruit tasting there, a group cap of 15 versus 40. Then come the cards with prices, ratings, review counts and inclusions, all taken from the live listings. Here is every tour you can book, sorted by type.
Short answer
A guided walking tour with snacks runs $15 to $24 per person. At the bottom end, the Comuna 13 Street Art by a Local Guide walk starts at $15, the Comuna 13 Graffitour With Snacks Included at $16, the True Story and Street Food Tour at $20, the Zippy street food tour at $21, and the graffiti workshop version at $24. Tours that ride the metro and Line J cable car into the neighbourhood cost $22 to $28: the flagship cable car and street food tour from $22, the District Tour from $27, and the four-and-a-half-hour cable car tour with fruit tasting from $28. Private tours with a car and hotel pickup start at $79. Full-day combinations covering the whole city plus Comuna 13 start around $52. Free, tip-based walking tours exist too; the going tip is 20,000 to 30,000 Colombian pesos per person, roughly $5 to $10.
Compare By Type
Cable Car Combos: Three Ways To Ride Up
The Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food is the one most people book, and the numbers back that up: 11,277 reviews at a 4.8 rating, more than every other cable car tour combined and then some. From $22 for three to four hours, it meets at Poblado station and puts every transit ticket in the price: metro, cable car and bus. The itinerary runs metro, 20 minutes of cable car, a coffee tasting, a dance show, a street food stop with an arepa, about an hour and a half of guided mural walking, then a drink at a viewpoint bar before the metro back. Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The Comuna 13 District Tour with Cable Car Ride, from $27 and also three to four hours, spends roughly half its time on transit itself: 30 minutes of metro, 40 minutes of cable car and two bus legs, framing the network that stitched Comuna 13 back to the city as part of the story. The mural walk is listed at 80 minutes with a local guide. Metro and bus tickets are included. It carries 1,570 reviews at 4.7, and it meets at the Poblado-area station as well.
The Comuna 13 Tour with Cable Car Ride is the long one: four and a half hours, from $28, capped at 20 travellers, with a fruit tasting worked in between the metro legs and the graffiti alleys. Transit tickets are included. It has 729 reviews at 4.8. The listing asks for moderate physical fitness and states it is not wheelchair accessible. Of the three, this is the pick for a first day in Medellin when you want the city's geography to click before anything else.
Street Food And Small Group Walks: Five Ways To Eat Your Way Up
These five all meet inside Comuna 13 near San Javier, which is why they cost less: no metro legs, no cable car, no bar tab. What you are choosing between is group size and how much food shows up.
The Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food, from $21 for three hours, is the street-food heavyweight. Five stops: empanadas, patacón with hogao, butifarras, and the mango ice cream with salt and lemon, eaten between murals. The trade-off is scale; the listing caps groups at 70 travellers, with a note that the guide carries a speaker when the group is large. It carries 9,609 reviews at a 4.9 rating. The listing flags it as pushchair accessible but not wheelchair accessible.
The Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour, from $20 for three hours, is the cheapest well-reviewed way into the barrio with a guide. Small groups, local guides who lived through the neighbourhood's past, a mango-lime popsicle, empanadas and patacón with hogao, plus a rap or breakdance show. The itinerary lists optional safety briefing, dance show, photo stops and about two hours of guided walking through the Independencias neighbourhoods. It has 2,560 reviews at 4.9.
The Comuna 13 Graffitour With Snacks Included is the small-group pick: capped at 15 people, from $16, two to three hours, with empanadas and a mango ice cream with lemon and salt included. The listing describes a guide waiting at a meeting-point store 15 minutes before departure, and an hour at the electric escalators. Reviews sit at 793 with a 4.9 rating. Interestingly, the listing claims wheelchair accessibility for surfaces and transport, unusual for this barrio. This is the one for anyone allergic to megaphone tours.
The Comuna 13: History, Snack & Graffiti Workshop, from $24 for four hours, is the only tour on this page where you leave having sprayed something yourself. After the murals and galleries comes a half-hour hands-on graffiti workshop at a community base. Also included: homemade snacks, local ice cream, coffee made by locals, a bottle of water at the start, and a dance show depending on availability. The listing emphasises stops away from the main tourist areas and offers four departure times designed to dodge peak crowds. Reviews: 505 at a perfect 5.0, the top of the category alongside the local guide walk.
The Comuna 13 Street Art by a Local Guide, with Snacks is the cheapest tour compared on this site, from $15, and the smallest: a tiny group led by a guide who grew up in the barrio. Two to three hours covering the electric stairs, art galleries, alleys and viewpoints, with an empanada, an artisanal popsicle, and coffee or chocolate along the way, plus live shows. It is a newer listing with 56 reviews, all currently at 5.0, and guide and value scores of 5.0 in the listing's own ratings. Small review count, perfect scores so far, and the most personal version of the story on this page.
Private Tours: Your Own Pace And A Car
The Private Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Metrocable is the budget private option at $79 for three hours: your own vehicle and driver-guide, hotel pickup and drop-off from central Medellin, and every metro, cable and toll fee handled. Twenty-three reviews at 5.0. The listing is the one route on this site that works for wheelchairs and strollers, which almost nothing else in the barrio's steep alleys can claim.
The Private Comuna 13 & Escobar History Tour is a different animal: $113 per person for four to five hours, a private air-conditioned car, a bilingual guide, water or coffee, and hotel pickup from Medellin or Laureles. The route pairs the Escobar-era sites, handled without glorification per the listing's framing, with Comuna 13's murals and escalators as the counterargument. Two hundred and fifty-nine reviews at 4.9. Note the price is per person, not per group.
