A country you can cross before lunch, used properly: the canal and the restored colonial quarter, rainforest twenty minutes from a skyline, the Guna archipelago on the Caribbean, and coffee country in the western highlands.
Panama City
Land and go straight to Casco Viejo — the walled quarter rebuilt after Henry Morgan burned the original city in 1671, restored over the last two decades and now a UNESCO site of plazas, balconies and rooftop bars looking back at the skyline across the bay.
The locks
Miraflores on the Pacific side has the viewing platform and the museum; Agua Clara on the Caribbean side shows the 2016 expansion locks with their water-saving basins and is the better engineering visit. Check the transit schedule before going — the platform is only worth it when a ship is in the chamber.
Rainforest before breakfast
Pipeline Road in Soberanía National Park, forty minutes from the financial district, has recorded some of the highest single-day bird counts anywhere on earth. Go at dawn with a guide. Afternoon: the ruins of Panamá Viejo, the city Morgan destroyed.
To Guna Yala
A pre-dawn 4x4 over the cordillera to Cartí, then a boat out to the islands. Guna Yala is autonomous territory, governed by the Guna since an armed revolution in 1925; you enter on their terms, pay their fees, and stay in community-run lodging.
Islands
Sand, palms, reef and very little else — no resorts, limited electricity, and molas for sale made by the women who sew them. Rising sea levels are forcing the relocation of some communities to the mainland, and that conversation is happening while you visit.
West to Boquete
Back to the city and fly or take the overnight bus to David, then up into the Chiriquí highlands. Boquete sits at 1,200 metres under Volcán Barú and the temperature drops by ten degrees, which is the point.
Coffee and quetzals
A farm tour on the slopes where the geisha varietal — the one that regularly sets world auction records — is grown, followed by a cupping. Afternoon on the Sendero Los Quetzales, a cloud-forest trail where the bird is genuinely findable in season.
Volcán Barú, or the hot springs
Barú is 3,475 metres and on the rare clear morning you can see both oceans from the summit — a brutal overnight hike or a 4x4 up the track. The gentler alternative is the Caldera hot springs and the lost-waterfalls trail.
Bocas del Toro
Over the Talamanca range to the Caribbean and a boat to the archipelago: Afro-Caribbean, English-Creole speaking, built on stilts over the water, with reef and mangrove and a very different rhythm from anywhere else in the country.
Out
Fly Bocas to Panama City for the international connection. Domestic schedules are tight — do not plan a same-day long-haul departure without a buffer.
Dobré vedieť
Panama uses the US dollar (locally called the balboa for coins). Cards work widely, which is not true of every neighbour.
Guna Yala requires paying community entry fees and, in most cases, arranging the 4x4 and boat as a package. It is not a place to improvise, and photography of people requires asking.
The Darién Gap is not a trekking route. It is currently one of the most dangerous irregular migration corridors in the world and should not be attempted.
Kratšie či dlhšie?
City, canal, Soberanía and Guna Yala — no western highlands leg.
Add three days on Contadora or Isla San José in the Pacific, an hour by air from the capital.
Cross west from Bocas at Sixaola into the Costa Rican Caribbean.