Panama City

Updated October 2026

Overview and Things to Consider

Panama City is a banking capital with a seventeenth-century peninsula stuck to one end and a rainforest parked beside its canal. The skyline along the bay looks like Miami. South of it, Casco Viejo is a grid of restored balconied houses and roofless churches, with cheap dorms down one street and boutique hotels and bars on the next. West of downtown, ships are lifted through the Miraflores Locks on their way to Gatun Lake. About 1.09 million people were counted in the 2023 census, and on a weekday it feels like a city that works first and entertains second.

You'll like it if you want a city that's easy to drop into from a long-haul flight. It uses US dollars, Copa connects it to most of the hemisphere, and you can be on a rainforest trail by 7 a.m. You'll hate it if you came for a walkable colonial city like Cartagena or Antigua. Outside Casco, the city is highways, malls and towers, the sidewalks give out, and the humidity runs from 67 percent in March to 85 percent in October.

The 2026 moment is about water. Panama's canal depends on rain in Gatun Lake, and an El Niño year has brought the transit caps back. Since September 15 the old Panamax locks, the ones you watch at Miraflores, are down to 23 booking slots a day. If ships are the point of your visit, time it around them.

What's overrated is the Amador Causeway as a destination in itself. It's a pleasant evening walk or bike ride out to four small islands with a view of the skyline and the Bridge of the Americas, plus the Biomuseo, but past that it's restaurants, a cruise terminal and a marina, and you'll have seen it in an hour.

How Panama City Got Here

Pedrarias Dávila founded the first Panama on August 15, 1519, the first Spanish city on the Pacific coast of the Americas. For 150 years it was a funnel. Silver from Peru came up the coast, crossed the isthmus on the Camino Real, and sailed for Spain from the fairs at Nombre de Dios and Portobelo. In January 1671 Henry Morgan crossed with about 1,400 men and the city burned. The ruins of that first city are Panamá Viejo, on the eastern side of today's city.

The replacement, founded on January 21, 1673, about 8 kilometers southwest on a walled peninsula, is today's Casco Viejo. Three eighteenth-century fires reshaped it, and most of what you see dates from the late 1800s and early 1900s, which is why French and Afro-Antillean facades stand beside colonial ruins. In 1903 Panama broke from Colombia with US backing, and the canal opened on August 15, 1914, with a US-run Canal Zone splitting the country. In 1989 the US invasion to remove Manuel Noriega started fires that destroyed most of El Chorrillo, the neighborhood next to Casco. The canal passed to Panama on December 31, 1999. Casco has since gone from decay to boutique hotels, a gentrification story you'll see on every block.

Getting There and Around

Almost everyone lands at Tocumen International (PTY), about 32 kilometers northeast of downtown and the hub for Copa. It handled about 21 million passengers in 2025. There are two terminals. Terminal 2 opened for flights in June 2022, and Air France and KLM moved there in early 2023, so check yours. A free shuttle links them from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. Domestic flights, including those to Bocas del Toro, use Albrook (PAC), a few minutes from the center.

The cheap way in is the Metro de Panamá, whose airport branch opened on March 16, 2023. From the terminal, ride the airport shuttle to Aeropuerto station, take a Line 2 shuttle train to Corredor Sur, cross to the platform for San Miguelito, then change to Line 1 at San Miguelito for Vía Argentina, Iglesia del Carmen and 5 de Mayo. Line 2 costs $0.50, Line 1 $0.35, and a trip on both $0.85. The rechargeable card is $2 from station machines, and the gates take contactless Visa and Mastercard. Trains run 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays, and bags up to 100 by 75 by 65 centimeters are allowed. The alternative is the airport's official taxi cooperative, with fixed fares posted on the Tocumen airport site: $30 to the center, $35 to Albrook and $38 to Amador for up to two people.

US and Canadian citizens can stay up to 180 days without a visa, and UK citizens up to three months, according to the UK Foreign Office. Sources disagree for EU and Australian passports, with some listing 90 days and others 180, so check with Panama's migration service if you plan a long stay. The UK says your passport should be valid for six months beyond your departure, and that you may be asked for an onward ticket and proof of at least $1,000 or a credit card. Panama uses the US dollar. Its own currency, the balboa, exists only as coins pegged one to one and spent interchangeably with US coins.

