Things To Do in Panama: The Ultimate Travel Guide for 2026

Panama City presents one of the world's most striking urban juxtapositions: a gleaming Las Vegas-style financial district skyline of glass towers rises just minutes from a 400-year-old colonial neighborhood, with tropical jungle visible in the distance from both. The city has been called the Miami of Latin America — a hub of offshore banking, international business, and cosmopolitan culture — but it has a historic heart that gives it genuine character.

Casco Viejo (also called Casco Antiguo or San Felipe) is the old city, founded in 1673 after pirates sacked Panama Viejo. This UNESCO World Heritage neighborhood sits on a small peninsula jutting into Panama Bay, and its pastel colonial architecture — crumbling gracefully in some blocks, meticulously restored in others — has made it the center of the city's restaurant, bar, and boutique hotel scene over the past 15 years. The restoration is ongoing and creates an interesting patchwork: a perfectly renovated boutique hotel on one block, a crumbling colonial mansion with laundry hanging from broken balconies on the next.

The main plazas — Plaza de la Independencia (the Catedral Metropolitana's twin towers dominate here), Plaza Bolívar, and Plaza Herrera — are all walkable within 15 minutes. The Museo del Canal Interoceánico (Canal Museum) on Plaza de la Independencia tells the full engineering history in excellent English for about $8. The rooftop bar at American Trade Hotel offers one of Panama City's best views over the bay.

Street food and dining in Casco: Café Coca Cola on Plaza Independencia is a Panama City institution since 1875 — order a sancocho (the Panamanian national soup, chicken with root vegetables and herbs) for about $5. Las Clementinas on Avenida B does inventive contemporary Panamanian food at reasonable prices ($20-30/person). Donde José, a tiny chef's table with a tasting menu of creative Panamanian cooking, is one of Central America's most talked-about dining experiences ($75-90/person, reservation essential months in advance).

Miraflores Visitor Center: The best viewing experience for the Panama Canal locks. About 20 minutes from Casco Viejo by Uber ($8-12), the four-story museum and observation deck at Miraflores lets you watch massive Panamax vessels pass through the locks at eye level. Entry is $15-22 depending on the package. The lock operations happen continuously but the biggest container ships pass through in the early morning — check the vessel schedule on the Panama Canal Authority website before you go. For general travel planning, visitpanama.com (Panama's official tourism site) and r/panama are both useful.

The Panama Canal is one of the genuinely great human engineering achievements — a 51-mile artificial waterway that took 10 years and 75,000 workers to build, cost the lives of over 25,000 laborers (primarily from yellow fever and malaria), and required the invention of new construction methods, new medical protocols, and the displacement of an entire ecosystem. Understanding its history makes the experience of watching a ship pass through the locks far more powerful than simply observing big boats.

The history: The French tried first, starting in 1880 under Ferdinand de Lesseps (who had successfully built the Suez Canal). They failed catastrophically after 9 years and $287 million, defeated primarily by disease. The Americans took over in 1904 under Colonel William Gorgas, who implemented systematic mosquito eradication to control yellow fever and malaria — the medical achievement that made the canal possible. The canal opened August 15, 1914, just as World War I began, somewhat overshadowing the announcement. Panama assumed full control from the US in 1999.

The expansion: The New Panama Canal — opened June 2016 — added a third set of locks and expanded the canal's capacity by 25%. The new locks are larger than the original 1914 locks, allowing Post-Panamax vessels up to 1,200 feet long to pass through. At Agua Clara Visitor Center on the Atlantic side (near Colón, about 80km from Panama City), you can watch the massive new locks in operation — often more dramatic than Miraflores because the newer lock chambers are bigger.

Canal transit by boat: The ultimate canal experience is actually transiting it. Several operators offer partial and full transit experiences. Full transit takes 8-10 hours and costs $150-200/person, usually departing from Gamboa in the middle of the canal. r/travel's Panama threads have useful firsthand accounts of the canal transit experience. Partial transits (Miraflores to Pedro Miguel or Gatún Lake sections) run $75-120. The Gamboa-to-Atlantic experience on the Pacific Queen or Pacific Prince is the most popular — you enter the Gaillard Cut (the excavated mountains section), cross Gatún Lake, and exit at Colón.

Gatún Lake: The artificial lake created when the Chagres River was dammed for the canal is the largest artificial lake in the world at the time of its creation. Today it's a wildlife-rich water body where monkeys, sloths, caimans, toucans, and over 200 bird species live. Kayak and boat tours from Gamboa offer extraordinary wildlife viewing ($40-60/person for half-day guided tours). The Gamboa Rainforest Resort's aerial tram ($35) passes over the forest canopy at the canal's edge.