Full-Day City Combos: Comuna 13 Inside A Bigger Day
The City Tour Medellín + Comuna 13: Paisa for a Day is the honest way to do both in one swing: seven to eight hours, from $51.70, with hotel pickup, lunch, a bilingual guide, transport, and a walking tour. City landmarks in the morning, Comuna 13 and the Metrocable in the afternoon. Groups run to 20 travellers. Reviews: 1,915 at 4.9.
The Pablo Escobar Tour + Comuna 13 with Transport is the priciest tour on this site at $119, but it is private: five hours with hotel pickup and drop-off, a private vehicle and a driver-guide covering the Escobar chapters, the new Medellin, and a Comuna 13 walk. For travellers who want context first and murals second. It is a newer listing with 47 reviews at 4.8.
Choose in one move per fork.
- TransitIf riding the cable car matters, take a combo from $22; if not, meet at San Javier and save.
- FoodThe $21 Zippy tour feeds you most, the $16 capped tour keeps the group smallest.
- PrivacyPrivate starts at $79 with pickup.
- TimeOnly the full-day combos clear the rest of the city too, from about $52.
Now, what the travellers who booked these tours actually wrote.
What Travellers Say About These Tours
This was a fantastic and affordable tour of Comuna 13. Our guide Melina was amazing and explained the history and significance of Comuna 13 to Medellin. It was also a great tour to meet fellow travellers as we travelled on the metro and walked between sites. Highly recommended if you’re visiting Medellin!
It was excellent! Jorge was by far the best guide and gave us a passionate history of the area. The views and food were also great!
This was such an authentic & interesting tour, told from the perspective of someone who has grown up in the local community. Sergio gave us a fascinating & heartfelt insight into the history & transformation of this vibrant community, whilst leading us around the local streets & pointing out the amazing urban art & explaining the meaning behind the murals. We visited some of the less touristy parts, experienced an incredible urban dance performance, enjoyed local coffee & rode the colourful escalators all while getting a first hand glimpse into life in Comuna 13.
A few of the reviews travellers have left on these tours, word for word.
See The Barrio Before You Book
A feel for the escalators, the murals and the crowds before you commit, from travellers who filmed their own visits.
We do not earn anything from these videos.
Walking Comuna 13: The Route From San Javier To The Top
The Station And The Climb
Every walking version of this tour starts the same way: San Javier, the western terminus of metro Line B. If you are coming from El Poblado, the ride is Line A northbound to San Antonio, then Line B west, about 14 minutes in total on a single integrated fare of roughly 4,400 pesos with a paper ticket, or 3,820 with a Cívica card. The tours that include transit, such as the flagship cable car tour and the District Tour, meet you at Poblado station and handle the tickets themselves, which is part of what you are paying for.
From San Javier station you have three ways up into the barrio, and the listings describe all of them. You can walk uphill, about 20 to 30 minutes of steady climbing. You can catch a local bus, the 221i or the 225i. Or you can ride the Line J metrocable, which leaves from the station and floats over the rooftops toward La Aurora. One integrated fare covers metro plus Line J, with no extra charge for the cable. Line J runs roughly 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, narrower hours than the metro itself, and it had a week-long maintenance closure in July 2026 as part of the annual cable maintenance programme. Weather suspensions happen occasionally.
The Escalators
The centrepiece of the climb is the outdoor escalator system in the Las Independencias barrio, six sections of double escalators covering 384 metres and replacing about 350 concrete steps. It opened in 2012, though some sources say 2011, at a reported cost of six to seven million US dollars. It is free, for residents and visitors alike, and runs about 16 hours a day. There is no ticket, no gate and no tourist tax for the neighbourhood at all; multiple recent guides confirm there is nothing to pay for access.
Maintenance matters if you are visiting in 2026. Integral interventions on the escalators began in November 2025 and ran into mid-2026, done one section at a time so the rest kept moving, with the adjacent stairs staying open throughout. If a tour photo from a previous year shows all six tramos running, your visit might show five and a work crew. The walk is unaffected; the escalators were built for comfort, not necessity.
The Murals And The Top
Above the escalators the tour itineraries converge on the same territory: the graffiti alleys, the galleries, and the viewpoints looking back over the west of Medellin. The murals are tied to the hip-hop scene that grew here out of the conflict years. Casa Kolacho, the cultural centre offering free classes in rap, graffiti, breakdancing and DJing, traces its roots to the late 1990s and early 2000s scene and was formalised as a collective around 2013, in tribute to the rapper Héctor "Kolacho" Pacheco, murdered in 2009. Chota 13, a pioneering graffiti artist and survivor of that era, runs a gallery and coffee shop in the neighbourhood. Guides on several of these tours come out of the same collectives.
What the tours actually include, according to the live listings, varies more than the route does. The flagship cable car tour builds in a coffee tasting stop of about 10 minutes, a 15-minute dance show, a street food stop for an arepa with cheese, and a drink, beer, soda or water, at a viewpoint bar at the end. The True Story tour includes a mango popsicle with salt and lemon, patacón with hogao, and a rap or breakdance show. The Zippy tour spreads five street-food stops between the murals: empanadas, patacón with hogao, butifarras, and the mango ice cream with salt and lemon. The workshop tour adds something the others do not, a half-hour hands-on graffiti session where you spray something yourself.