Inside the city, the Metro's Line 1 runs north from Albrook bus terminal through 5 de Mayo, Iglesia del Carmen and Vía Argentina to San Miguelito and Villa Zaita, and Line 2 runs east toward the airport and Nuevo Tocumen. Neither reaches Casco Viejo or the Causeway. MetroBus fills the gaps but takes only cards, which also cover the Metro and the 10-cent turnstile at Albrook. Street taxis are yellow, carry no meters and charge by zone, and Wikivoyage writers report that they routinely quote visitors several times the real fare. Uber and inDrive both work, and the UK government recommends ride-hailing or hotel-booked cars over street taxis.

What's Changed Since 2016

The rail network barely existed in 2016. Metro Line 2 opened on April 25, 2019, the airport branch on March 16, 2023, and Line 1 extended north to Villa Zaita on April 25, 2024. Ridership hit 420,000 a day in March 2026. Line 3, a 24.5-kilometer monorail with 11 stations, was 75 percent built as of May 2026, with commercial service planned for October 2028.

Tocumen's Terminal 2, inaugurated in April 2019, didn't take a flight until June 22, 2022. Passenger numbers kept climbing after that, from about 17.8 million in 2023 to 19.3 million in 2024 and about 21 million in 2025.

In October and November 2023, protests over a 20-to-40-year contract for the Cobre Panamá copper mine closed stretches of the Pan-American Highway for days on end, causing shortages around the country. They wound down after the Supreme Court struck down the contract on November 28, 2023. The UK government still warns that protests in Panama tend to come with roadblocks that can cut off borders and airports.

The canal has had two droughts in three years. In December 2023 low water in Gatun Lake cut transits to 22 a day, against about 36 in normal times, before rains brought them back. On August 20, 2026, with El Niño strengthening, the Panama Canal Authority announced caps again, 34 a day from September 3 and 32 from September 15. A new reservoir on the Río Indio is meant to fix this, but resettlement of affected families begins in 2027 and construction isn't due to finish until 2031.

Prices moved too. Panamá Viejo raised its fees in October 2024, to $17 for non-resident adults. In June 2024, about 300 Guna families left the overcrowded island of Gardi Sugdub in San Blas for Isber Yala, a new village built for them on the mainland. Overcrowding and rising seas drove the move, which elders had first raised in 2008.

What the Usual Advice Gets Wrong

"Panama City is just a connection; stay airside and keep going." Copa's stopover program lets you break the trip for 24 hours to 15 days on the way out or back at no additional airfare, on new bookings. Even one night gets you Miraflores, Casco Viejo and an early morning on Pipeline Road.

"There's no train from Tocumen, so take a taxi." Aeropuerto Metro station opened in March 2023 and the ride costs 50 cents on Line 2. You do need the airport shuttle to reach the station and a change at Corredor Sur. With heavy bags at midnight, the cooperative's fixed $30 taxi to the center is the better call.

"Go to the Miraflores Locks any time and you'll see ships going through." The canal authority posts each day's transit windows on its visitor-center site, and on October 3, 2026 ships were in the Miraflores locks only until 8:15 a.m. and again from 1:55 p.m. The 2026 drought caps also cut the Panamax locks to 23 slots a day from September 15. The $17.22 ticket includes a 45-minute IMAX film narrated by Morgan Freeman to fill any gap, but check the schedule before you go.

"San Blas is an easy day trip from the city." It's a 2.5-hour jeep ride each way, with pickups between 4:30 and 5 a.m., $35 for the jeep and a $20 entry tax charged by the Guna Yala Congress. Stay at least one night on an island or the trip is mostly road.

"Casco Viejo is the safe tourist zone, so wander anywhere." The restored blocks are busy at night, but El Chorrillo and Santa Ana, which border Casco, are on the UK government's list of high-crime neighborhoods. Turn back where the restoration ends, and take a ride-hailing car after dark.

Ideas to Consider for Your Visit

Have you thought about seeing the canal from the forest instead of a viewing deck? Pipeline Road runs into Soberanía National Park from Gamboa, about 40 minutes by car from the city, and in 1985 an Audubon count logged 385 bird species there in 24 hours. The Panama Rainforest Discovery Center, run by the Eugene Eisenmann Avifauna Foundation, has a 32-meter tower with 174 steps that puts you level with the canopy. Entry is $30 for foreign visitors. MetroBus runs from Albrook to Gamboa, but it doesn't run often, so check the schedule first.

Give Casco Viejo a morning and an evening, not a midday. Start at the cathedral plaza, where the Museo del Canal occupies the old headquarters of the French canal company. It's $15 for non-resident adults, open Tuesday to Sunday, and the French failure it covers is a better story than anything told at Miraflores. Come back after dark, when the heat drops and the bars fill. For dinner, Fonda Lo Que Hay on Calle José de Obaldía cooks Panamanian food with a sense of humor: fish empanadas, mondongo with coconut rice, octopus with green curry, and raspao, the shaved-ice dessert with syrup and condensed milk, done in a paila for $11. Most mains run $16 to $38.