Bocas del Toro is Panama's Caribbean island paradise — an archipelago of 9 main islands and hundreds of smaller islets and cays off the northwestern Caribbean coast, reached by a 50-minute flight from Panama City or a combination of bus and boat from Costa Rica. The atmosphere here is distinctly Caribbean: slow-paced, music-filled, culturally Afro-Caribbean and indigenous Ngöbe-Buglé, with crystal water in shades of green and blue that photographers consistently call unreal.

Bocas Town on Isla Colón is the main hub — a colorful wooden Caribbean town built largely on stilts over the water. The main street has hostels, restaurants, tour operators, and bars that come alive after 9pm and stay that way until well past midnight. Lonely Planet's Bocas del Toro guide has helpful logistics. (the party reputation is well-earned). Aqua Lounge Bar, built over the water with a rope swing into the sea, is the iconic Bocas experience. Budget accommodation here runs $15-30/night for a dorm; good guesthouses are $50-90/night. The standout mid-range option is Hotel Bocas del Toro (the oldest hotel in Bocas, established 1905) for around $80-100/night.

The beaches and islands: Getting to the best spots requires water taxis. A full-day boat tour of the archipelago runs about $20-25/person and typically includes Red Frog Beach on Isla Bastimentos (accessible via short jungle hike from the dock, $5 entrance fee), Crawl Cay for snorkeling with nurse sharks and starfish in the shallow grass beds, and the Dolphin Bay lagoon where spotted dolphins are commonly seen. Hospital Point near Carenero Island is one of the best snorkeling spots — coral gardens in clear water with reasonable current.

Surfing: Bocas has one of Central America's better surf scenes. Bluff Beach on Isla Colón gets 6-12 foot Caribbean swells from December-March. Silverbacks at the end of Isla Colón breaks at 12-20 feet and is world-class but for experienced surfers only. Carenero Island has a beginner-friendly reef break close to shore. Surf lessons from Bocas Town operators run about $35-50 for a 2-hour group lesson.

Isla Bastimentos: The less-developed second-largest island in the archipelago, accessible in 10 minutes by water taxi from Bocas Town ($3 each way). The indigenous Ngöbe community of Quebrada Sal on the far side of the island is worth visiting respectfully — community-run tours introduce visitors to traditional cooking, weaving, and medicinal plant knowledge ($15-25/person, book through the community). Playa Polo on Bastimentos is one of Panama's most beautiful beaches: a long stretch of wild Caribbean sand usually with very few people.

Boquete is one of Central America's most charming highland towns — a small agricultural community at 1,000-1,600 meters elevation in the Chiriquí highlands, where the climate is perpetual spring (65-75°F year-round), the Caldera River runs through town, and the slopes above town are covered in shade-grown Arabica coffee plants, strawberry fields, and cloud forest. It's also home to some of Panama's best hiking and adventure activities.

Volcán Barú dominates the landscape above Boquete. At 3,475 meters, it's Panama's highest peak and the only point in the world from which (on an extraordinarily clear day) you can see both the Pacific and Caribbean oceans simultaneously. visitpanama.com's Boquete page covers the region's main attractions. The summit hike is serious: trailhead access from Boquete starts at about 1,500m, and the round trip to the summit is 20-22km with 2,000m of elevation gain — plan for 10-12 hours total, starting at 2am to reach the summit for sunrise (the most likely clear-weather window). A local guide is strongly recommended; cost is about $30-50. If summiting isn't your goal, the forest on the lower slopes — especially around the Los Quetzales trail — is excellent bird-watching territory, with the resplendent quetzal (Central America's most iconic bird) commonly seen here from January to April.

Coffee farm tours: Boquete is at the heart of Panama's premium coffee industry. Panamanian Geisha (Gesha) coffee from farms around Boquete holds the world record for most expensive coffee at auction: Elida Estate's Natural Geisha sold for over $6,800 per pound in 2022. Guided tours of Finca Lerida, Hacienda Esmeralda (where Geisha was rediscovered), or the cooperative farms run about $20-35/person and include the full growing, harvesting, wet-milling, and roasting process. You'll drink genuinely exceptional coffee in settings of extraordinary natural beauty.

Whitewater rafting: The Chiriquí Viejo River runs through steep mountain gorges west of Boquete and offers Class III-IV rapids that are among Central America's best for adventure rafting. Operators in Boquete run half-day trips for about $65-80/person. The more remote Upper Chiriquí is Class IV-V territory for experienced paddlers.