The dance shows are weather-dependent and the listings say so plainly. So is the pace: the guided walk portion of the District Tour is listed at 80 minutes, the flagship tour at about an hour and a half of guided touring plus photo stops, and the small-group Graffitour at about an hour on the escalators and alleys. None of these are hikes. The terrain is steep in patches, but the escalators do the worst of the climbing, and several tours flag in their accessibility notes that surfaces are an issue for wheelchairs, with a few exceptions covered in the tour sections below.
One practical note on crowds: Sundays are the busiest day in the corridor, and mornings are the standard recommendation for both thinner crowds and milder air. More than one million people visited the tourist corridor in 2024, making it the most visited site in Medellin, and capacity strain is a recurring theme in coverage since. Going early is the cheapest upgrade available.
For the fuller backstory, including Operation Orion in 2002 and the La Escombrera excavations that began turning up remains in late 2024, see our history of Comuna 13. The escalators get their own treatment in our escalators guide, and the murals themselves in the street art guide.
How Much Does A Comuna 13 Tour Cost?
Comuna 13 tours run from $15 to $119 per person on the live listings we track, and that spread is not random. At the bottom you get a guide who meets you in the barrio and walks you up the escalators, snacks sometimes included. At the top you get a private car, a driver-guide and hotel pickup, often wrapped around Escobar-era sites as well as the murals. In between, the price moves on four things: whether transit is included, how much food is in the ticket, how big the group runs, and whether the tour is private or shared. Every price below is a from-price in USD per person.
| Tour | From (USD) | Rating And Reviews | Time | What Is In The Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 5.0 from 56 reviews |
Time 2-3 hours |
What Is In The Price Barrio-born guide, empanada, artisanal popsicle, coffee or chocolate, live shows |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.9 from 793 reviews |
Time 2-3 hours |
What Is In The Price Guide, group capped at 15, empanadas, mango ice cream with lemon and salt |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.9 from 2,560 reviews |
Time 3 hours |
What Is In The Price Local guide in Spanish or English, mango-lime popsicle, empanadas and snacks, rap and breakdance shows |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.9 from 9,609 reviews |
Time 3 hours |
What Is In The Price Local guide, empanadas, patacón with hogao, butifarras, mango ice cream |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.8 from 11,277 reviews |
Time 3-4 hours |
What Is In The Price Guide, metro, cable car and bus tickets, one arepa, one drink at a viewpoint bar |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 5 from 505 reviews |
Time 4 hours |
What Is In The Price Local guide, snacks, ice cream and coffee, hands-on graffiti workshop, dance show |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.7 from 1,570 reviews |
Time 3-4 hours |
What Is In The Price English or Spanish-speaking local guide, metro and bus tickets, cable car ride |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.8 from 729 reviews |
Time 4.5 hours |
What Is In The Price Local guide, metro, cable car and bus tickets, fruit tasting |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.9 from 1,915 reviews |
Time 7-8 hours |
What Is In The Price Lunch, bilingual guide, transport, walking tour, hotel pickup |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 5.0 from 23 reviews |
Time 3 hours |
What Is In The Price Hotel pickup and drop-off, private transport, all metro, cable and toll fees, driver-guide |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.9 from 259 reviews |
Time 4-5 hours |
What Is In The Price Private bilingual guide, private air-conditioned car, water or coffee, hotel pickup |
| Tour | From (USD) |
Rating And Reviews 4.8 from 47 reviews |
Time 5 hours |
What Is In The Price Hotel pickup and drop-off, private vehicle, driver-guide |
What Moves The Price
Transit
Transit is the first divider. The tours that meet you in Comuna 13, near San Javier, cost $15 to $24 and leave the commute to you. The cable car tours, at $22 to $28, fold the metro, the bus and the Line J cable car into the ticket. That is a spread of only a few dollars between the two formats at the bottom, so the choice is really about whether you want the approach by gondola or the walk from San Javier.
Food
Food is the second. Five of the six cheapest tours are street-food tours, and their inclusions run from a single empanada up to five stops covering empanadas, patacón with hogao, butifarras and mango ice cream. The workshop tour at $24 goes further: snacks, homemade ice cream, coffee and a graffiti workshop where you spray something yourself. You are paying for roughly an hour of activity and materials, not just a walk.
Privacy
Privacy is the third, and it dwarfs the others. The jump from $28, the most expensive shared cable car tour, to $79, the cheapest private option, buys a vehicle, a driver-guide and hotel pickup in both directions. The two Escobar-combined privates at $113 and $119 add a second storyline and more hours. Note that the $113 tour prices per person, not per group, so a couple pays double. Group size matters too within the shared category: one tour caps at 15, another runs to as many as 70 travellers per the listing's fine print, and that difference is worth checking before you book, not after.
Costs Outside The Ticket
There is no entry fee to Comuna 13 and no tourist tax. The escalators are free public infrastructure, the murals are on open streets, and no pass or permit exists. That surprises people who expect a museum-style gate at the bottom of the hill. What you can spend on top of the ticket is mostly transit.
- Metro single ride: about 4,400 pesos on a ticket or QR fare.
- Cívica card fare: about 3,820 pesos per ride if you get a card.
- One integrated fare covers the metro plus the metrocables, including Line J to and from San Javier. No extra charge for Line J.
- Escalators: free, for residents and visitors alike.
- Tip on free tours: 20,000 to 30,000 pesos per person, roughly 5 to 10 USD. Some sources cite 25,000 as standard, or 30,000 to 50,000 for a guide who did well.
