A Location Guide to Disney’s Encanto
Encanto was inspired by the cobblestone streets and sandstone buildings of Barichara.
Disney’s latest animated movie, Encanto, is set in Colombia and inspired by real-life locations. The film is the story of the magical Madrigal family who lives in an enchanted house in a Colombian valley. Sneak previews of the film suggest that the location scouts did an excellent job; the colorful trailers exude Colombian spirit and soul, whether it’s the animated landscapes of wax palms and misty mountains or the cobbled streets and painted balconies of the fictional town where the film is set.
The directors of Encanto, Byron Howard and Jared Bush, visited Colombia on a two-week scouting trip with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the songs for the film. In a recent interview for Conde Nast Traveler, they opened up about the Colombian locations that inspired them.
Barichara
Barichara is a delightful little town in the Colombian department of Santander, famous for its cobbled sandstone streets and perfectly preserved colonial architecture. Encanto director Jared Bush describes it as a “town lost in time,” and Barichara certainly has that vibe. Wandering its cobblestone streets, it’s easy to imagine that the town doesn’t look all that different now from when founded in 1705. In Encanto, the Madrigal family lives alongside a small village partly inspired by the architecture of Barichara, particularly the cobblestone streets and sandstone buildings.
Barichara is easily accessible from the nearby town of San Gil - itself a popular adventure tourism hotspot - and boasts a wealth of excellent boutique hotels, restaurants, and museums. The nearby Chicamocha Canyon boasts some of the country’s most stunning landscapes, while the hike along the old Camino Real from Barichara to Guane is also a must. The quickest way to get there from Bogota is to fly to Bucaramanga and then drive the three-and-a-half hours to Barichara. The road along the edges of the Chicamocha Canyon is also one of the most scenic routes in Colombia.
Salento and the Cocora Valley
The same town in Encanto that Barichara partly inspired is also a homage to the traditional paisa architecture of Salento and other similar small towns in the Coffee Region and Antioquia. With its colorfully painted balconies and windows, Salento is one of the country’s most iconic little towns and one of the most visited. As a result, it’s a popular travel destination with hotels, hostels, restaurants, and tours to nearby coffee farms and hiking trails.
The true inspiration for Encanto is just outside of Salento: the Cocora Valley. The film’s directors have stated that the rolling green mountains and palm trees surrounding the Madrigal house were inspired by the beautiful landscapes of this Central Andean valley. The giant palm trees, in particular, feature heavily in the imagery of Encanto. These are Quindio Wax Palms, Colombia’s endemic national tree, which can grow up to 200 feet tall.
The easiest way to visit Salento and the Cocora Valley is to fly from Bogota or several international locations to Pereira and drive one hour to Salento. However, if you’re looking to experience similar Colombian towns with fewer tourists, then it’s worth considering Filandia, Jardin, or Jerico. Similarly, wax palms can be found in more significant numbers in Valle de la Samaria in Caldas department or Toche, the world’s largest wax palm forest in Quindio.
Learn more about Salento and the Cocora Valley in our Destination Guide to the Colombian Coffee Region.
San Basilio de Palenque
The Encanto directors also visited San Basilio de Palenque, a small village located a couple of hours south of Cartagena. While the tourist center of Cartagena is known to travelers around the world, Palenque remains little known outside of Colombia. Yet this tiny village has a rich cultural history - it was the first free African town in the Americas, founded in the 16th century by Benkos Biohó, a former king from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Angola. He escaped from slavery in Cartagena in 1599 and fled into the Montes de Maria, where he eventually founded San Basilio de Palenque.
The village has retained many of its original cultural traditions, including its unique language, Palenquero, the only Spanish-Bantú language spoken on earth. In addition, Palenque retains its African-influenced funeral traditions, known as the lumbalú, and is the birthplace of musical genres such as palenque and champeta. It is a culturally rich and unique corner of Colombia and is well worth visiting if you are in Cartagena and looking to get off the tourist trail.
The directors of Encanto visited San Basilio de Palenque on their scouting trip through Colombia.
Los Estoraques
Although Encanto’s directors didn’t have time to visit this little-known National Park in the department of Norte de Santander, they cited its surreal and unique landscapes as an inspiration for the film. At just 6km squared, Los Estoraques is one of the country’s smallest National Parks and was created as recently as 1988. It’s famous for its giant brownstone pedestals and columns, formed by thousands of years of erosion, and hides a network of gullies, caves, and small rivers.
Los Estoraques has the bonus of being located just 1km from La Playa de Belen, one of Colombia’s most undervisited and beautiful Heritage Towns: think a smaller and more unspoiled version of Barichara.
La Playa de Belen and Los Estoraques are satisfyingly ‘out of the way.’ Still, the easiest way to travel there is to fly into Bucaramanga and then travel overland for five hours to Ocaña. From there, it is about a one-hour drive to La Playa.
The surreal landscapes of Los Estoraques National Park also inspired the Encanto directors.
Caño Cristales
The magical “Rainbow River” in the Colombian department of Meta is another location cited by the Encanto directors as an inspiration for the film’s animated landscapes. This small tributary of the Guayabero River is colored yellow, blue, black, green, and particularly red between July and November. The predominant red color comes from the growth of Macarena clavigera plants on the riverbed.
The animated landscapes of Encanto also took inspiration from Caño Cristales.
The river is located within the Serrania de La Macarena National Park, an isolated mountain range of rainforests, dry forest, and savannah. La Macarena is the ecological meeting point of the Andes, Amazon, and Orinoquia regions, making it a truly unique area of Colombia for flora and fauna. Yet it’s the striking red waters of Caño Cristales that make the region famous and with good reason; it’s also been called the ‘Liquid Rainbow’ and ‘the most beautiful river in the world.’
Visiting Caño Cristales is easiest during the high season when the river is red when there are regular flights direct to La Macarena from Bogota. Throughout the year, there are also several flights a week from Villavicencio.
Discover more about Caño Cristales in our Destination Guide to the Colombian Llanos Orientales.
Bogotá
Colombia’s Andean capital may not initially appear as a visual inspiration for the colorful world of Encanto. Still, the film’s directors were struck by the city’s melting pot of modern and traditional Colombian architecture and its many restaurants' gastronomic delights. They also met up with renowned Colombian architect Simón Vélez, whose work with natural materials like bamboo inspired them. Vélez took them on a tour of Bogota’s architecture, and they based the design of the Madrigal house on the colonial period houses he showed them in the historical district of La Candelaria, particularly the large central courtyards that serve as a meeting point for families.
Bogota’s melting pot of modern and traditional Colombian architecture inspired the Encanto directors.
You can learn more about Bogotá in our Location Guide to the Colombian Capital.
Chocó
The lowland Pacific rainforests of the Chocó region were a particular inspiration for the bedroom of the character Antonio in Encanto. Antonio can speak to animals, and his room is a menagerie of jaguars, tapirs, toucans, and capybaras. Charise Castro Smith, another director and co-writer of the film, says that the Chocó jungles formed the basis of Antonio’s biodiverse bedroom.
The biodiversity of the isolated Chocó region was an inspiration for the bedroom of Antonio in Encanto.
As one of the wettest lowland regions on earth, the Chocó is home to a staggering level of biodiversity and is also extremely isolated from the rest of Colombia, making it an unparalleled area for ecotourism and adventure. It is especially worth visiting between June and October when humpback whales visit its tropical waters to give birth.
Learn more about Chocó in our Destination Guide to the Colombian Pacific.
If you are interested in filming in any of the locations that inspired Encanto:
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