Zip-lining: Boquete has multiple canopy tour operators — Boquete Tree Trek is the longest established, with 12 platforms and traverses through the cloud forest. Two-hour tour runs about $65/person. Not as dramatically elevated as some Costa Rican operations, but the forest setting is beautiful.

Practical notes: Boquete is 45 minutes from David, the nearest city with an airport (90-minute flights to Panama City). Buses from David to Boquete cost about $2 and run hourly. The town itself is tiny and walkable; a hostel dorm runs $12-18/night, a charming bed and breakfast $60-100/night.

The San Blas archipelago — officially the Comarca Guna Yala — is one of the most extraordinary travel destinations in the Americas. This autonomous indigenous territory of 365 islands ("one for every day of the year," as locals say) sits off Panama's Caribbean coast, administered entirely by the Guna people who have successfully resisted colonization, foreign land ownership, and forced assimilation for centuries. Visiting requires a permit, generates money directly for Guna communities, and delivers some of the most blindingly turquoise water, white sand, and palm tree scenery on earth.

Access: Flights from Panama City's Albrook Airport to various San Blas airstrips take 25-35 minutes and cost about $65-100 each way. Alternatively, the overland-and-boat route requires a 4WD truck from Panama City (2.5 hours over a rough mountain road) to the Caribbean coast at Carti, then a boat to the islands — total journey about 4 hours. The truck-and-boat transfer costs about $35-45 each way and is organized through most San Blas tour operators.

The islands: There are roughly 49 inhabited islands and 316 uninhabited. The most-visited islands include Isla Perro (Dog Island) — famous for an airplane wreck in the shallow water that makes for surreal snorkeling — Isla Diablo, Isla Pelicano, and the Robinson Crusoe-style tiny palm-island destinations where you can actually swim around the entire island in 5 minutes. Most accommodation is rustic — palm-thatched huts on the beach or over the water, shared composting toilets, no electricity from midnight to 6am, and meals prepared by the family running the lodge. Expect to pay $50-100/person/night all-inclusive (accommodation + 3 meals).

Molas and Guna culture: The Guna are famous for their molas — reverse-appliqué textile panels made by women and worn as panels on traditional blouses. These intricate geometric and figurative designs represent cosmological stories, nature, and community identity. Purchasing molas directly from Guna women is one of the most rewarding craft purchases in Panama — a hand-made mola panel takes 2-4 weeks to produce and prices range from $15-150 depending on complexity and quality.

Important cultural respect notes: The Guna operate their territory on their own terms. Photography of people requires asking permission and typically paying a small fee ($0.50-1). Some ceremonies and areas are restricted to outsiders. Alcohol is regulated (bring your own beer in moderation; spirits are often not welcome). The autonomy of the comarca is genuine — Guna law applies here, not Panamanian law in many respects. Treating the territory with the same respect you'd give a foreign sovereign territory is the right approach.

El Valle de Antón, about 2 hours west of Panama City, is one of the most geologically unusual places in Panama — a small colonial town of 7,000 people sitting inside the crater of an extinct volcano. The crater floor is remarkably flat and fertile, ringed by forested rim peaks, and the microclimate is noticeably cooler and wetter than the Pacific coast lowlands. For Panama City residents, El Valle is the closest mountain escape; for travelers, it's an easy and rewarding day trip or overnight.

What to do: The Sunday market in the central plaza is El Valle's most important event — vendors from surrounding indigenous communities sell handmade wooden furniture, ceramics, fresh produce, and the famous golden frogs (Panama's national animal, a critically endangered species). The actual live golden frogs can be seen at El Nispero zoo/botanical garden ($5 admission), which also has Panama's endemic harpy eagles and various orchid species. The waterfall of El Chorro de Macho (a short hike from the crater rim road) is picturesque, and La India Dormida hiking trail along the crater rim offers views over both the valley and the Pacific coast.

Portobelo ruins: On the Caribbean coast about 100km from Panama City (2 hours by bus and boat, or 1.5 hours by car), Portobelo was Spain's most important Caribbean port in the 16th-17th centuries — the terminus for the Camino Real gold route from Peru, and the site of repeated pirate attacks by Francis Drake (who died of dysentery offshore in 1596) and Henry Morgan. The Spanish fortifications — San Jerónimo fort, San Fernando castle, San Cristóbal battery — are largely intact UNESCO World Heritage ruins right at the waterline. The small Afro-Caribbean town around them has a strong Congo cultural tradition including the Festival del Cristo Negro (October), when devotees make pilgrimages to a revered Black Christ statue.

