Looking to get in contact? Great we love reader email. Welcome to our contact page.
And thank you for visiting our site. We are happy to help, when possible. And we are always looking for comments/suggestions.
Please note that we read every email with appreciation. But due to a time-strapped life running a business, we can’t reply to every email. And we ask you to read the following guidelines before sending an email.
Medellin Guru Answers Hundred of Questions Monthly
Medellin Guru is the only blog in Colombia that answers hundreds of reader questions about Colombia monthly. Medellin Guru is now responding to well over 700 questions per month from readers.
>We receive questions about hundreds of topics each month. But questions are mainly about visas, coronavirus, travel to Colombia, moving to Colombia, cities in Colombia, insurance, renting apartments, neighborhoods and real estate.
Medellin Guru has a large network of professionals including a visa agency, insurance broker, real estate agency, lawyers and other professionals. So, we can answer almost any question from readers or find someone who can answer your question
Before sending an email, please see these guidelines
- We don’t do sponsored posts or advertising, see our About page.
- We aren’t a travel agency and emails asking to book your trip will be deleted.
- If you work in press relations (PR), please don’t send press releases.
- Don’t ask drug, sex-related or illegal activity questions, such emails will be deleted.
- We do accept guest posts and are looking for additional writers, send inquiries to jeff@medellinguru.com.
- Keep your emails short, maximum of two paragraphs. If you have more questions, we have our Medellin Guru Expat Consultation service where Jeff, the founder of Medellin Guru, can answer all your questions on a call. We answer all your questions about visas, renting apartments, neighborhoods, health insurance, buying property and many other topics.
Remember to take a look about our About page, as I may have already answered your questions there. And of course, priority will be given to our email subscribers.
Let’s Connect! Follow Us on Social Media!
Sign up for the Free Medellin Guru Newsletter – You can see all of the previous Medellin Guru weekly email newsletters and sign up here.
Medellin Guru Contact Form
Jeff-Thank you for including me in your new Medellin Guru posts. My husband and I love this newsletter: it seems to be geared more toward “more mature” expats rather than the audience targeted by Medellin Living. We spent two months in Medellin last winter and are planning on a longer stay this upcoming winter, perhaps 3-4 months so we are looking for a longer term lodging this year. No, we don’t expect you to find it for us but do you have a suggestion of a search site besides Airb&b? We speak Spanish.
Thanks, Leah Rosenthal
Hi Leah, thanks!
I have seen that Airbnb does have some lower cost apartment rentals available from some of the local Colombian real estate firms and some local Colombian owners. But make sure to look for properties with ratings and make sure they have hot water. A Spanish language site you can try is https://www.homeaway.com.co/ plus use a google search of “apartamentos con muebles medellin”.
Thanks Jeff–I didn’t realize you had replied as I only just saw this reply. I will check out these sites now that we are down here in Medellin. A friend mentioned, in regard to finding a place, just ask Colombians. And it works. We now have two leads from random people we met on the street.
Hi Jeff,
I have a quick question on paying the EPM bill remotely. We have an apartment that we want to keep the electricity on while we are out of the country but we don’t have a cedula or a colombian bank account. Any ideas on how expats handle this issue?
Thanks for your input.
Hi Mark, expats with Colombian bank accounts can pay bills like EPM electronically when traveling and other expats I have talked to use friends to pay bills when they travel.
Thanks Jeff – we will ask for friends to help since we still don’t have Colombian bank account.
I first “discovered” Medellín in the 1960’s living there as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Since 2010 my wife and I have visited almost every year primarily as volunteers to help teach English in public schools in poor barrios. (That is our rationale for getting out of mid-west winters) Medellín has truly transformed from an almost provincial city of half-a-million to the metropolis it is today. I am looking forward to receiving Medellín Guru updates to keep us informed of what is happening and adding to our “to do” list when in town. Hasta la proxima!
Howard
Do you know anything about Jerico or Jardin (Antioquia)?
See our articles about Jericó – https://medellinguru.com/jerico-antioquia/ and Jardín https://medellinguru.com/jardin/.
I am Indian and married to Colombian girl 3 years before and now we have one girl child 3 months old, I know that I can apply R visa because I am parent of Colombian child, but my quiry is how long validity I get and if I stay away from Colombia for more than 2 years then this visa become invalid?