Panamá Viejo is worth the trip east. The $17 non-resident ticket at the Patronato Panamá Viejo covers the museum, the cathedral tower lookout, the ruins and the internal shuttle, from Tuesday to Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Go early, because the ticket office closes at 4:30. On the way back, stop at the fish market where the road enters Casco Viejo. The restaurants upstairs serve cheap, fresh fish, and corvina is what Panamanian ceviche is usually made from.

Taboga is the easy island. Taboga Express leaves from the Fuerte Amador mall on Isla Flamenco, at the end of the Causeway, and gets there in 30 minutes for $24 round trip. About 1,600 people live on the island, about 20 kilometers from the city, and it and its neighbors are a breeding site for brown pelicans. At low tide a sandbar joins its northern end to El Morro. It's the closest place to the city where you can swim.

The Biomuseo is Frank Gehry's first building in Latin America, at the start of the Causeway by the Pacific entrance to the canal. It opened in October 2014, and its permanent exhibitions explain how the rise of the isthmus reshaped the ecology of the Western Hemisphere. Adults pay $20, and it's open Tuesday to Sunday, but only until 3 p.m. Pair it with an early-evening walk or bike ride along the Causeway as the skyline lights up.

For a real day out, Portobelo is the Caribbean side's answer to Casco. It was one of the ports of the old silver route and is now a UNESCO-listed set of forts on a deep bay. By bus, take the Colón Express from Albrook and get off at the Rey supermarket in Sabanitas, then change to the Portobelo bus. Wikivoyage writers put the trip at about an hour and 45 minutes and under $5 each way. A taxi from Tocumen is $120.

The Part Most Guides Miss

The best thing in Panama City is a rainforest inside the city limits. The Parque Natural Metropolitano covers 232 hectares of humid and dry tropical forest. Its managers say it's the only natural park inside a metropolitan city anywhere in Latin America, and dry tropical forest has vanished from 75 percent of Panama. Gates open at 7 a.m. daily and adults pay $5. Walk the Camino del Mono Tití up to the Los Trinos lookout in the first hours, before the heat sets in, then catch a car to Miraflores for the afternoon ship window, which opened at 1:55 p.m. on the day we checked. Most guides lead with the locks and skip the forest. Do both, in that order.

Where to Base Yourself

Casco Viejo. The best base for a first visit of two or three nights. Everything in the old quarter is walkable, the restaurants, bars and nightclubs are here, and hostels on Hostelworld list dorms from about $20. The downsides are noise until late on weekends, no Metro station, and a hard edge to the west and north where the restoration stops and El Chorrillo and Santa Ana begin.

El Cangrejo, Obarrio and San Francisco. The practical base. Wikivoyage writers rate these central neighborhoods, along with Marbella and the Banking Area, among the city's safest, and Vía Argentina and Iglesia del Carmen stations put you on Line 1 to Albrook and the airport. You get supermarkets and cheaper rooms than in Casco, and you lose the history. Casco is a short ride-hailing trip away.

Gamboa. For birders and anyone using the city mainly as a gateway. You sleep in Gamboa, on the edge of Soberanía National Park, near the start of Pipeline Road and the Rainforest Discovery Center. The cost is isolation. MetroBus service from Albrook is limited, and the official airport taxi is $55.

Realities to Be Aware Of

Costs here are about the bed and the entry fees. On a budget, a $9 to $26 dorm, a day of Metro and MetroBus rides at 25 to 85 cents each, and the $5 Metropolitan park come to roughly $15 to $35 before food, and every big sight adds $15 to $20. In the middle range, the sums climb fast. Miraflores and Panamá Viejo plus one main course at Fonda Lo Que Hay, where mains run $16 to $38, come to about $50 to $75 before the room, and the fixed airport taxi is $30 each way.

Safety comes down to where you are. The UK government lists San Miguelito, El Chorrillo, Río Abajo, 24 de Diciembre, Santa Ana and Juan Díaz as the high-crime neighborhoods, and it advises against walking alone or in poorly lit areas at night. It also warns of muggings at Albrook Mall, on Vía España and Avenida Central, in Casco Viejo and at the Panamá Viejo ruins. East of a line from Punta Carreto to Yaviza and Punta Piña, near the Colombian border, the UK says to travel only in an organized group. Taxis are the everyday hassle. They have no meters, so ask a local what the fare should be, agree it before you get in, and keep your bags out of the trunk.

