Certain prescriptions are simply unavailable or very difficult to get here. Any sort of Amazon reading device or stuff related to that kind of thing are mostly not sold here, and small electronics in general tend to cost much more. Lots of fishing hardware some North American anglers often use to is scarce or expensive or unobtainable, especially lures and steel-braided line and the like. There's probably more. That was just stream-of-consciouness.

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I always bring a good interchangeable lens camera, as well as a small point and shoot. And because I'm a SWL I always bring a good, small shortwave receiver. I bring a laptop computer. I bring gifts to the family depending on what they need or have asked for. I bring usually two cards that work in the ATMs.

Other than that, everything I really need is pretty much available in Colombia. No need to bring extra clothes, buy them there. Travel light, it really pays off in many ways.

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I agree with the other guys: bring tech. Cameras of any quality are just about unobtainable here, and when you do see one it's obscenely priced. Computers and phones are available but are generally inferior and overpriced. I would personally bring two phones, but I realize that's a bit over the top for most people. Make sure they work on the band of your Colombian provider either way.

For non-tech items, I find almost all vitamins and supplements cost more here, or are unavailable. If you're on any prescriptions, don't assume they'll be available here. I use a common hypertension med called Diltiazem and it's simply not available here. I have to buy huge amounts when I'm back home and explain to the border guys at the airport that it's nothing bad.

One more thing: if you're even slightly overweight, you will have trouble buying clothes here. I'm definitely not very fat by Canadian standards but I always have to buy the biggest size available in Colombia. They're just smaller than we are.

Other things depend on if you're fussy or not. Back home in Canada, there will be 30 different types of shaving cream at the drug store to choose from. Here there are maybe 3 if you're lucky, or you might just have to say "crema de afeitar" to the guy behind the counter at the drogueria and take whatever he hands you. I don't sweat that stuff but some do.

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Myself, I agree with the 2 cell phone thing. I like my good smart phone with an international plan. Also a cheaper one to use for local calls with prepaid minutes and sim card bought in Colombia.
Also, if you are fussy about hair care products, bring your own.

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regnatarajan and all,

Good suggestions on the phones and technology. After using them while there, they might be appreciated as gifts when I leave to come back.

And yes to buying clothing there, if it's reasonably priced. It would help me look more local right away. At 6'0 and 150 pounds/68kilo, hopefully there are things that fit.

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Choosing an expat health insurance provider is an important decision. Get a quote from our trusted expat health insurance partner, CIGNA. With Cigna Global Health Options, you can create an international health insurance plan that's perfectly tailored for the needs of you and your family.

IT1, if you do buy phones, keep in mind the biggest providers here are Claro, Movistar and Tigo, and they all use GSM 850/1900. For Internet, Claro uses LTE band 7 and Movistar uses LTE band 4. Tigo uses both. If your phones work with those bands, you should be fine. I find this site useful for double checking.

willmyphonework.net

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If you bring cellphone that you plan to add a SIM in Colombia, keep in mind you also need to bring a receipt to prove it was purchased instead of stolen. In Migracion in Bogotá for international arrivals there are screens that now display a message if you bring a cellphone you need a receipt to activate/register it for use in Colombia.

Not true that cameras of any quality are just about unobtainable here. I bought a couple higher end cameras on sale in Monterrey mall in Medellín for prices not much higher than on Amazon. Also not true about computers inferior and overpriced. Computers up to a certain price are exempt from taxes in Colombia so you can find some for similar prices to the U.S.. For example, I bought an Apple MacBook Pro for only about $50 more than the price listed on Apple's website for the same model. I also bought an Apple iMac on sale at Falabella that was about $50 less than the price listed on Apple's website for the exact same model.

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Interesting, livinginmedellin. My experience has been different from yours on almost every point. I'm not suggesting you're wrong, but I can say unequivocally that my experience has been different.

First, I've been through international arrivals at El Dorado a hundred times or more and have never been asked for a receipt for the cell phones I've carried. If you meant that you'll need a receipt when you buy the SIM, same story -- I've bought SIMs recently with no such requirement. Now, I have gotten texts saying I need to register my name/cedula, but still no receipt needed. Can't hurt to bring a receipt, however, in case you get asked somewhere.

