DAY 1

Mon, Jan 18

Bienvenidos a Medellín — Your Welcome Begins at the Table

Your private transfer from José María Córdova Airport (MDE) delivers you to your 4-star hotel in the heart of the city — 70 degrees, green mountains encircling the valley, and a city that transformed itself from cautionary tale to global model of urban reinvention now consistently ranked among the most livable in Latin America.

That evening, MOOD Travel Abroad brings the group together for a Welcome Dinner at one of Medellín’s premier Afro-Colombian restaurants — and the first thing placed in your hands is a glass of Viche. A traditional Afro-Colombian medicinal elixir passed down through generations along the Pacific coast, Viche is the story of a culture that survived everything and built something extraordinary on the other side. RJ MOOD tells you what is in your glass. The evening tells you what kind of city you are in.

Medellín is not just good weather and a low cost of living. It is a culture worth becoming part of. Tonight is your first taste of it.

DAY 2

Tue, Jan 19

Relocation Seminar & Local Market Tour — Knowledge Is the Foundation of a Confident Move

The most common reason people delay a move abroad is unanswered questions. Today, we answer yours.

The morning opens with a half-day Relocation Expert Seminar — private, structured, and built around what you actually need to know. Your immigration lawyer covers the Digital Nomad Visa requirements and income thresholds, the Renta pathway for retirees, and the residency process from application to cédula extranjera. Your healthcare expert breaks down private coverage costs, specialist visit pricing, and which Medellín hospitals have English-speaking staff. Your real estate professional walks you through current rental pricing across every neighborhood you will visit this week. And parents already raising children here answer the questions no attorney can — what schools are like, how kids adapt, and what they would do differently.

After lunch together, your Local Market Tour takes you through one of Medellín’s thriving mercados as a practical education in daily life — not a tourist stop, but a real look at what weekly groceries cost when fresh is the default and processed is the exception.

By the end of today, the question “can I afford to live here” will have become “why did I wait this long to find out I can.”

DAY 3

Wed, Jan 20

Envigado Neighborhood & Apartment Tour — Where Expat Families and Remote Workers Put Down Roots

Envigado is where Medellín stops being a destination and starts being a home.

Consistently ranked among the safest and most livable communities in Colombia, this neighborhood just south of the city is where expat families enroll their children in bilingual schools and remote workers sign twelve-month leases and stop moving. Your local neighborhood guide walks you through the specific details of daily life: the gym that fills by 7am, the coworking space with private offices and fast fiber, the park where kids play until dark, the Carulla supermarket where the produce alone will make you rethink your grocery routine.

Then the apartment viewings begin — and this is the moment most participants describe as when the move became real. A fully furnished two-bedroom at $700/month with a building gym and rooftop terrace. A larger unit at $1,100 with Andes views. Real spaces, real prices, real market context from your real estate specialist standing next to you.

Lunch is included. The conversation over that lunch — about what you just saw and what it means for your timeline — tends to be the most valuable part of the day.

DAY 4

Thu, Jan 21

Laureles Neighborhood & Apartment Tour — The Heartbeat of Medellín Expat Life + Community Evening

Ask long-term Medellín expats where they would live if they could live anywhere in the city, and most of them say Laureles.

Wide tree-lined circular avenues. Parque Lineal La Presidenta, where the morning running community gathers before sunrise. Neighborhood cafés that serve locals first and visitors incidentally — which means the quality is genuine and the prices are honest. A walkable, human-scaled neighborhood with a grocery ecosystem, active coworking community, and an expat presence large enough to be supportive and small enough to actually know each other.

Your local guide walks you through it the way a neighbor would — pointing out what matters, skipping what doesn’t. Apartment viewings follow: a one-bedroom at $650/month, a two-bedroom with terrace at $900, a penthouse with valley views at $1,400. Your real estate specialist is alongside you for every door that opens.

Lunch is included. In the evening, a live Expat Community Event hosted by one of Medellín’s most established community leaders gives you what no seminar can — the honest, unfiltered conversations about what it actually takes to build a life here. The people in that room are already living it. Listen to them.

DAY 5

Fri, Jan 22

El Poblado Neighborhood & Apartment Tour — Medellín’s Most International Address + A Night That Feels Like Your Future

El Poblado is the neighborhood the world knows when it thinks of Medellín — and it earns the reputation.

Rooftop bars with Andean views. World-class restaurants. The highest concentration of English-speaking residents in Colombia. Parque Lleras at the center of it all, where expat professionals, creatives, and entrepreneurs have built a community that feels both international and distinctly Medellín. Your local guide shows you what living here actually looks like beyond the Instagram version — which streets stay quiet, where the real local cafés are, and what the El Poblado premium actually buys you in terms of access and quality of life.

Apartment viewings across the range: a modern furnished studio at $850/month, a two-bedroom with full valley terrace views at $1,500+. Lunch is included.

In the evening, the group heads out for an upscale dinner (at costs) at a restaurant Medellín residents actually book for special occasions — followed by drinks at a jazz bar or speakeasy that only locals and well-connected expats seem to find. Tonight is not research. It is a preview of your life here. That is the entire point.

DAY 6

Sat, Jan 23

Volunteer Day & Farewell — Give Back to the City Before You Call It Home

Every long-term expat in Medellín who has built something real will tell you the same thing: the community you give to is the community that sustains you.

Your morning is a partnered volunteer day with a local Medellín nonprofit — hands-on, meaningful, and a completely different way of seeing this city. You are not touring it. You are working alongside the people who are building it. That perspective changes how you understand what it means to live here rather than just visit. Lunch included.

The evening closes the tour the way it deserves: an Afro-Colombian Cooking Class and Farewell Dinner with Chef Diorlin — TV Master Chef contestant and storyteller who uses food as the medium. You cook together. You eat what you made. And around that table, the same community that started with a glass of Viche on Day 1 shares a meal that carries the full cultural arc of the week.

By the end of this evening, the question of whether you could build a life here will feel different than it did when you landed. That shift — from wondering to knowing — is what this tour was designed to give you.

DAY 7

Sun, Jan 24

Adiós Medellín — You Came. You Learned. You Connected. Now You Decide.

Breakfast at the hotel. One last walk. One more coffee at the café that claimed you this week.

The city does what it always does: moves at its own unhurried pace, mountains green and enormous, 70 degrees exactly, the parks filling and the cafés open and the entire ordinary rhythm of daily life proceeding as if your presence is already normal.

In a way, it is. Because after this week — the seminar, the market tour, three neighborhoods, the apartment viewings, the community event, the volunteer morning, and the farewell dinner — you are not a tourist in Medellín anymore. You are someone who has seen this city from the inside, with real information and a community of people working through the same decision beside you.

Your MOOD Travel Abroad transfer takes you to MDE with time to spare. As the van climbs the highway and the valley opens below you one final time, take one more look.

You came to find out if this is home. You leave with the knowledge to decide. Your best life is waiting. You just got a lot closer to it.