Arví Park: prices and recommendations for your visit [2025]

The Arví Park is an ecological reserve of 6.3 square kilometers, located in the Santa Elena district, the largest rural area in the city of Medellín. This park offers you the possibility of hiking, camping, outdoor sports, and to get to know wonderful forests with a great diversity of fauna, flora and streams.

After visiting the park several times, alone, as a couple, as a family and with my dog, I show you in this guide everything you need to know to get the most out of your visit to the park.

What to do in Arví Park?

1. Camping

The Park has special areas for you to bring your tent so you can spend a whole day or night in the place, free of charge. If you don’t have your own tent, the park offers overnight camping plans at an additional cost. See below, in the prices section.

If you decide to go camping, it is important that you dress warmly, prepare yourself against the rain and cold, since the area where it is located can reach temperatures below 10 degrees and it is usually quite humid.

If you are sensitive to cold and you are going camping, my recommendation is to bring warm socks and gloves for the night, a plastic or sack that can isolate your tent from the ground and indispensable items such as blankets and plastic to cover your tent in case of rain.

Additionally, I recommend that you stay away from streams, as they generate more cold at night and can also become dangerous creeks when it rains heavily.

Although the practice of camping is quite common in the Arví Park, I advise you to place yourself in more crowded places, together with other people who are doing the same, because I have heard stories of friends and acquaintances who were robbed because they were in more isolated places. 😉

2. Doing outdoor sports

Inside the Arví Park there is a recreation center called “Parque Comfama Arví” where you can do extreme sports. Climb among the trees to do canopy, climb walls, ride on swings on the mountain and walk its trails. A great plan if in addition to nature you also like adventure.

The entrance fee is $27,900 Colombian pesos for adults and $16,700 Colombian pesos for children. For foreigners the rates are $48,000 for adults (11.66 usd) and $24,000 for children (5.83 usd). If you want more information about Comfama Park, you can visit the official website.

3. Hiking and bird watching

If admiring nature is your thing, this place is perfect. The park is full of small trails, with beautiful pine trees and grounds that look like natural mats made of soft grass. The trails can be done by bicycle or walking and you can count on the accompaniment of biology experts who will guide your tour.

4. Bathing in streams

Some people enjoy bathing in the waters of the small streams bordering the park. This activity is allowed, as long as you do not pollute the water or its surroundings. However, keep in mind that despite Medellín’s warm climate, the Arví Park is a much colder area and water temperatures are quite low.

In fact, the last time I tried to go in the water, I could only get my feet in for a few seconds.

5. Buy local products

If you like local handicrafts, desserts and clothing, you will find a wide range of local merchants who come to the vicinity of the park to offer products to tourists. There you will find from typical sweets of the region, to hand-woven bags and accessories made by artisans from different regions of Colombia.

My favorite sweets are the wafers with arequipe, solteritas and brevas with arequipe. Another very characteristic delicacy of the area is the dulce estirado, a delicacy based on flour and panela that is prepared literally by stretching the base hundreds of times.

6. Picnic

Among the tourist services of the Park is the preparation of a Picnic where you have access to a perfect environment to eat with your partner or friends. There you can listen to live music and share a meal among three options: sandwich, hamburger or typical food.

7. Eating typical food

One of the most special plans you can make is to visit some of the typical kitchens and restaurants located in the vicinity of the park. There you can eat, at a very good price, lunches and meals cooked on wood stoves. Order a casserole, a paisa platter or a cold meat.

Can food be brought into the Arví Park?

You can bring your own food to Arví Park. During your visit you will see dozens of families taking advantage of some of the open areas to bring their own picnic, and there are even areas with tables where you can set up your food.

Remember that Arví Park is a nature reserve that is completely open to the public. Then you won’t find anything like an “entrance” with guards checking your packages. Bring whatever food you want, but take care of the place and, when you finish, leave it clean.

How to get to Arví Park?

There are three ways to get to Arví Park. Using the city’s Metro system, through a public transportation bus or through private transportation (such as Taxi, mobility Apps or special transportation). The best way will depend on the type of plan you want to make, the number of people and the schedule of your trip.

In Metro-Cable

Price

• Metro ticket: $3,430 pesos (frequent travelers) and $3,900 for occasional travelers.
• Metro cable ticket line J: $13,700 pesos ($3 dollars)

The Metrocable is a means of transportation with aerial cabins that connects the mountains of Medellín with the train lines of the Metro system. Medellín currently has 6 Metrocable lines and one of them takes you directly from the city to Arví Park.