Regarding cameras, you may have stumbled on a deal. Here's the KTronix page on good cameras. These are all available for far less in the US. Also note the crappy selection. Just a handful of cameras available on that page. Even at Mercado Libre, the prices are obscene, often double or more what I pay in the US/Canada.

I can't speak for Apple products as I don't use them, but certainly Android and Windows products appear to have similar price differentials in my experience.

Again, I'm not suggesting you're wrong, but I can say unequivocally that my experience has been different.

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They won't ask for a receipt for a cellphone at Migracion at the airport. But the last two times I went through Migraction in Bogotá I saw a message on monitors about needing a receipt for cellphones to activate/register them in Colombia. I bought a used cellphone from a store last year and to activate/register in a Claro store in Medellín they wouldn't do it without a receipt. I also talked to two expats recently that tried to activate their US phones and they couldn't without a receipt. But the experience may vary from store to store.

Regarding cameras there is a store in Monterrey mall in Medellín that specializes in cameras and they have high end cameras of several brands. I bought a couple on sale there that were near the price on Amazon.

Regarding computers Falabella has sales often of several computer brands like Apple, HP, Lenovo and Asus. If you look on their website they currently have several on sale for 25% or more off.

If you know where to shop look for sales you can find prices similar to the US.

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I have never seen a tech shop in Colombia willing to unlock a foreign phone and insert a sim card.

Maybe in a big place like Ecc Monterrey in Medellin,

Whats your experience?

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ha ha..one thing I always buy in Canada butway more here are contact lenses.

And anything to do with mountain sports like what you buy at MEC or REI. They have North Face here. but that is just over priced, poor quality crap, with no guarantee -for posers.

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LIM- they wont ask for nothing if you keep your trap shut. I have come through at least a hundred times and DIAN has never bothered me

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A local guy at a blackjack table put his sleek i-phone next to my betting-space last night. This was at San Remo casino on the Golden Mile in Medellín.

The guy was on a losing streak .. and he was offering to sell me his phone for 100,000 pesos ($33 US) of my casino chips.

He claimed it would be a loan --
implying he would buy the phone back when his luck turned for the better using my chips.

He said he'd give me his cell phone number.

I said "no gracias" but he kept trying to close the sale.

The pit boss was watching, but didn't seem to care. It would probably mean more income for the house if the guy stayed in action a bit longer.

A few minutes later, the guy tapped out and left the gaming pit.

cccmedia in Medellín

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@elexpatriado said "I have never seen a tech shop in Colombia willing to unlock a foreign phone and insert a sim card."

There are many such shops that will unlock phones in Monterrey in Medellín or in Centro Comercial Opera in El Centro in Medellín.

@elexpatriado said "LIM- they wont ask for nothing if you keep your trap shut. I have come through at least a hundred times and DIAN has never bothered me"

I said nothing about DIAN at the airport bothering you. All I said it there are messages on the monitors in Migracion in Bogotá I have seen recently that say a receipt is required to activate/register a cellphone in Colombia. And my experience in activating a used phone late last year in a Claro store they required a store receipt to show I bought the phone. The agent said it was a new requirement.

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Which is probably a good reason not to buy a phone paying with casino chips at the San Remo blackjack table.

cccmedia

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I see on Movistar's site, a phone as low as $143000 COP which is less than $50 USD, and others for not too much more - why not just buy one there if you need it only for basic communications (revealing my age, a phone is just a phone for me...).

http://www.movistar.co/tienda/Open-Catalog/Equipos/Celulares/c/celulares?q=%3Aranking%3Abandas%3A4G&text=#

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I realize my posts here are often long and I hesitate to do it again but there is a lot of misinformation floating around here. This is my real world experience:

Walked into the Movistar store at the local mall two weeks ago. This is a big mall with a hundred or so stores, and the Movistar store would look at home in any US/Canada mall. Top notch place, not a shady tienda bucking the rules. PCG stands for "Pretty Colombian girl".

