Contemplating a job offer in Cartago / Pereira...housing?

I think that you would soon find the daily commute from Pereira to Cartago a costly waste of time.

If you don't find enough things to do in Cartago, you will find night taxis back from Pereira quite costly. You are talking around 30 kilometers and outside the city limits.

Just FYI - although it's a good road doble calzada between Pereira and Cartago - I believe the peaje between Pereira and Cartago coming and going is now up to 11600 COP, so that's 23200 COP daily for the privilege of going back and forth, just a bit over $8 USD per day.

Of course that's if you are doing the driving - but that cost will get added on if you take a taxi so one way or another, you pay.

Quite a few people are upset about the toll - there's even a Facebook page against it.  If you commute 5 days a week that's over 460 thousand COP per month on average:
https://www.facebook.com/NO-M%C3%81S-PE … 116871972/

And 460,000 COP is more than half of the government-set monthly minimum wage of 781,242 COP so effectively the average working-class Colombian simply cannot afford to commute between the two cities, which could otherwise help boost the economies of both.

great info and exactly what i was looking for.