Art & Music in Colombia, Artists, Cities of Colombia, Cross-Cultural Dating, Cucuta, Culture & Lifestyle, Medellín, People & Stories, Travel & Tourism
From Colombia to Curaçao: J Balvin, Caribbean Culture and the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival
From Colombia to Curaçao: J Balvin & the 2026 Jazz Festival
From Colombia to Curaçao
Sometimes a concert is enough of a reason to plan an entire trip.
That was certainly the case with our recent visit to Curaçao.
My wife and I traveled from Colombia to the Dutch Caribbean island primarily to attend the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival 2026, and one artist in particular made the trip worth planning for us: J Balvin.
For my Colombian wife, there was obviously a connection to seeing one of Colombia’s biggest international artists perform outside the country. For me, the festival offered something else I enjoy — a mixture of artists and musical styles (Jon Batiste, Al Dimiola, Brandon Marsalis, Dianne Reeves), I already knew along with performers and music that were newer to me (Afro 23, Ryan Castro).
But Curaçao turned out to be much more than a concert destination.
Over several days, we got a taste of the beaches, colorful architecture, food, languages and culture of an island that feels distinctly Caribbean while also having some interesting connections to Colombia and the rest of Latin America.
And then Saturday night brought everything back to where the idea for the trip started: music.
Why We Went to Curaçao
The Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival 2026 was the centerpiece of this trip from the beginning.
The festival returned in 2026 with three main nights of music from September 3 through September 5 at the World Trade Center at Piscadera Bay. The lineup stretched far beyond traditional jazz, bringing together Latin music, reggae, R&B, pop, soul and jazz.
That variety was part of the attraction.
The 2026 lineup included The Jacksons, Toto, Rubén Blades, Sean Paul, Stephen Marley, Jon Batiste, PJ Morton, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves and many others.
And on Saturday night, the Sam Cooke stage belonged to J Balvin.
For us, that was the night.
J Balvin Was the Colombian Connection
Seeing J Balvin perform in Curaçao felt particularly appropriate for a trip originating in Colombia.
Born in Medellín, Balvin has become one of the artists most responsible for taking Colombian and Latin urban music to audiences far beyond Latin America.
The festival itself described him as an artist who helped push Latin music beyond regional boundaries and into the global mainstream. He’s sold more than 35 million records worldwide and has performed on some of the world’s biggest festival stages, including Coachella and Lollapalooza.
That’s easy to discuss in terms of statistics.
It’s different when you actually see it happening.
Here we were on a Caribbean island outside Colombia, surrounded by an international audience, watching an artist from Medellín headline one of the festival’s biggest stages.
That’s quite a journey for Colombian music.
And Then Came Ryan Castro
There was another Colombian connection during the performance that made the night even better for us: Ryan Castro.
He wasn’t the reason we’d originally planned the trip, but seeing another Colombian urban artist become part of the experience added another dimension to the night.
Ryan represents a newer generation of Colombian artists building on the international audience that Colombian reggaeton has developed.
For my wife and me, it gave the evening a little bit of both worlds.
J Balvin was the established Colombian international star we’d specifically come to see, while Ryan Castro represented some of the newer music coming out of Colombia.
That’s part of what I enjoyed about the festival in general.
There were artists I had known for years and others I was discovering or becoming more familiar with.
Music has a way of doing that.
Curaçao Wasn’t Just a Backdrop
Although the concert motivated the trip, I wouldn’t reduce Curaçao to the place where the concert happened.
The island deserves better than that.
Curaçao immediately feels different from Colombia, despite being relatively close geographically.
Willemstad’s colorful Dutch-influenced architecture gives the city a look unlike anywhere I’ve visited in Colombia. Then you have the Caribbean water, beaches, dry landscape and mixture of cultural influences that make the island feel very much like its own place.
We spent time exploring Willemstad during both the day and evening, visited beaches, drove around the island and got beyond the festival grounds.
That was important to me.
I don’t particularly enjoy traveling somewhere simply to attend an event and then flying home without seeing the destination.
The concert brought us to Curaçao.
Curaçao gave us the rest of the trip.
Traveling to Curaçao From Colombia
Another thing that made this trip interesting for ColombiaVibe is how reasonable Curaçao is as a getaway from Colombia.
We traveled from Cúcuta through Bogotá (1 hr. 15 min) and then Bogota to Curaçao (1 hr. 50 mins)
For someone already living in Colombia, Curaçao offers a very different environment without requiring a trip halfway around the world.
You’re leaving South America for a Caribbean island with Dutch heritage, yet there are enough Latin American influences that it doesn’t feel completely disconnected from Colombia.
That became particularly obvious with language.
Spanish Was More Useful Than We Expected
One thing we wondered about before traveling was how my wife would manage with the language.
Curaçao is multilingual. Papiamentu is widely spoken, Dutch is an official language, and English is common in tourism.
But we also encountered plenty of Spanish.
That made things considerably easier.
My wife could communicate comfortably in many situations, while I could use English when necessary. Between the two of us, language wasn’t much of an obstacle.
For Colombians considering Curaçao for a vacation, that’s worth knowing.
You are traveling somewhere culturally different without necessarily leaving Spanish completely behind.