On exchange rates, the peso traded around 3,053 to 3,259 per US dollar across July and August 2026. It strengthened considerably from the 4,000-plus levels seen in parts of 2025, so older budget posts online will overstate your costs. If you take a free tour and tip at the standard rate plus pay your own metro fare each way, your realistic total is roughly 29,000 to 39,000 pesos in transit and gratuity, which lands near the bottom of the paid table without a ticket in hand.
The full breakdown, including what each tour's inclusions actually save you in pesos, lives in our dedicated cost guide.
From Operation Orion To An Open-Air Gallery
The escalators in Las Independencias climb about 385 metres of hillside in six sections, and more than a million visitors came through in 2024, past murals that exist because of a military operation most of those visitors have never heard of. Comuna 13, in the San Javier district on Medellín's western slope, is home to roughly 160,000 people. Two decades ago it was the setting for one of the largest urban military operations in Colombia's history, and the art on the walls is inseparable from that record.
- Late 1990s
Urban war in Comuna 13: ELN, FARC and CAP militias contest control of the hillside barrios.
- October 2002
Operation Orion: over 1,000 soldiers and police move on the comuna under President Álvaro Uribe.
- 2009
Rapper Héctor "Kolacho" Pacheco is murdered; Casa Kolacho later forms in his name.
- 2012
The electric escalators open in Las Independencias, connecting the hillside to the city below.
- 2024
JEP and UBPD begin excavations at La Escombrera; first remains confirmed in December.
- 2024
More than one million visitors reach Comuna 13, Medellín's most visited site.
Operation Orion
On October 16, 2002, the Colombian state launched Operation Orion under President Álvaro Uribe. Over 1,000 soldiers and police, with armoured vehicles and air support, moved into Comuna 13 to expel the ELN, FARC and CAP militias. By the stated measures of the operation it worked: the guerrilla presence was broken and 20 kidnapping victims were freed. Hundreds of people were detained in the initial sweep.
The operation remains contested. One detailed report counts 576 arbitrary detentions, six disappearances and 10 confirmed deaths during the initial attacks. Other sources give different figures, and researchers caution that exact totals vary. What is not disputed is what followed: paramilitary forces, notably the Cacique Nutibara bloc, took control of the territory after the military withdrew, and disappearances and killings continued under a different armed actor.
La Escombrera
The most sobering site connected to that period is La Escombrera, a former landfill long alleged to hold the remains of people disappeared during and after the conflict. In 2024 the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and the Search Unit for Missing Persons, working with groups of mothers of the disappeared, began excavations in earnest. After roughly 36,000 cubic metres of soil were removed, the first skeletal remains were confirmed in December 2024.
By late 2025, seven bodies had been found at the site and four had been identified and returned to their families. Work has continued into 2025 and 2026 on further areas, guided in part by testimony from a former paramilitary leader about additional burial sites. In the barrio, the search has its own visual language: murals carry the slogan "Las cuchas tenían razón", the mothers were right. The murals you photograph on a tour memorialise this history in the way the community itself has chosen to mark it, and guides from the neighbourhood are the ones narrating it.
Art, Escalators And Numbers
The hip-hop culture that now defines the tourist corridor has roots in the late 1990s scene. Casa Kolacho, the cultural centre that teaches rap, graffiti, breakdancing and DJing free of charge, formed in tribute to the rapper Héctor "Kolacho" Pacheco, murdered in 2009; sources variously date the collective's activity to 2007, 2009 or a 2013 formal founding. Figures like the graffiti artist Chota, himself a survivor of the conflict years, kept painting through the worst of it and now run galleries on the same streets.
The physical transformation arrived with infrastructure. The escalator complex, six sections replacing hundreds of concrete steps, opened in 2012 at a reported cost of roughly six to seven million dollars. It is free to ride. Then came the visitors: more than one million in 2024 alone, which made Comuna 13 the most visited site in Medellín. That volume brings its own strain, and the city has begun training and certifying guides to manage both the narrative and the crowds.
The fuller account, with sources on the casualty figures and the excavation record, is in our history guide.
Is Comuna 13 Safe To Visit?
The short answer from the evidence: daytime visits on the main tourist circuit are widely described as safe, the neighbourhood is not covered by any do-not-travel warning, and there are no verifiable official statistics on tourist-specific incidents for 2025 or 2026. The longer answer involves what the data does and does not say, and the gap between those two things is where most of the confusion online lives.
- Level 3US State Department advisory for Colombia, March 31, 2026: Reconsider Travel. Medellín sits in Antioquia, outside the Level 4 list.
- 13.13Medellín homicides per 100,000 in 2025, against 12.18 in 2024. Citywide figures, near historic lows.
- 0violent incidents involving tourists reported in recent traveller analyses of organised tours.
What The Advisory Says
The US State Department's advisory for Colombia, dated March 31, 2026, holds at Level 3: Reconsider Travel, citing crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping and natural disasters. That sounds alarming until you read the geography. The Level 4 do-not-travel list covers specific departments: Arauca, Cauca excluding Popayán, Valle del Cauca excluding Cali, and Norte de Santander. Medellín sits in Antioquia and is not among them. The advisory's Medellín-specific mentions concern landslides in mountainous areas, not violence against visitors.
City-level numbers point the same direction. Medellín recorded 13.13 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2025, or 346 total, up about five percent from the 2024 figure of 12.18 per 100,000. Both years sit near historic lows for the city. Those are citywide figures, not neighbourhood ones, and they say nothing about tourists specifically. That limitation matters, and honesty about it matters more than a reassuring headline.