Me: Buenas tardes. Quiero un SIM por favor.
PCG: Prepago o postpago?
Me: Prepago.
PCG: Tres mil.
Me: (hands over the dollar, takes the SIM) Gracias.
PCG: A la orden. Dos horas por activacion.

Total time elapsed: 1 minute.

Two hours later, the SIM is active. I can tell because the phone stops saying "Invalid SIM" and starts saying "Movistar". The phone also says "no service" however. I prepay some money on my new phone number using Mobile Recharge or some other service. The money shows up almost immediately in my Movistar prepaid account. I then dial #611* and choose 2 for Navigar, pick one of their prepaid plans (1 day, 2 days, 1 week, 1 month) and within 2 minutes the phone says 4G LTE and I'm live, talking and surfing the web. That's it. That's all.

Total time elapsed: 2 hours and 5 minutes.

At no point have I even told Movistar what phone I'm using, nor has anyone asked me. Nor can I imagine anyone at Movistar or elsewhere on the planet cares. At no point have I shown anyone a receipt for my phone. At no point have I "activated my phone", whatever that means. At no point have I handed anyone my phone to insert my new SIM card. Why in the world would anyone do that? Any 12 year old can change a SIM. Use a safety pin if you threw out the little tool that came with your phone. Yes, you need to make sure your phone is unlocked before doing this, but that's easy enough. Buy an unlocked phone to start with and you don't even have that step to worry about.

IMPORTANT: After a short while, you will start getting texts from Movistar telling you that you have to register who is using the phone due to new big brother regulations. If you have a cedula and are sane, just do it and your phone will work forever as long as you keep paying the bill. If you don't have a cedula or are one of those paranoid weirdos who won't give out any info, you can ignore these messages for about a month and then they'll cut you off, at which point you'll need to repeat the process above. Obviously only prepay a small amount at a time and be prepared to change numbers frequently if you're in this group.

This whole thing is way easier than some of you are making it out to be.

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must be a smart phone because you can get simple cellphones for 40 or 50 mil COP.

Just get a simple phone unless you want Whatsapp or datos

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The phone , if it was from outside of Colomba must have been "unlocked". If it is unlocked , yes very soimple process,

All the phones in Canada (well lat least Alberta, Telus, Rogers, Wind, etc)) are locked and they are an issue to "unlock" (part of their ogilarchy ripoff)

But as LIM said, and as I suspected you can get it unlocked at plaes like cc Monterrey.

I never had to go trough the process myself, becaus I bought all my cellphones in Colombia whe the peso was higher.

I did go through the reverse process a few time though, which was very easy, because all the Colombian phones are unlocked.

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https://www.cnet.com/news/confused-about-locked-vs-unlocked-phones-ask-maggie-explains/

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So if your phone is unlocked, no problem, if it is locked. a little more problem but manageable. If you really want to be sure, ask about the certificate at the airport, and if you really , really wanna be hassl free, by a cellphne in Colombia

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I bought my iPhone 6 from an Apple store unlocked. I went to Telus and asked for a sim, told them i wanted this new phone active on their network instead of my iphone5 and in 2 minutes I was good to go. So not all phones sold in Canada are sold locked. It is true that phones sold by the network supplier (Bell, Telus, Rogers etc) are locked into their network. That's how they sell them as "loss leaders". The simple answer would be to purchase the phone directly from someone other than the network. When I gave the old iphone5 to the wife, she took it to Claro, asked for a sim, paid the 5000 COP (or so), and it was active on Claro in 10 minutes. They didnt ask for a receipt. I expect that I won't have an issue with the 6 either.


Just an FYI.....

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Telus will unlock your phone for $50 and private companies on the net will do it for less. It is not an issue, just a minor cash grab.

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Sorry to temporarily hijack this thread but is anyone else getting duplicate emails? It has been consistently like this for a week or so.

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I am as well, I thought maybe it was just me. Very time consuming.

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Yes, I'm starting to pay attention to the posting time and just delete the duplicates that way and then read the remainder.

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I have been getting duplicates for a week and it's driving me crazy.

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