Willemstad: One of the Highlights
Willemstad deserves time beyond a quick photograph of the famous waterfront.
Of course, the colorful buildings are what immediately grab your attention.
But walking around gives you a much better appreciation for the city.
We experienced downtown in both daylight and at night, and each had a different atmosphere.
The architecture, waterfront, restaurants, shops and people moving through the historic center make Willemstad a good place simply to walk around with a camera — something I naturally enjoy doing when I travel.
For somebody coming from Colombia, it’s also an interesting contrast.
Colombia has some spectacular colonial cities of its own, but Willemstad doesn’t look like Cartagena, Bogotá or Medellín.
It has its own identity.
Beaches and Island Life
And then there’s the reason plenty of people visit Curaçao without caring who’s performing at a music festival:
the water.
Curaçao’s beaches gave us another side of the island.
We spent part of the trip exploring beaches and also made the trip to Klein Curaçao, the small uninhabited island off Curaçao’s southeastern coast.
Those experiences helped balance the trip.
Festival night could be crowded, loud and energetic.
Beach time was almost the exact opposite.
That’s actually one of the things I liked most about this trip. It wasn’t just four days of one type of activity.
We got music, city exploration, driving around the island, photography, beaches and time together.
A Festival That Goes Well Beyond Jazz
The name North Sea Jazz Festival might give someone the wrong impression about the musical range.
This wasn’t three nights of traditional jazz.
Saturday alone included J Balvin, Jon Batiste, Sean Paul, Stephen Marley, Al Di Meola, Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves among the scheduled performers.
That’s an extraordinary mixture.
And it worked for us because our musical backgrounds and tastes aren’t identical.
There were performers that immediately appealed to me, performers my wife knew better, and others we could discover together.
That made the festival itself feel like travel.
You’re experiencing something familiar while simultaneously being introduced to something new.
Colombian Music Travels Well
One of my biggest takeaways from the concert had very little to do with tourism.
It was another reminder of just how far Colombian culture travels today.
Colombia’s international image was once dominated by subjects the country would probably rather leave in the past.
That’s changing.
Food travels.
Tourism travels.
Football travels.
And Colombian music definitely travels.
Artists from Colombia aren’t simply successful within Latin America anymore. They’re appearing on major stages around the world in front of audiences that don’t necessarily speak Spanish.
J Balvin is one of the clearest examples.
The official festival program scheduled his Saturday performance from 10:45 p.m. until midnight, immediately before Jon Batiste on the same stage. Actually, he came on after.
Watching that from Curaçao while traveling with my Colombian wife made the Colombian connection to this trip impossible to miss.
Don’t just take it from me:
She says…..
“Me encantó ver a J Balvin y Ryan Castro en Curazao. Me hizo sentir muy orgullosa de ser colombiana y de ver cómo nuestra música y nuestros artistas llegan a otros países. Además, fue muy bonito vivirlo contigo.
Y sobre los idiomas, me parece maravilloso que Curazao tenga esa mezcla de culturas y lenguas. Despertó en mí ese deseo de aprender y estudiar inglés mas. Es algo que hace al país muy especial y demuestra lo bonito que es cuando diferentes culturas se encuentran.”
“I loved seeing J Balvin and Ryan Castro in Curaçao. It made me feel very proud to be Colombian and to see how our music and our artists reach other countries. It was also very special to experience it with you.
And regarding the languages, I think it’s wonderful that Curaçao has such a mixture of cultures and languages. It awakened in me a desire to learn and study English more. It’s something that makes the country very special and shows how beautiful it can be when different cultures come together.”
I might add that for myself, this was a great experience for me because in traveling with my wife over the last three years, we’ve mostly travelled to Latin American countries and my Spanish is limited. She got a chance to see me in a different element. I’m just jealous of the Curacao people’s ability to speak 4 languages.
Would I Travel From Colombia to Curaçao Again?
Yes.
But I’d approach it the same way we did this time: give yourself a reason to go and then explore beyond that reason.
For us, J Balvin and the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival provided the reason.
Once we arrived, Curaçao provided plenty more.
Willemstad was worth exploring.
The beaches were worth visiting.
Klein Curaçao gave us another experience entirely.
The mixture of languages was fascinating.
And the relatively short distance from Colombia makes the island an interesting Caribbean option for people living here.
Curaçao isn’t necessarily a bargain destination compared with Colombia. That’s something travelers living in Colombia should understand before going. Accommodation, restaurants, transportation and activities can add up quickly.
But that’s also part of travel.
You’re not going somewhere different because you expect everything to work exactly like home.
Colombia Beyond Colombia
ColombiaVibe is primarily about experiencing Colombia.
But sometimes one of the best ways to appreciate a country is to see how its culture shows up somewhere else.
That’s what happened for me in Curaçao.
We left Colombia for a few days and experienced a completely different Caribbean destination.
Yet Colombia came along with us.
It was there because I was traveling with my Colombian wife.
It was there in the Spanish we heard around the island.
And on Saturday night, it was very definitely there on stage.
We went to Curaçao because J Balvin gave us a reason to book the trip.
We came home having experienced much more than a concert.
And that’s usually the kind of travel I remember most.