Daytime On The Tourist Circuit
Comuna 13's main tourist corridor, the escalators and the graffiti zones around them, carries a heavy permanent police presence during the day. Guides and local safety analyses describe the circuit as heavily policed and secure for daytime visits. Traveller analyses of organised tours report zero violent incidents involving tourists in recent years, which is the strongest signal available, even if it comes from travel sources rather than police data.
Two caveats keep that picture honest. First, the security described covers the tourist circuit, not the whole comuna. Wandering beyond the main route, into the residential streets above or around the corridor, is not recommended. Second, night is different. Consensus across guides is blunt: avoid Comuna 13 after dark. The police presence and the crowd thins, and the neighbourhood reverts to being what it primarily is, a low-income residential area. We cover the after-dark question in detail at is Comuna 13 safe at night.
What To Watch
Drinks
Scopolamine drugging, known locally and in advisories as a robbery method, is a documented ongoing risk in Medellín generally. Do not accept drinks from strangers, and be wary of trust established quickly through apps or chance meetings.
Petty Theft
Petty, opportunistic crime remains the realistic risk in tourist areas. Standard precautions: phone out of sight when not in use, no flashing of cash.
Route
Stay on the main circuit. This is the most repeated advice from guides who work there.
Daylight
Go in daylight and leave before dark. Book morning departures if the schedule allows.
The city itself is acting rather than reassuring. Medellín's tourism secretary has spoken about training and certifying guides for accurate narratives and safety protocols, with 2026 plans to manage tourist flows in the neighbourhood, and city communications reference a tourism security plan running to 2030. Those are measures aimed at the pressures of a million annual visitors as much as at crime. For the complete picture, including what we verified and what we could not, see our full safety guide.
Free Walking Tour Or Paid Guide?
The free, tip-based walking tour is alive and well in Comuna 13. GuruWalk alone lists multiple Comuna 13 free walking tours running 2.5 hours or more, carrying thousands of reviews between them, with active 2026 schedules. They meet near San Javier, walk the escalators and murals, and run on tips. That means "free" is really "pay what you think it was worth", and the working norm is 20,000 to 30,000 pesos per person, roughly 5 to 10 USD, with some sources citing 25,000 as the standard and 30,000 to 50,000 for a guide who genuinely impressed you.
So the real question is arithmetic and preference, not ideology. A free tour costs you the tip plus your own metro fare, about 4,400 pesos each way. A paid snack tour from $15 to $24 bundles food and often transit. A cable car combo from $22 to $28 adds the gondola. None of these formats is inherently better led than the others; nothing in the review data supports that claim, and we will not make it.
Side By Side
Free tip-based walk
- Realistic Cost
- Tip of 20,000 to 30,000 pesos, roughly 5 to 10 USD, plus your own metro fare
- Transit
- You pay your own metro, about 4,400 pesos per ride
- Food
- None included
- Best For
- Flexible budgeters, solo travellers, people who like deciding a guide's worth afterwards
Paid walk with snacks, $15 to $24
- Realistic Cost
- $15 to $24 per person
- Transit
- You reach San Javier yourself; some include bus legs
- Food
- Empanadas, popsicles, patacón and similar, varying by tour
- Best For
- Food-first visitors, anyone wanting a set price and inclusions guaranteed in writing
Paid cable car combo, $22 to $28
- Realistic Cost
- $22 to $28 per person
- Transit
- Metro, cable car and bus tickets usually included
- Food
- Often an arepa, drink or fruit tasting
- Best For
- First-time visitors, photographers, anyone who wants the approach from above
Who Should Pick The Free Tour
The free tour suits a certain kind of traveller well. If your budget is tight or genuinely fluid, if you are travelling solo and want a group to attach yourself to for an afternoon, or if you simply prefer deciding after the fact what a guide earned, it does the job. The tours meet near San Javier, they run 2.5 hours and up, and they cover the escalators and the murals with a local guide. Budget honestly though: at the standard tip plus two metro fares, your total lands roughly 29,000 to 39,000 pesos, which is not far off the cheapest paid tickets. The difference is that on the free tour you choose the amount. More detail on the operators and schedules is in our free tour guide.
Who Should Pay Up Front
Paying $15 to $24 makes sense when you value certainty over flexibility. The snack tours at that price write their inclusions into the listing: empanadas, a mango popsicle, patacón with hogao, occasionally a full five-stop food crawl. If eating your way through the barrio is part of the point, the paid ticket removes the guesswork and usually costs less than buying the same snacks separately. The cable car combos at $22 to $28 answer a different question. They include metro, cable car and bus tickets, so you ride Line J over the rooftops as part of the itinerary rather than sorting it yourself, and several add an arepa, a drink or a fruit tasting on top. For a first day in Medellín, that transit-led format doubles as an orientation to the city's geography.
One thing worth saying plainly: skipping tours entirely is also possible. The escalators are free, the murals are on public streets, and there is no gate. You give up the narrative, which in this neighbourhood is most of the value, but you keep the view. Our breakdown of that option, including route and safety notes, is at Comuna 13 without a tour.
Getting There By Metro, Line J And The Escalators
The cheapest part of any Comuna 13 day is getting there. Medellín's metro is clean, fast and integrated, which means one ticket, about 4,400 pesos, covers the train and the cable car that hangs over the west of the city. Tours split into two camps on this point: some meet you in the barrio itself, like the Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food at a café in San Javier, while others, such as the Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food, start at Poblado metro station and ride the whole system with you, transit tickets already in the price. Either way, knowing the route yourself costs nothing and saves confusion on the day. Full route notes are in our guide to getting there.
