Medellín or Florida and Arizona? What you give up, what you get

Start with what Florida and Arizona do better

An honest comparison starts with the home team's advantages, because they're real and they're the reason most people stay.

• Your Medicare works. For Americans, this is the big one. In Florida or Arizona your coverage is exactly what it is at home. In Colombia it's nothing, and you buy travel medical insurance for the stay.
• No clock. No 90-day stamp, no extension form, no tax-residency line. Canadians still have their provincial absence limit and, since 2025, a U.S. registration requirement for stays over 30 days that's worth checking before you go; Americans have nothing at all.
• Your car is in the driveway. Drive down, drive around, drive home. Nothing to book, nothing to figure out.
• Family is a short flight or drive away. Grandchildren can visit for a weekend. Emergencies at home are a same-day trip.
• Everything is familiar. The language, the stores, the pharmacies, the doctors, the paperwork. There is no learning curve.
• The beach and the desert. Florida has the ocean; Arizona has the dry heat and the golf. Medellín has neither.

Where Medellín wins

• Cost. Seasonal rents in the popular Florida and Arizona snowbird areas have climbed for years, and so have insurance, HOA fees, and restaurant prices. A good furnished one- or two-bedroom on a flat street in Medellín runs roughly US$900–1,600 a month even in peak season, and eating out, a weekly cleaner, a taxi, a dental cleaning, and a specialist visit all cost a fraction of the U.S. price. The budget article has the sourced numbers.
• Climate. Florida winters are mostly lovely and occasionally wet and chilly; Arizona's desert nights in December and January drop into the 40s. Medellín's dry season is 75°F days and 62°F nights, every day, with no air conditioning and no heating. And no hurricane season to plan a property around.
• A city. Florida and Arizona snowbird life is mostly car-based suburbia and gated communities. Medellín is a city of three million with a metro, a symphony, a botanical garden, a hundred restaurants you haven't tried, and neighborhoods where you walk to the bakery. Some people find that exhausting. The people who come back every year find it the whole point.
• Medicine, oddly. You lose Medicare, and you gain hospitals ranked among the best in Latin America where a specialist sees you this week for the price of a U.S. copay. Most visitors get more medical attention here, not less.
• Novelty. This is the one nobody puts in a spreadsheet. A winter somewhere new, with a language to try and a country to learn, is a different experience from the fifteenth season in the same complex. For some people that's the reason.

Where it's a wash

Safety is more even than the headlines suggest. Florida and Arizona have ordinary American crime and a lot of driving, which is statistically the dangerous part of any snowbird's year. Medellín has street theft and a specific dating-app scam that a careful visitor avoids by following four rules, in a country whose serious violence is in regions you'll never see. Read the safety article and decide for yourself. Weather risk cuts both ways: hurricanes on one side, a rainy season and occasional air-quality alerts on the other, neither of which lands in the December–February window most people choose.

For Canadians who'd rather skip the United States entirely

A growing number of the Canadians who write to me have already decided this part. Whatever the reason, and there are several in circulation right now, they'd rather not spend the winter in the U.S., and some would rather not pass through it. If that's you, here is what a Medellín winter looks like with the United States taken out of the picture.

You can get here without touching U.S. soil

The default routing from Canada to Medellín connects through Miami or Fort Lauderdale, and the U.S. has no sterile international transit: connecting there means clearing U.S. immigration and customs on the way down and again on the way home. Two routes avoid that completely. Copa flies from Toronto and Montreal to Panama City and on to Medellín, one stop, in a good airport. Air Canada flies Toronto to Bogotá nonstop, and Avianca connects to Medellín roughly hourly. Both add an hour or two over the Florida routing and neither involves a U.S. border officer. From Vancouver, Copa via Panama is the cleaner option; ask about seasonal charters, which come and go.

The U.S. paperwork goes away

Since 2025, Canadians staying in the United States more than 30 days have been subject to a federal registration requirement, on top of the six-month limit that has always applied and the increasingly close attention paid to how many days snowbirds spend there. Colombia's rules are simpler and fixed: a 90-day stamp, one online extension to 180, and the 183-day tax line, none of which involve a registration or a substantial-presence calculation. The calendar article lays it out; the tool runs it against your province.

The loonie goes further

A Canadian dollar that buys less than 75 U.S. cents makes a Florida season roughly a third more expensive than the sticker price suggests, before the years of rent, insurance, and HOA increases that came on top. The Canadian dollar has held up better against the Colombian peso, at roughly 2,900–3,000 pesos in 2026, which is why a good furnished apartment on a flat street in Laureles comes to about C$1,200–1,900 a month even in peak season, and daily life costs a fraction of Gulf Coast prices. The budget article has the sourced figures; multiply its U.S.-dollar numbers by about 1.35.

Insurance is often cheaper outside the U.S.

Canadian travel-medical premiums are priced partly on where you're going, and the United States, with the world's highest hospital charges, is the expensive destination. Several Canadian insurers offer lower rates for policies that exclude U.S. travel. Ask your broker for a quote for Colombia specifically, and confirm the policy's position on Canada's Colombia advisory, which sits at "exercise a high degree of caution." The Canadian guide covers the stability-period rules that actually decide claims.

What you don't lose

Your provincial coverage, provided you respect your province's absence limit, which a Colombian winter fits inside everywhere in Canada. Your CPP and OAS, which are untouched by a stay under six months. Your Canadian tax residency, as long as you stay under Colombia's 183-day line. And the embassy: Canada's is in Bogotá, an hour's flight away, and the Registration of Canadians Abroad service takes five minutes.

What you do give up

The drive. Familiarity. English everywhere. A short trip home for a family emergency, which from Medellín is a full day rather than a morning. And the Canadian snowbird society itself, which is built in Florida and Arizona and hasn't reached Medellín in any organized way yet. The over-55 crowd here is real but you find it; you don't fall into it. If a ready-made community of Canadians your age is the point of the winter, the U.S. still has it and Colombia doesn't.

The things that decide it

In my experience three questions sort people quickly.

1. Is Medicare, or a very short trip home, non-negotiable? If yes, stay in the U.S. There's no version of Medellín that fixes that.
2. Do you want a beach or a golf course as the center of the winter? If yes, Florida or Arizona, or Mexico. Medellín's beach is an hour's flight away and its golf is a country-club affair.
3. Are you bored, or is the price starting to sting? If yes to either, Medellín is worth one winter. Rent for three months, keep your Florida options open, and see. The people I help are mostly in this group, and about half of them come back the next year.

The verdict, by visitor

• Stay in Florida or Arizona if

  your Medicare, your car, and being a short trip from family matter more than cost, and you like the life you have.

• Try a Medellín winter if

  the price has crossed a line, you want a change, you're comfortable buying travel insurance and learning a few rules, and a city with spring weather sounds better than another season in the same complex.

• Canadian and done with the U.S.?

  Fly Copa through Panama or Air Canada through Bogotá, keep your provincial clock, and price the insurance for Colombia. The section above is written for you.

• Split the difference if

  you're unsure: six weeks in Medellín in January and February, when it's driest here and busiest there, then home. It's the trial most people should run first.