The easiest way to get to Arví Park is undoubtedly by taking line A of the Medellín subway. If you are in the downtown area of the city or in the southern area (where the famous El Poblado neighborhood is located) you should take the Metro northbound and get off the train at the Acevedo station.

Without leaving the station, you can transfer directly to the Metrocable “K” line. This line has 3 stations. At the third station, called “Santo Domingo”, you must make a second transfer to the Metrocable line that will take you directly to the Arví Park.

The trip from Acevedo Metro station to Parque Arví Metrocable station can take approximately 30 minutes. It is a very quiet tour so take the opportunity to take out your smartphone, take pictures of the panoramic view of the city or take a book to read along the way.

This is the fastest, easiest, ecological and environmentally friendly way to get to Arví Park, taking into account that you only have to pay two Metro tickets. The first one to enter the stations is $3,430 Colombian pesos for frequent travelers and $3,900 for occasional carriers. And the second one to transfer to the cable metro line that will take you directly to the park ($13,700 Colombian pesos – about $3 dollars).

Please note that this may not be the best option if you plan to return to Medellín after 6:00 p.m., when the Arví Park cable line stops working.

By Bus

Price: In 2023 the fare was $4,350 Colombian pesos. Now it should be around $5,000 pesos.

The second way to get to Arví Park is by public transportation bus. This option is especially useful if you are not in a hurry and want to save as much as possible on your transfers. To take the bus to Arví Park you must go to the Placita de Flóres, which is located in the center of the city.

There you must take the bus to the village of “El Tambo” in Santa Elena. Please note that this bus departs every 30 minutes and can take up to 90 minutes.

No doubt this is a very good option if you are on a budget and feel comfortable moving around the city. Otherwise, it is an option that I do not recommend, since the area where you must take the bus is a bit chaotic and where foreigners who are not very skilled at communicating could get lost and be left in an uncomfortable situation.

By private transportation

Price: Between $60,000 ($15 dollars) / $100,000 ($25 dollars)

If you prefer to go by a more comfortable and exclusive means of transportation, you can take a cab or a vehicle through mobility apps such as Cabify, Didi or Uber. In this type of vehicle up to 4 people can travel together and you will be able to arrive in approximately 60 minutes.

Although this is a very comfortable and economical option for groups, you should keep in mind that once you are in the Arví Park it will not be easy to find cabs, much less order vehicles through apps. Therefore, it is advisable that if you wish to return by the same means, you agree with your driver on a pick-up time and secure your return transportation.

Arví Park and pets

If, like me, you have a puppy or any other kind of pet and you want to take it with you to Arví Park, there is no problem at all. The park does not have any type of restriction to enter with them. However, you must keep in mind that the transportation of pets in Metro and Metro Cable is restricted and you can only transport them if your pet travels in a cage or crate.

As a dog owner who loves to hike, this is for me one of the best things to do in the Park. But this does not mean that you should not be careful.

My first piece of advice is that if your pet is very restless and you cannot control it, always take it by your hand to prevent it from getting lost, since the park is not only very large, but also has very leafy areas that are difficult to access for humans, which would make any search difficult.

On the other hand, it is also important that you take care of your pet when you are walking in the streets of the park. Although they appear to be very quiet streets, every now and then buses pass by at high speed.

Arví Park Prices

Entrance to the Arví Park is free of charge, since it is a free and open nature reserve. However, some of the activities you can do in the park have different fees.

If you want to take a guided tour to enjoy nature, tradition and culture, the park offers guided and self-guided tours that have a value per person of:

– $30,000 for foreign visitors.

– $20,000 for domestic visitors.

– 10,000 for visitors who are beneficiaries of Sisbén IV of the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley. (Does not apply for purchases on the website, you must purchase it directly at the box office).

–Children under 5 years of age are free of charge.

There are also other special tours that we leave you below:

Activity	For Nationals	For Foreigners
Hiking	From $73,000 to $211,000 pesos per person depending on the number of people taking the tour.	From $97,000 to $281,000 per person depending on the number of people taking the tour.
Picnic	From $108,000 per person	From $108,000 per person
Bird watching	From $79,000 to $217,000 pesos per person depending on the number of people taking the tour.	From $105,000 pesos to $289,000 pesos per person depending on the number of people taking the tour.
Comfama Arví Park	27,900 Colombian pesos for adults and $16,700 Colombian pesos for children.	For foreigners the rates are $48,000 for adults (11.66 usd) and $24,000 for children (5.83 usd).
Arví Nocturne	From $177,000 (without transportation) and $192,000 (with transportation back to Medellín).	From $241,000 per person (without transportation) and $256,000 (with transportation back to Medellín).