Check out our tour details and click on the book now button below to join us!
Discover Chapinero, the district where Bogotá’s past, present, and future collide in one vibrant urban story!
Walk beyond the colonial postcard and experience the Bogotá that thinks, debates, creates and transforms every day. If you want to understand how the city truly lives today, this is the walk you don’t want to miss!
Tour Description
Bogotá is often explained through its colonial past: La Candelaria, centuries-old churches, the plazas where the republic was born, and walls that seem to have seen it all. That story is necessary, but incomplete. Because Bogotá is not only a city that remembers; it is also a city that changes, debates, contradicts itself, and reinvents itself every day. And one of the places where this process is lived most intensely is Chapinero.
Our Free Walking Tour through the Chapinero District invites you to discover contemporary Bogotá, a city not frozen in time, but in constant transformation. Throughout the walk, we will explore how this neighborhood evolved from an elegant suburb of Bogotá’s elite into one of the city’s most diverse, creative, and expressive areas. Chapinero is the stage where the past does not disappear, but instead engages with the present and challenges the future.
As we walk, we’ll pass through streets where 20th-century mansions coexist with modern towers, where neo-Gothic temples like the “Cathedral of Lourdes” stand just steps away from universities, independent cafés, and cultural spaces. We’ll talk about social class, urban development, and economy, understanding why Chapinero has always been a meeting point and sometimes a place of tension between different worlds: the upper class, the creative and academic middle class, and the working class that sustains everyday life in the neighborhood.
The tour also explores Chapinero’s social and political role as a cradle of critical thinking, student movements, and civil rights struggles. We’ll analyze why this area became a key space for debate, protest, and the construction of citizenship in Bogotá.
In addition, we’ll address Chapinero’s history as an epicenter of diversity and inclusion, especially in relation to the LGBTQ+ community, understanding how the neighborhood moved from secrecy and discrimination to visibility, activism, and celebration. Diversity here is not a slogan, it’s a daily reality, expressed through street art, nightlife, culture, and the very way public space is lived.
Finally, we’ll explore the rise of Chapinero as a gastronomic and creative hub, visiting Zona G and cultural ventures that became economic engines and symbols of urban contrast and transformation.
This is not a monument-focused tour; it’s an experience designed to see, listen to, and understand how a living city is built with its contradictions, tensions, and imperfect beauty. Chapinero cannot be explained through dates alone; it is understood by listening to its stories, observing its layers, and walking its streets.
Dare to discover the Bogotá that doesn’t always appear in history books, but is fully alive in everyday life. Welcome to Chapinero!
Finish Point
At Wilborada book shop
Schedule: From Monday to Saturday at 15:00
Duration: 3 hours
Language: English & Spanish
Cost: based on tips
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Chapinero as Bogotá’s Creative Capital. How artists, designers, students, and entrepreneurs turned Chapinero into the city’s most dynamic cultural laboratory.
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Beyond La Candelaria: The Bogotá of Today. Experience the modern side of Bogotá, vibrant, diverse, and constantly evolving far from the colonial postcard.
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Zona G & the Rise of Colombian Fine Dining. Walk through Bogotá’s gourmet district and learn how award-winning chefs transformed old residential streets into a culinary hotspot.
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From Elite Mansions to Modern Towers. Chapinero’s history through its architecture: English-style houses, republican homes and contemporary buildings sharing the same blocks.
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Hidden Cultural Spaces & Independent Projects. Explore alternative cafés, art spaces, and local initiatives that reveal the neighborhood’s creative underground.
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Street Art, Design & Urban Expression. Understand how murals, typography, and public art reflect identity, resistance and social change in contemporary Bogotá.
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Nightlife, Freedom & Self-Expression. Learn why Chapinero became the heart of Bogotá’s nightlife, diversity, and open-minded culture.
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Local Stories You Won’t Find in Guidebooks. Hear real stories about people, places and transformations that shaped Chapinero from the inside out.
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A Living Neighborhood, Not a Museum. Walk through streets where history is still being written — where Bogotá’s present and future are built day by day.
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And so much more!
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An open mind to comprehend all our history and be prepared to ask as many questions you have about the difficult topics we will talk about
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Umbrellas or capes. Please bring your favorite rainproof coat
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Water or your preferred form of hydration. This is a walking tour, and you may feel thirsty.
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Comfortable shoes and sunblock. You’ll walk about 5 km while also making some stops to listen to the guide.
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Mosquito repellent could be useful for the rainy season (March to June).
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Comfortable clothes. No pressure to look amazing, feel free to wear what makes you feel better.
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Keep your friends close, and your belongings even closer. We’ll visit some crowded areas, so don’t give papaya!
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English-speaking tour guide
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Accurate and objective knowledge of Medellín and Colombian history. We promise not to take sides.
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Sightseeing of important places in the center of Medellín, framed in the history of the conflict and reconciliation.
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Recommendations of material you can check out to keep yourself informed.
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Recommendations of Medellín´s cultural offer, which is centered on the different places we are going to visit.
Benefits and discounts with our recommended partners if you show our Free Walking Tour Map in our Linktree: https://linktr.ee/bcbogota
Private Tour
If you are a group of more than 4 people or if you want to take a private experience of this tour, let us guide you through the history of the capital with an exclusive tour guide. Click the following button and request your personalized tour.
Once you send your request, please check your email for our confirmation and further instructions to enjoy your vacations to the fullest!
Do you want to live other experiences in Bogotá or its surroundings?
Take a look at the other experiences you can have during your stay in the city. Make the most of your time with our Full Day or Half Day Tours, Nature and Landscapes, History and Culture or Nightlife and Party!
Free Chapinero District Tour: culture, identity & contrasts
Monday - Saturday at 15:00
Based on tips
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