Winter in Medellín, for Canadians
Most of the people who write to me about a Medellín winter are Canadian, and most of the guides they find are written for Americans. This page is the Canadian version: your province's clock, your insurance rules, your flights, your dollar, and the one federal advisory you should read yourself.
If you only take one thing from this page: your province decides how long you can be away, and your insurer's stability period decides whether a claim gets paid. Sort those two before you look at a single apartment. The calendar tool handles the first.
1. How long your province lets you be away
Provincial health coverage depends on physical presence. Exceed your province's absence limit and you can lose coverage for the year, which you'd discover at the worst possible time. The limits, as published by the provinces and summarized by the Canadian Snowbird Association's advisory service:
| Province | Maximum time away | The fine print |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario (OHIP) | 212 days in any 12-month period | You must be physically in Ontario at least 153 days in each 12-month period. Ontario ended most out-of-country medical coverage in 2020, so OHIP pays essentially nothing abroad. |
| Alberta (AHCIP) | 212 days in a 12-month period | Raised from 182 in 2013. Applies to recurring absences; longer requires prior approval. |
| British Columbia (MSP) | 6 months in a calendar year, up to 7 with approval | Tell Health Insurance BC before a long absence; longer extensions exist once every five years. |
| Manitoba | 7 months (212 days) in a year | Confirm with Manitoba Health before you book. |
| Quebec (RAMQ) | 183 days in a calendar year | Trips of 21 consecutive days or less don't count toward the total. Once every seven years a longer absence can be approved. |
| Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, the territories | Generally six months; a few allow longer | Each publishes its own rule and several have changed them recently. Check your ministry's page before you book, not after. |
Three things Canadians get wrong. The limits count all time outside the province, so a two-week Caribbean cruise in July comes out of the same budget as the winter. Some provinces count per calendar year and some per rolling twelve months, which changes the arithmetic for a trip that straddles New Year. And the provinces revise these rules; Snowbird Advisor keeps a current summary, and your provincial health ministry's website is the final word.
Conveniently, Colombia's own limit, 180 days per calendar year as a tourist, sits inside every province's allowance. A full Colombian winter is provincially legal everywhere in Canada if it's your only long absence. The calendar article has the Colombian side; the tool runs both against your dates.
2. Insurance, and the stability period that decides claims
Because provincial plans pay little or nothing abroad, every Canadian snowbird buys private travel medical insurance, and the Canadian market is built for exactly this: single-trip policies for stays of up to 212 days, annual multi-trip plans with a top-up for the long winter, and policies written for people in their 70s and 80s. The Canadian Snowbird Association's designated insurer is Medipac; Blue Cross, Manulife, Sun Life, GMS, and Snowbird Advisor's own program are the other names you'll compare.
The part to read before anything else is the stability period. Canadian policies cover pre-existing conditions only if they've been "stable" for a set period before departure, typically 90 to 180 days, and "stable" has a precise definition: no new diagnosis, no change in medication or dose, no new symptoms, no pending tests. A blood-pressure prescription adjusted in October can void coverage for that condition on a December trip. Answer the medical questionnaire exactly, ask the insurer in writing about anything borderline, and if a medication changes after you buy, call them. Denied claims in the snowbird world are overwhelmingly stability-period claims.
What to confirm in the policy: trip length that covers your full stay, coverage in Colombia specifically (a few policies exclude countries under an "avoid non-essential travel" advisory, so check how the insurer reads Canada's Colombia advisory), emergency evacuation to Canada, and a 24-hour assistance line. Print the certificate and the number; Colombian hospitals will want them at the door. The healthcare article covers what care here actually costs.
3. The Canada advisory, in plain words
Global Affairs Canada rates Colombia at "exercise a high degree of caution" for the country as a whole, with stronger regional warnings ("avoid non-essential travel" and "avoid all travel") for specific departments and border zones, mostly rural, mostly far from Medellín. Read the current page yourself at travel.gc.ca, because the regional list changes and because some insurers key coverage to the wording. The risks the advisory describes for cities are the ones in the safety article: street theft, taxi and ATM tricks, and drink-spiking, all avoidable with the four rules. Register with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service before you go; it takes five minutes and it's how the embassy finds you in an emergency. The Canadian Embassy is in Bogotá; there's no consulate in Medellín.