- ALine A northbound from El Poblado station to San Antonio, the transfer point in the centre.
- BLine B westbound to San Javier, the terminal station. Total ride time is about 14 minutes.
- JFrom San Javier, walk uphill 20 to 30 minutes, take bus 221i or 225i, or board the Line J cable car.
The Ride In Three Steps
One integrated fare covers all of it. A single ticket reads about 4,400 pesos; with a Cívica card it drops to about 3,820. The fare includes Line J between San Javier and La Aurora, so the cable car is not an extra charge on top, which surprises people who budget for it separately.
The streets the tours cover, with San Javier station marking the bottom of the hill. Drag or zoom to explore.
By Metro
El Poblado station on Line A northbound to San Antonio, transfer to Line B westbound to San Javier, terminal station. About 14 minutes of ride time. One integrated fare: about 4,400 pesos single ticket, about 3,820 with a Cívica card.
The Line J Cable Car
San Javier to La Aurora, same integrated fare. Standard hours 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Annual maintenance program runs July to October, with a closure July 16 to 22, 2026.
The Escalators
Six sections, 384 metres, free, about 16 hours daily, opened 2012. Section-by-section maintenance from November 2025 into mid-2026, with stairs alongside open throughout.
From San Javier Station
Walk uphill 20 to 30 minutes, take bus 221i or 225i, or ride Line J.
Metro Hours
Monday to Saturday most lines 4:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.; Sundays and holidays most lines 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Hotel Pickup
Only some tours offer it: the private Comuna 13 and Escobar history tour, the private Comuna 13 graffiti tour with Metrocable, the Escobar tour with transport, and the full-day city combo with hotel pickup.
The maintenance calendar deserves a line of its own. Line J closed July 16 to 22, 2026 as part of the annual program across the six metrocable lines, which runs July to October, so a tour billing itself around the cable car ride can occasionally find that leg replaced by a bus. The escalators have their own schedule: works began in November 2025 and stretch into mid-2026, done one section at a time so the corridor never fully closes. Stairs run alongside. Our escalators page covers the detail.
Meeting points matter more than you'd think. The tours that meet inside Comuna 13 gather on Calle 38a or thereabouts in the Veinte de Julio section of San Javier, a short, steep walk or quick bus hop from the metro. The tours that meet at Poblado station put the metro and cable car legs inside the itinerary, which is why their durations run 3 to 4.5 hours while the in-barrio tours clock 2 to 3. Same murals either way; you are choosing whether the commute is your problem or the guide's.
Walking from San Javier is genuinely uphill, on streets that keep climbing, so budget the 20 to 30 minutes honestly and carry water. Coming down is easier. The buses 221i and 225i do the same climb if your legs disagree, and Line J floats over it entirely.
Every meeting point is taken from the tour's live listing and gets confirmed at the moment you book a date.
Combos: Cable Car, Street Food And City Tours
Most people treat Comuna 13 as one morning and then wonder what to do with the afternoon. The tour market has noticed, and the answer comes in layers: cable car routes that fold transit into the itinerary, street food walks that keep you in the barrio, and full-day packages that bolt Comuna 13 onto the rest of Medellín. The trick is matching the package to the time you actually have, not the time you think you have.
Hours On The Clock
Local Guide Walk2-3 h Small-Group Graffitour2-3 h Cable Car & Street Food3-4 h Street Food Tour3 h Graffiti Workshop4 h Tour With Cable Car Ride4.5 h Private Escobar Tour4-5 h Escobar + Comuna 135 h Paisa For A Day7-8 h1
The Half Day: Pick One Lens
Three to four hours is the natural unit here. The Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food runs 3 to 4 hours from Poblado station and includes the metro, the cable car, an arepa, a drink at a viewpoint bar and a street dance show. The Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food is 3 hours with five street-food stops, from empanadas to mango ice cream with salt and lemon. Or the 4-hour history, snack and graffiti workshop tour, where you spray your own piece after walking the murals. Any one of these plus lunch is a complete half day, and stacking two of them back to back mostly means seeing the same alleys twice.
2
The Full Day: Comuna 13 Plus The City
This is where the combos earn their keep. City Tour Medellín + Comuna 13: Paisa for a Day runs 7 to 8 hours, picks you up at your hotel, includes lunch, and covers city landmarks in the morning before the graffiti walk and Metrocable in the afternoon, capped at 20 travellers. That is the honest arithmetic of doing both in one day: it fits, barely, and only because someone else is driving.
The other full-day-shaped option is darker. The Private Comuna 13 & Escobar History Tour takes 4 to 5 hours in a private car with a bilingual guide, hotel pickup included, moving from Escobar-era sites handled without glorification to Comuna 13 as the counterargument, at $113 per person. Or the Pablo Escobar Tour + Comuna 13 with Transport, 5 private hours with pickup and a driver-guide at $119, framing the old Medellín and the new one around a Comuna 13 walk. Pick one of these if the history is the reason you came; pick the Paisa for a Day combo if you want the city's geography instead.
3
Two Days: Add The Things That Deserve Their Own Day
Some experiences should never be squeezed into an afternoon, and the listings prove it by their durations alone. A Guatape day trip to Piedra del Peñol runs 10 to 11 hours with a boat, breakfast and lunch, from $42, rated 5.0 from 7,985 reviews: that is a sunrise-to-sundown commitment. A private coffee farm tour takes 4 to 5 hours, from $96, rated 5.0 from 999 reviews. Paragliding over Medellin runs about 3 hours from $60. A sensible two-day shape is Comuna 13 plus a city or Escobar combo on day one, then Guatape or the coffee farm on day two, with paragliding slotted wherever the weather cooperates.
