6 Tourist Scams in Granada

You arrive at the bus terminal and a friendly English-speaking backpacker suggests sharing a taxi to save money.

It seems perfectly reasonable. Once inside, the driver takes a detour and a third person appears. Suddenly you're being held at knifepoint and driven to ATMs to withdraw cash. This scam is documented by the U.S. Embassy in Managua and confirmed by redditors on r/solotravel. It has occurred in Granada, Masaya, and Rivas, typically targeting solo travelers who let their guard down with a seemingly trustworthy stranger.

You sit down at one of the lively restaurants lining Calle La Calzada, Granada's tourist boulevard ...

You sit down at one of the lively restaurants lining Calle La Calzada, Granada's tourist boulevard stretching from the cathedral toward Lake Nicaragua. The menu looks reasonable. But when the bill arrives, the prices are higher than listed, a service charge has appeared, and the drink you ordered at 'happy hour' was full price. Redditors on r/travel note that Calle La Calzada is Granada's main tourist trap strip, and some restaurants inflate prices for foreigners or add undisclosed fees. The food is mediocre too — locals eat elsewhere.

A woman with a young child approaches you near a pharmacy in central Granada.

She shows you a prescription and, sometimes with tears, explains she can't afford the medicine for her sick child. She asks you to come into the pharmacy and buy the specific medicine. If you do, she returns it for a cash refund as soon as you leave. This is a well-known hustle across Central America, and redditors on r/centralamerica confirm it's active in Granada and Masaya. The child is a prop, the prescription is fake, and the pharmacy may be in on it.

You need to change dollars to cordobas and a street money changer near the market offers a slightly ...

You need to change dollars to cordobas and a street money changer near the market offers a slightly better rate than the bank. He counts out the bills quickly, fanning them for you to see. But his sleight of hand is practiced — several of the bills are counterfeit, or he short-changes you in the rapid counting. Redditors on r/travel warn that street currency exchange in Nicaraguan cities carries a high risk of counterfeit notes and deliberate miscounting, and the slight savings over bank rates simply isn't worth the risk.

A man at the Granada waterfront offers you a private boat tour of Las Isletas —

the 365 tiny islands in Lake Nicaragua — for a great price. You agree and pay upfront. The boat is rickety, there's no life jacket, the 'two-hour tour' lasts 45 minutes, and it ends with a mandatory stop at a restaurant on one of the islands where prices are triple the norm. The boatman and restaurant split the profits. Redditors on r/travel recommend booking through established operators like Erik Tours to avoid the waterfront freelancers who deliver a fraction of what they promise.

You withdraw US dollars from a Nicaraguan ATM and receive bills with small tears or ink marks.

When you try to spend them at restaurants, shops, or even at the border, vendors refuse the bills entirely or accept them only at a steep discount. Meanwhile, the same vendors happily give you torn or marked bills as change. ATMs in Nicaragua dispense US dollars that have been in heavy local circulation, and vendors exploit foreigners' unfamiliarity with local currency customs to pocket the difference. As r/Nicaragua travelers note, you need pristine dollars to avoid being shortchanged throughout the country.