Dress like a city resident, not a beachgoer. Panamanians dress neatly, and Wikivoyage notes that shorts, especially above the knee, are frowned on in town and can get you refused at banks and government offices. Tap water is safe in Panama City. The bay is not, as the UK government says it's too polluted to swim in. Same-sex relationships have been legal since 2008, but the Supreme Court ruled in March 2023 that there is no right to same-sex marriage. Panama's first Pride march was held in 2005.

If Panama City Is Part of a Longer Trip

Panama City's real value on a long trip is as a hinge. Copa, a Star Alliance member, flies to about 89 destinations from Tocumen, including Lima, Quito, Bogotá, Havana and Mexico City, so the hub that links North and South America is also a free stopover. If you're stitching several of those into one ticket, AirTreks builds multi-stop routes through hubs like this one.

Overland north is a long night. Tica Bus and Expreso Panamá run nightly from Albrook to San José, about 15 to 16 hours with the slow border, and Wikivoyage writers say you need your passport just to buy a ticket. Buses to Bocas del Toro leave nightly around 6:30 p.m. and take about 11 hours. David is 6 to 9 hours by bus. Flights to Bocas leave from Albrook and save most of a day.

South there's no road. The Darién Gap has no highway, and the border region is one the UK government says to visit only in an organized group. The overland-ish way to Colombia is by sea through San Blas. San Blas Adventures runs a 5-day, 4-night island-hopping trip to Sapzurro and Capurganá for $595, cut to $545 in an offer running to December 15, plus the $35 jeep and $20 Guna tax, then a ferry to Necoclí for 95,000 Colombian pesos. Sailboats such as Blue Sailing cover the 210-plus nautical miles to Colombia in 4 to 5 nights from $670 for 2026 departures. Ask your operator exactly how the Panama exit stamp works before you pay.

Yearly Things to Consider

The seasons are about rain, not temperature. Daily highs stay between 88°F and 92°F all year, but January to March averages under an inch of rain a month and about 70 percent sunshine, while May to November gets 7.5 to 12.3 inches a month and sunshine falls to about a third. December and April are the transitions. That makes December to April, the dry season, the time most visitors come.

The counterintuitive part is the canal. The best weather for you comes in the dry season, which is also when Gatun Lake drains and transit limits appear, as they did in 2023 to 2024 and again in September 2026. If watching ships is the point, check the day's transit windows on the canal's visitor-center site before you go, and don't assume the rainy season means a quiet canal. The 2026 cuts came in the middle of the wet season.

Ideas for Itineraries

3 Days in Panama City

Day one, take the Metro in from Tocumen and walk Casco Viejo in the late afternoon, with the Museo del Canal if it's open and dinner at Fonda Lo Que Hay. Day two, start at the Parque Natural Metropolitano at 7 a.m., give the late morning to the Biomuseo before its 3 p.m. close, and take a taxi to Miraflores for the afternoon ship window. Day three, go out early to Pipeline Road and the Rainforest Discovery Center in Gamboa, back for a fish lunch upstairs at the market by Casco before your flight.

5 Days in Panama City

Do the three-day plan, then give two days to San Blas. Book a jeep and an island stay, be outside for the 4:30 to 5 a.m. pickup, budget the $20 Guna tax, and sleep at least one night on an island so the 2.5-hour drive each way is worth it. If the sea's rough or your budget's tight, swap San Blas for Taboga on day four and Panamá Viejo on the morning of day five.

1 Week in Panama City

A week allows for one day at a time. Casco and the canal take two, the Metropolitan park and Panamá Viejo another, Gamboa a third, and then two nights in San Blas. Use the last day for Portobelo by bus via Sabanitas, with its forts on the bay, and be back at Albrook by dark. Base yourself in Casco for the first half and El Cangrejo for the second, near Line 1 for an easy ride to the airport.

2 Weeks or More in Panama City

Two weeks lets you use Panama City as a base and leave it. After the city week, take the night bus or a flight from Albrook to Bocas del Toro, or go west to El Valle, about 2.5 hours by hourly bus. For a longer city stay, rent in El Cangrejo or Obarrio, where Line 1 at Vía Argentina puts the rest of town in reach, and leave Casco for evenings. Weekend trips that work by public transport include Taboga, Portobelo and Gamboa, and if you're continuing south, finish with the San Blas boat to Colombia.

Sources

What this guide is built on. Every page below was read for this guide; prices and rules were checked in October 2026.

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