Because I’m mariner and I no can meet this condition sometimes then what should I do
Thanks for advice.
If you get a R visa and if you leave Colombia for a period of more than two years with an R visa without returning to Colombia, the visa expires and is no longer valid. See our article about the resident visa – https://medellinguru.com/resident-visa/
But if you come back to Colombia for even a short time before two years is up, you get another two years.
You keep sending me updates. But when I tried to do a search or even contact you through proper contact page I keep getting “Forbidden Sender Blacklisted” Explain to me why I am blacklisted and if that is the case take me off your mailing list
The Medellin Guru website has Spam protection which blacklists some IP addresses and emails. The search on Medellin Guru will not work if you are using some VPN providers. That is a Spam protection provided by our hosting provider as much Spam originates from VPNs.
The Medellin Guru website like any popular websites has a serious problem with Spam and sometimes receives over 200 Spam messages per day. If we disabled Spam protection, reviewing all the Spam to weed out legit messages would be an unmanageable task with some days even over 1,000 Spam messages received.
URGENT-Please
Hey Jeff,
Hope all is well with you.
Jeff I believe I have digged a big bad hole for myself with the Colombian immigration authorities and I am in a real need for your advice and guidance helping me resolve my visa problem (explained below). If you know of an immigration lawyer in Bogota who can help me with this, please pass along his/her contact info.
I was married to my ex wife, a Colombian national, from June of 2012 until May of 2016. It was only in 2014 that I applied for a 3-year marriage visa TP-10 (which expired in Feb 2017). As you can see, our marriage ended in May of 2016, but I failed to inform the Immigration authorities of our divorce since I did not know the visa laws/regulations at that time.
Also, right before that TP-10 visa expired in Feb of 2017, I applied for another 3-year TP-10 visa with the help of my ex wife, who wrote and signed a letter stating that we were still together/married in order to help me obtain the same TP=10 visa (2017-2020). Now this visa is expiring in Feb of this year.
This time around my ex wife is not willing to write the same letter out of concern that she could get in trouble. For this reason I decided to file for a Retirement Visa (M-11) instead.
After submitting all the required documents online, the immigration office reviewer (s) required me to submit a copy of our marriage certificate, which was not a required document for the M-11 visa application. Nevertheless, reluctantly I submitted the marriage certificate after which I received a notification email from the immigration office requesting a personal interview with me and my ex wife.
As you can imagine, I am really concerned about going to this interview, because I have no reason or any excuse to give them as to why I did not report my divorce status to them and why my ex wife agreed to write and signed the letter, stating that we were still together/married in 2017, almost a year after our divorce.
Although I am not certain if the immigration office has any information about our divorce, but assuming that they do, what do you think would be the worst consequences that my ex wife and I might face in this case?
Thank you in advance for your time reading and responding,
p.s. Please respond in private to my email if at all possible. Thanks,
Email response sent.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks again for your prompt reply. Unfortunately I have not received an email response from you in my inbox yet. I’ll check other mail boxes to see if it has gone there. Under what name will it be sent to me?
Kind regards,
Sali
The email was sent at 8:55am today from Medellin Guru at info@medellinguru.com.
I received a notice from Bancolombia that payments to them will be frozen for three months. I have a savings account with them but no payments. I do pay my landlord via his Bancolombia account. Were all banks required to freeze payments or was it voluntary on Bancolombia’s part? Should renters also benefit from the freeze?
Secondly, I’m in a temporary apartment and have started searching for a new place. I know this is speculative, but do you have any thoughts on what impact this situation will have on the cost of rent?
Sorry can’t help you about Bancolombia.
I suspect that rent prices may become more negotiable if landlords have trouble renting.
A lot of gringos here are better off than Colombians as we have a steady stream of income thru SS. is there a secure way we can donate to the poor? Preferably using a credit/debit card from the US?
One charity I know that is doing good things is Angeles de Medellin, not sure how they accept donations. They recently provided food for over 150 families – https://www.facebook.com/angelesdemedellinfoundation/
Will look into this topic next week and see if we can find more for an article.
Hi. Do you know if a Venezuelan can fly on a domestic flight in Colombia, if they have an expired passport? Thanks.
That is unlikely.