Panama

In this Panama Special Report, we bring you the areas of Balboa, La Boca, and Amador Causeway, all located within Panama City.

Only a few miles away from the hustle and bustle, the bright lights, and the hectic honking of cab horns, brings you to what used to be considered the Canal Zone. You know you’ve entered this area when on one side you see multicolored storage containers stacked one on top of the other, like a Lego village, while on the opposite side of the street you see boxy, tan-colored old military barracks and government buildings.

Bocas del Toro is a tourist town. In fact, it is often regarded as Panama’s top tourist destination—and for good reason, too. Bocas del Toro Province is one of the most pristine areas on Panama’s Caribbean coast, and tourists have started to take note of its dense rain forests, clear and clean turquoise water, and white-sand beaches.

Bocas del Toro is a province in Panama consisting of a small portion of the mainland as well as an archipelago of nine islands. It borders the Caribbean Sea to the north, Chiriquí to the south, Costa Rica to the west, and the indigenous Ngöbe-Bugle comarca to the east.

Minutes after stepping off the water taxi that takes you to Bocas Town, on the Bocas del Toro archipelago’s Isla Colón, tour guides are waiting to pounce with their offers of island hopping, scuba diving, surf lessons, ziplining, and more. Hostels, hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, restaurants, cafés, and bars surround the main seafront strip where the water taxis unload the wide-eyed visitors.

But Bocas is so much more than just tourists… The 19,000 or so residents in town consist of surfers, fishers, and entrepreneurs, including local indigenous people, Panamanians, and foreigners. Like much of Panama, Bocas is a multicultural mix.

Bocas town has a distinctly Caribbean flair (not surprisingly, given that it’s located on the Caribbean coast). Rastafarian culture is present in the music, shops, and restaurants, and Bob Marley blasts from bar speakers and adorns tourist T-shirts. Don’t be confused though. This isn’t Jamaica; Bocas Town just feels like Jamaica.

In this Panama Special Report, we bring you a closer look at the District of Chame and its most popular town, Punta Chame, which—in high season—draws beach-goers of all stripes, from surfers, kite-surfers, sport-fishermen, extreme sport-lovers, etc.

While it shares the same stretch of coastline as expat hot spot Coronado (which has seen major development over the past decade), Chame remains largely undiscovered, unpenetrated, and underrated.

Located in the Panamá Oeste Province, Chame comprises 11 small towns that sprawl out along the Panamerican Highway. On the hour-and-a-half drive it takes to reach the area from Panama City, you pass national parks, sleepy hamlets, mountains, and mangrove forests before finally arriving at the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean.

In this Panama Special Report, we bring you the city of Colón, which in many ways is the counterpoint to Panama City, which is located on the opposite end of the Panama Canal.

Aside from Panama City’s colonial old town, nowhere else in Panama has the same architectural charm—except for Colon.