Post by sunshinedaydreams on Jan 26, 2015 18:51:03 GMT -5
Panama City only, or the rest of Panama, too? Anything in particular you like to do?
I think I commented in the thread PP linked, but I'd recommend going to Mira Flores Locks. Plan to spend a couple of hours there touring the museum, watching their 3D video about how the locks work, and watching a ship go through. Sometimes they only have a couple that go through each day since it takes 8-10 hours for them to get from Colon to Miraflores. Check ahead of time to make sure a ship will be there while you're there. You can buy beers for cheap and sit on the deck while you watch. It gets SUPER crowded, so I would be out on the deck at least 20 minutes ahead of when the ship is expected.
Eat at either Tantalo or Ego y Narciso while you're there. Both had amazing food, and are walking distance from just about anywhere in Casco Viejo.
We spent most of our time outside of PC, so I don't have a ton of recs there. If you're looking to get outside of the city:
Boquete is really nice for hiking and relaxing. We stayed at an awesome coffee estate out there for cheap and really enjoyed it. There are also some pretty good restaurants. There area couple of decent waterfall hikes, a volcano hike if you're up for it, and not much else.
Bocas del Toro is okay for beachy stuff. We stayed in Bocas Town and did a snorkel tour one day to Zapatilla, which was really beautiful. We stopped in several places and snorkeled along the way. There's pretty good coral out there. If you stay in Bocas Town, the only real way to snorkel and do beaches is to take a boat tour out.
Playon Chico/Kuna Yala was really cool. We stayed in a super, super rustic place there in over water huts. There are some really, really beautiful deserted islands out there, and they take you to snorkel around them each day. We got to see a Kuna village and learn some of the culture while we were there. We were completely disconnected (no phone, WiFi, TV, etc), but it was really nice.
Not sure what else to rec without knowing where you're planning to be. If you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them.