Pearl Islands: The Archipiélago de las Perlas in the Gulf of Panama, 75km southeast of Panama City, achieved brief international fame as the filming location for the first US Survivor season. Today the 90 islands offer excellent sport fishing, diving, and beach escape from the capital. Day trip boats from the Amador Causeway in Panama City take 2-3 hours ($80-120/day trip). Overnight at the Pearl Island Eco Lodge on Isla Contadora for $150-250/night.

The Emberá people are one of Panama's most prominent indigenous groups, traditionally inhabiting the Darién jungle and the rivers flowing into it. Many Emberá communities now offer structured cultural visits that give travelers genuine insight into traditional practices — dugout canoe travel, medicinal plant knowledge, traditional tattooing with jagua fruit, music, and craft-making — while generating sustainable income for communities that face pressure from deforestation and colonization.

Getting there: Several Emberá communities near Panama City operate day tours that include transport from the capital. The most accessible communities are along the Río Chagres in the Parque Nacional Chagres — about 90 minutes from Panama City by road and traditional dugout canoe. Companies like Emberá Drua and Eco Circuitos operate these tours with community revenue-sharing. Expect to pay $80-120/person for a full-day tour including transport, canoe ride, village visit, traditional lunch, demonstration dances, and artisan market.

What you'll experience: Arrival by dugout canoe on the river is itself a memorable experience — the river winds through primary jungle, and spider monkeys and kingfishers are commonly spotted en route. The village visit includes a demonstration of traditional tattooing (using temporary jagua fruit dye that fades in 2-3 weeks), cooking methods, medicinal plant use, and traditional dress (Emberá women wear colorful skirts and elaborate bead jewelry). The artisan woven baskets made from natural fibers are extraordinarily fine — some take weeks to make and are priced accordingly ($20-150).

The Darién proper: For serious adventure travelers, the Darién Gap — the jungle corridor connecting North and South America where the Pan-American Highway ends — is one of the world's great wilderness challenges. Organized expeditions with expert jungle guides take 10-14 days and cost $2,000-4,000. The dangers are real: the Darién has historically been the territory of FARC, drug traffickers, and human smuggling routes — research current conditions carefully and use only established, vetted expedition operators. The wildlife (harpy eagles, tapirs, jaguars, caimans) and the profound jungle immersion make it one of the world's genuinely transformative wilderness experiences for those prepared for it.

Panama is one of Central America's easiest countries to travel, with a dollarized economy (they use US dollars, called Balboas), good infrastructure in the tourist zones, and a high standard of living relative to regional neighbors.

Getting around: Copa Airlines, Panama's national carrier (a OneWorld alliance member), operates flights from Tocumen Airport to David (for Boquete and Chiriquí), Changuinola (for Bocas del Toro), and various San Blas airstrips. Domestic flights cost $60-150. Bus travel between Panama City and David takes 7-8 hours on comfortable Tica Bus or Panaline coaches ($20-25). Within Panama City, Uber and InDrive are reliable ($5-15 for most city rides).

The Causeway: The Amador Causeway connects Panama City to three small islands in Panama Bay using the rock excavated from the Canal construction. The 2-mile causeway is excellent for walking and cycling (bike rental about $5/hour), has restaurants and bars, and offers remarkable views of both the Panama City skyline and incoming ships queuing for the Canal. At night the lights of anchored container ships stretch to the horizon — dozens of vessels waiting their turn.

Accommodation by destination: Panama City mid-range hotels in Casco Viejo run $100-200/night; Bocas Town guesthouses $50-90/night; Boquete B&Bs $60-100/night; San Blas island lodges $50-100/person all-inclusive. The Azuero Peninsula (the folkloric heartland of Panama, often overlooked) has limited but growing tourism accommodation.

Food overview: Panamanian food is less complex than neighboring Colombia or Costa Rica but reliably satisfying. The national dish is sancocho — a rich chicken soup with yuca, ñame, plantain, and culantro (similar to cilantro but stronger). Carimanolas (yuca fritters stuffed with ground meat) are the street food staple. Patacones (twice-fried green plantains) accompany almost every meal. Ceviche is excellent on both coasts. A full lunch at a local fondita (canteen) costs $4-7.

Entry requirements: US citizens need a valid passport (6+ months validity) and an onward ticket. No visa required for stays under 180 days. Yellow fever vaccination required if arriving from endemic countries. No special health requirements otherwise.

Best times to visit: The Pacific side (Panama City, El Valle, Boquete) has a dry season December-April — hot, sunny, and the most popular period. Bocas del Toro has a more complex pattern: the Caribbean coast can receive rain any month, but September-October is typically the wettest. The Caribbean side is often sunny when the Pacific side is rainy (May-November) and vice versa — clever routing can mean you're always in decent weather.