Highlights of Panama City

Welcome to Panama City! Upon arrival to the airport, take time to collect your bags before enjoying a private transfer to your hotel. Once checked in, spend the day at your leisure! Roam the streets, sample the food, and immerse yourself in the culture!

Accommodation: Plaza Paitilla Inn Hotel

Start your morning off with a filling breakfast to prepare for a day full of fun! After meeting your guide, you will drive to the ruins of Old Panama and begin to trace the colonial roots of the city. Climb the cathedral tower to take in the views of the city and later, visit the Old Panama City Museum to get a deeper understanding of the nation’s history. Continue on to Casco Antiguo, which dates back to the 1600’s, making your way down the picturesque lanes. Visit landmarks such as the Flat Arch, Las Bovedas and the French Plaza, and learn about the ill-fated attempt of the French to construct a canal through the isthmus. Throughout the tour, your guide will share details around the events that led to the establishment of the capital in its current location, and the tour concludes with a private transfer back to your hotel.

This afternoon, spend a few hours with local chefs and learn to prepare a few acclaimed Panamanian dishes. Depending on what produce is in season, you’ll learn to make a range of dishes, potentially including the famous sancocho de pollo, which is Panama’s tasteful version of chicken soup, or patacones, a dish prominently featuring smashed green plantains, served with octopus ceviche. This fun and unique experience also affords one of the best souvenirs possible: the ability to recreate delicious, local dishes in your own kitchen back home. The cooking class will include two appetizers, one main, and one side, and the meal following your cooking class will be accompanied by one drink (water, soda or wine) and dessert (pre-made). Following your Panamanian cooking class, your guide will transfer you back to your hotel. Please advise your Destination Specialist of any dietary restrictions or food allergies you or your fellow travellers have.

Experience the Panama Canal and its lush surroundings from a unique perspective on a privately guided boat tour introducing you to the biodiverse ecosystem of this part of the Isthmus. After an early morning pick-up from your hotel lobby, along with your naturalist guide in tow, you will head to the town of Gamboa, where the Chagres River meets the Panama Canal. Here you will board a boat and start a jungle expedition across Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal. Pass by the giant cargo ships transiting the waterway and notice the sharp contrast they cast against the natural tropical surroundings. Along the way, watch out for the plethora of resident wildlife, including three toed sloths resting on tree branches, ospreys hunting for peacock basses, snail kites, keel-billed toucans, and many others. Your boat tour will circle several rainforest-clad islands on Gatun Lake in search for a variety of primates, such as the white-faced capuchin and mantled howler monkey. Your day continues as you visit Panama Canal’s Miraflores Locks where large ships transit the canal. Learn about the history of the Canal, marvel at the workings of this feat of human engineering and break for a tasty lunch. The tour then continues to the Panama Canal area, stopping by the town of Balboa, a former part of the Panama Canal Zone, and ends in the afternoon with a private transfer back to your hotel.

Early in the morning, your guide will meet you at your hotel for a drive across the Isthmus of Panama to the Caribbean province of Colon. Once you arrive, you will have the opportunity to visit the Agua Clara Visitors Center and be amazed by the panoramic view of the locks. It has the same concept of the Gatun Locks, but was reinvented to handle bigger cargo, re-using water and locking the chambers with rolling gates. After enjoying the panoramic view, continue onto the screening room where you will learn more about the construction and efforts of Panamanians to create this modern engineering masterpiece. Afterwards, pass through an old military ground to reach Fort San Lorenzo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built at the mouth of the Chagres River, this Spanish bastion served to fortify and protect the river entrance to Las Cruces Trail that led to Panama City on the Pacific Ocean. This entrance was later used as the port of entry for gold diggers on their way to California during the second half of the 19th century. You will be traveling through the lush rainforest within San Lorenzo National Park, where, with luck, you may see monkeys, two and three-toed sloths, coatimundis, toucans and other wildlife. Following the tour, you will be returned to your hotel in Panama City.

Today is yours to enjoy! Stroll through the city, explore the coast, or just spend the day lounging on the beach by the crystal blue waters! 

After enjoying one last breakfast, gather your bags and head to the airport via private transfer to catch your flight home.