What does not work: pairing the 7 to 8 hour city combo with anything else on the same day. The flagship tours are short, the combos are not, and the gap between a 3-hour walk and a 7 to 8 hour circuit is exactly the gap between a relaxed itinerary and a forced march.
Latest Data, November 2026
This block gathers the freshest figures the site has pulled, from listing reads to city statistics, so you can see what moved and what did not. Prices below are from-prices per person as the listing reads this month.
The 12 tours compared here now carry 29,343 reviews between them.
The flagship Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food reads 4.8 from 11,277 reviews, up from an earlier 2026 reading of 10,683.
The Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food holds 4.9 from 9,609 reviews.
Comuna 13 True Story and Street Food Tour now reads from $20, an earlier reading was $14, with 2,560 reviews.
Comuna 13 District Tour with Cable Car Ride now reads from $27, earlier $22, at 4.7 from 1,570 reviews.
The history, snack and graffiti workshop tour reads a perfect 5.0 from 505 reviews.
The cheapest tour on the site is now the Street Art by a Local Guide walk at $15.
Medellín's homicide rate was 13.13 per 100,000 in 2025 against 12.18 in 2024, still near historic lows.
A metro single ride is about 4,400 pesos; the peso traded around 3,053 to 3,259 per USD across July and August 2026.
Line J closed July 16 to 22, 2026 for maintenance, part of the annual metrocable program that runs July to October.
Escalator works began in November 2025 and ran into mid-2026, one section at a time, with the stairs alongside open.
Seven bodies had been found at La Escombrera by late 2025, with four identified, and a guide certification programme for Comuna 13 was noted on July 13, 2026.
Over 1 million visitors came to the corridor in 2024, with no newer official figure located.
Read together, the numbers say two things. Ratings are extraordinarily stable, hovering between 4.7 and 5.0 across the board, so reviews will not make the decision for you; the differences are in price, duration, group size and what is included. And prices drift upward at the low end, which argues against waiting: the True Story walk and the District Tour are the two that moved, while the bigger combos held. Book the small tours on price and the combos on fit.
Longer Reads Before You Book
Three longer reads before you commit to a date: the full comparison of all twelve tours, a straight look at safety and advisory wording, and the history that explains why Comuna 13 looks the way it does.
All Twelve Comuna 13 Tours ComparedPrices, group sizes and inclusions for every tour, side by side.
Is Comuna 13 Safe To Visit?Advisory wording, daytime reality and what the tours themselves say.
The History Behind The Street ArtOperation Orion, the escalators and the crews that rebuilt a hillside.
All Medellín guides · All answers
Who Checks These Listings
Andrés Restrepo
Andrés is a Medellín-based tour guide and cultural specialist who has walked international visitors through Comuna 13 since 2015, running professional graffiti and cultural tours since 2020, more than eight hundred travellers along the way. The murals, the routes between them, the escalators and the rhythm of the corridor are his daily patch.
He does not operate any of the tours listed here. What he does is check them: every tour was read on its live booking page, every rating and review count is the platform's own figure at the time it was read, and every price is the current from-price on that listing rather than an estimate.
Meeting points, inclusions, group caps and cancellation terms come from the operators' own pages. The neighborhood facts stand on primary sources: the metro fare from the transit system's own tariff, the advisory from the US State Department's current text, visitor numbers from the city's own reporting. Where two sources disagreed on a figure, the figure is not printed.
Hold A Date, Cancel Free Later
Sundays draw the biggest crowds and mornings stay calmer, and the small-group departures can fill early. Most tours cancel free up to 24 hours out, so holding a slot costs you nothing.
Comuna 13 Tour FAQ
How much does a Comuna 13 graffiti tour cost?
Across the 12 tours compared on this site, from-prices run $15 to $119 per person. The cheapest is the Street Art by a Local Guide walk at $15; food-focused small-group tours cluster at $20 to $28; private tours run $79 to $119; and the full-day city combo with lunch and hotel pickup reads from $51.70. Prices are per person as the live listing reads them, and some from-prices have drifted upward between our last two reads, so treat the figure on the booking page as the authority. See our cost breakdown.
Is it safe to go to Comuna 13 in Medellin?
The daytime tourist circuit, the escalators, the main graffiti alleys and viewpoints, carries a permanent police presence and heavy visitor traffic, and organized tours there have had no reported violent tourist incidents in recent years in traveller analyses. Petty, opportunistic crime remains a general risk anywhere in Medellín. No verifiable official statistics isolate tourist incidents in Comuna 13 for 2025-2026. The city's own messaging promotes the area as transformed, and a 2026 tourism security plan was referenced in city communications. The consensus across guides: fine by day on the main circuit, not a place to wander off it. More in our safety guide.
What is the best Comuna 13 tour?
There is no single best, because the tours do different jobs. By review volume, the Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food leads with 11,277 reviews at 4.8, and it includes transit tickets, an arepa and a viewpoint bar stop. For food, the Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour with Street Food holds 4.9 from 9,609 reviews with five eating stops. For intimacy, the graffiti workshop tour reads 5.0 from 505 reviews and caps the experience with hands-on spraying. Compare them all in our best-tours guide.
Is there a free tour of Comuna 13?