4. Flights: there's no nonstop, and it doesn't matter much
As of September 2026 no airline flies nonstop year-round from Canada to Medellín; check whether Air Transat or Sunwing are running a seasonal service in the winter you're planning, but don't count on it. Everyone else connects, and three connections work well:
- Through the U.S. Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, then a nonstop to Medellín of under four hours on American, Avianca, or JetBlue. The most frequent option. You'll clear U.S. immigration and customs on the way down and back, so allow two to three hours for each connection.
- Through Panama City. Copa flies from Toronto and Montreal to its Panama hub and on to Medellín. One stop, no U.S. entry, a good airport to connect in.
- Through Bogotá. Air Canada flies Toronto–Bogotá nonstop, and Avianca connects to Medellín roughly hourly. Longer total time, but a single carrier and a Colombian arrival.
If you'd rather not pass through the United States at all, the Panama and Bogotá routings do that, and the Florida comparison has a section written for exactly that decision.
Total door-to-door is usually nine to thirteen hours from Ontario or Quebec. Book by October for a December departure; the Christmas fortnight is the expensive one in both directions. Arrival in Medellín is covered on the arrival page.
5. Loonie math
Colombia prices in pesos and most guides quote U.S. dollars, so Canadians do two conversions and lose track. At 2026 rates the Canadian dollar has bought roughly 2,900 to 3,000 pesos. Round to 3,000 and the numbers get easy: a Laureles furnished one-bedroom listed at COP 4 million is about C$1,350; a COP 20,000 set lunch is under C$7; a COP 30,000 ride across the city is C$10. The budget article is in U.S. dollars at 4,000 pesos; multiply its figures by about 1.35 for Canadian.
The peso and the loonie both float, so your exposure is real in both directions; a 10% move changes every number here by 10%. For getting money into Colombia, a Canadian bank wire is slow and expensive; most people use Wise, which converts Canadian dollars to pesos at the interbank rate for a small fee and can pay a Colombian account directly. Disclosure: this Wise link is an affiliate link; it costs you nothing extra. For cash, Canadian debit cards work at Colombian ATMs; expect a fee from the local bank on top of your own bank's foreign-withdrawal fee, so take larger, less frequent withdrawals inside a bank or mall. If you bank with Scotiabank, ask whether its Colombian subsidiary, Scotiabank Colpatria, gives you any relief on fees.
6. Phone, pensions, taxes, and the small stuff
- Phone. Canadian carriers' daily roaming passes cost on the order of C$15 a day, which is over a thousand dollars for a winter. Buy a Colombian SIM at any mall (Claro, Tigo, Movistar; bring your passport) or install an eSIM before you fly, and keep your Canadian number on a cheap plan or an eSIM for bank texts.
- CPP and OAS. A winter abroad changes nothing. OAS residence rules only come into play for absences longer than six months, which a Colombian tourist stay can't reach. If you later look at Colombia's pensionado visa, CPP and OAS count as lifetime pensions; the 2026 threshold, three times the Colombian minimum wage, is about COP 5.25 million a month, roughly C$1,750.
- Taxes. A stay under Colombia's 183-day line leaves you a Canadian tax resident and nothing else. Keep your home, your ties, and your provincial coverage, and file as usual. Over 183 days in Colombia within twelve months and you'd be a Colombian tax resident too, which is a problem you avoid by not doing it.
- Driving. You won't need to. If you do rent a car for a trip to the coffee region, your Canadian licence is accepted for the length of a tourist stay.
- Mail and home. Canada Post's hold-mail and forwarding services, a neighbour with a key, and a friend who'll check the furnace: the same list as Florida.
7. The Canadian Snowbird Association, and why to join
The CSA is a member organization of over a hundred thousand Canadians who winter abroad, founded in 1992 in Florida and still run from Toronto. Membership is inexpensive and buys three useful things: the association's lobbying on exactly the provincial-absence and coverage rules above, its designated insurer with products built for long stays, and a currency-exchange program that beats bank rates on U.S. dollars. It's Florida-centric, and it will be for a while, but the rules it tracks apply to you wherever you spend the winter. Snowbird Advisor is the other resource worth bookmarking: a free membership site with current provincial-rule summaries, insurance comparisons, and a partner directory.
8. What Canadians tell me they like here
That it's spring rather than a beach; that a good apartment on a flat street costs less than a Florida season; that a specialist sees them this week for the price of a coffee at home; that Colombians are warm to Canadians specifically, which you'll notice the first time you say where you're from; and that it's not Florida. What they find harder: the connection through the U.S., the Spanish, and the first week's caution before the city's rules become habit. I'll walk you through all three.