Yes. Free, pay-what-you-like walking tours of Comuna 13 run actively on dedicated free-tour platforms, typically 2.5 hours or more, covering graffiti and history with local guides, and they carry thousands of reviews with ongoing 2026 schedules. The model is not literally free: the expected tip runs 20,000 to 30,000 pesos per person, roughly $5 to $10 at recent rates, with some sources citing up to 30,000 to 50,000 pesos for a strong experience. We cover how the free options compare with paid tours in our free tours guide.
Can you visit Comuna 13 on your own?
Yes. There is no entry fee, no ticket and no tourist tax for the neighbourhood; the escalators are free public infrastructure and the murals line public streets. The metro from El Poblado to San Javier takes about 14 minutes on one integrated fare of about 4,400 pesos, then it is a 20 to 30 minute uphill walk, a bus, or the Line J cable car. What a tour adds is context: the history behind the murals, which almost no signage explains, plus access to shows, galleries and viewpoints. Our without-a-tour guide walks through it.
Do the tours include the cable car?
Some do, some do not. The cable car category, including the Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food and the District Tour with Cable Car Ride, builds the metro and Line J legs into the itinerary with tickets included. The tours that meet inside Comuna 13, such as the street food walks, generally do not include a cable car ride because you are already in the barrio. Note the maintenance window: the six metrocable lines run an annual program July to October, and Line J closed July 16 to 22, 2026. Details in our cable car tours page.
How long does a Comuna 13 tour take?
Durations range from 2 to 3 hours for the small in-barrio walks up to 7 to 8 hours for the full-day city combo with lunch. The typical street food and graffiti tours run about 3 hours. Tours that include the metro and cable car legs from El Poblado run 3 to 4.5 hours, because roughly half the time is transit built into the itinerary. Private options run 3 to 5 hours. If you book the flagship or the district tour, plan for the longer end and treat the commute as part of the experience rather than dead time.
What does Comuna 13 mean?
Comuna 13 is an administrative designation: Medellín is divided into numbered comunas, and this is the thirteenth, centred on the San Javier district on the city's western hillside. It is home to around 160,000 people. The number carries no inherent meaning beyond the map, but decades of conflict, starting with the guerrilla militias of the 1990s and early 2000s, and then the transformation brought by the escalators and graffiti, have made "the 13" shorthand for both the darkest and most cited comeback chapter in the city's recent history. We unpack the name and its weight in this article.
When is the best time to visit Comuna 13?
Mornings are the standard advice: fewer crowds and milder conditions before the midday heat. Sundays are the busiest day of the week, and overcrowding is widely reported, with over 1 million visitors to the tourist corridor in 2024 and capacity issues noted since. Weather-wise, Medellín is spring-like year-round at roughly 19 to 22°C, with wetter stretches around April-May and October-November and drier runs from December to March and June to September. Some workshop tours offer multiple departures designed to dodge peak tourist crowds. Our best-time guide has the detail.
Is Comuna 13 safe at night?
The consensus across guides and safety sources is to avoid Comuna 13 after dark. The daytime tourist zones are described as safe, with police presence and crowds, but nighttime coverage and neighbourhood security are not described in the same terms, and it remains a low-income residential area with a different risk profile outside the main circuit. Tourist neighbourhoods like El Poblado and Laureles stay active and policed into the evening; the Comuna 13 corridor does not. If you want the murals in golden light, book a late-afternoon departure that finishes before dusk rather than wandering after. We expand on this in the night safety piece.
How do I get to Comuna 13 from El Poblado?
Take Line A northbound from El Poblado station to San Antonio, transfer to Line B westbound, and ride to San Javier, the terminal station. About 14 minutes of travel on one integrated fare of roughly 4,400 pesos, or about 3,820 with a Cívica card. From San Javier it is a 20 to 30 minute uphill walk, bus 221i or 225i, or the Line J cable car at no extra charge. Alternatively, book a tour with hotel pickup, which four of the twelve compared tours offer. Full routes in our getting-there guide.
Do the Comuna 13 escalators cost money?
No. The escalators are free public infrastructure, six sections covering 384 metres up the hillside in the Independencias barrios, opened in 2012, and running about 16 hours daily. There is no entry fee or tourist tax for Comuna 13 generally; the only transport cost is the metro fare, about 4,400 pesos a ride, if you are not on a tour that includes tickets. Maintenance works began in November 2025 and run into mid-2026, done one section at a time with stairs alongside kept open. See our escalators page.
Is there a tour with hotel pickup?
Yes, four of the twelve compared tours include it. The full-day Paisa for a Day city combo picks up at hotels and includes lunch over 7 to 8 hours. The private Comuna 13 and Escobar history tour picks up in Medellín and Laureles for a 4 to 5 hour private car itinerary at $113. The Pablo Escobar Tour + Comuna 13 with Transport runs 5 private hours at $119. And the $79 private graffiti tour with Metrocable picks up in central Medellín and is wheelchair and stroller accessible. Every other tour meets at a metro station or inside Comuna 13.
What happened in Comuna 13 in 2002?
Operation Orion, launched October 16, 2002 under President Álvaro Uribe, was a major urban military offensive into Comuna 13. Over 1,000 soldiers and police, one account counts roughly 1,500 total forces, backed by helicopters, tanks and automatic weapons, targeted ELN, FARC and CAP guerrilla militias. The operation expelled the guerrillas and freed 20 kidnapping victims, but it is deeply controversial: a detailed report cites 576 arbitrary detentions, 6 disappearances and 10 confirmed deaths during the initial attacks, and paramilitary control followed, bringing further disappearances. Excavations at the La Escombrera site have since recovered bodies, with seven found and four identified by late 2025. The full timeline is in our history guide.