Travel Guide: Backpacking Panama
Panama is often skipped on the Backpackers’ Trail, and I have no idea why. Okay, I do. Before going, I was like - what’s in Panama?? And after going I’m like - what ISN’T in Panama?? We went to Panama with no expectations and we were wowed by the epic hostels and surrounding areas that we stayed in.
Panama has epic cloud-forests, awesome rural mountain-towns, caribbean beaches to chill on and pacific beaches to surf. And it’s a relatively small country so it’s easy and quick to get around. If you’re a slow traveller like us then you’d probably like 6-8 weeks in Panama. You can easily do the country in 4 weeks though.
Cost: Panama is one of the more expensive countries in Central America (they use USD) to backpack, so it might be better off as a trip of it’s own for 3-4 weeks if you don’t have the budget to do it while backpacking. Be prepared to spend about $30-50 USD per day, per person.
Food: Panamanian food is neither amazing nor healthy; it is often imitations of American food. It is possible to find quality fresh fruit and vegetables and the backpacking staples - beans + rice - in most areas, but be prepared to eat simply. Expect a lot of empanadas, arepas, beans, rice, tacos, burgers, plantain chips and avocados. The food at all of the hostels that we stayed at was really good and hostels often had better food than local restaurants at decent prices.
Transportation: Panama is a small country which makes it easy to get around by either local public bus, colectivo or private shuttles. If you plan on taking local buses or colectivos, you will need to know a bit of Spanish to get to the right place. These are sometimes only a little cheaper than private shuttles and sometimes they are significantly cheaper, so do your research in each area that you plan to travel to and weigh up comfort vs. cost.
Bocas del Toro - The Backpackers Maldives
A big promise, we read that this was the Backpackers Maldives before going, so we dedicated 2 weeks to sweet beach time. However, after 9 nights we had seen and done it all and were getting over it - mostly because of the high cost. There are a few main islands that you can travel to and stay on, but the $5+ per person each-way water taxis get expensive, so make sure you stay on an island that you’ll spend the most of your time on and look for accommodation that offers free water taxis at least once a day.
What island to stay on?
If you want to be at the centre of everything, stay on Bocas Town (the main island).
If you want to be away from it all but with fully-catered accommodation, stay on Isla Solarte at Bambuda Lodge (my recommendation).
If you want to be secluded and on a sandy beach, stay at Red Frog Island (Bastimentos).
If you have several days at Bocas del Toro, I recommend staying in a couple of different places - we stayed on Isla Solarte and Red Frog and it was nice to see both islands.
There are only a few sandy beaches on the islands, so don’t expect to be lounging on them all day (a la Maldives). Instead, expect to be lounging on pool decks, in floaties, on docks or in hammocks. The main draw of this area is the nightlife on the main island (Bocas Town) and Filthy Fridays - a multi-island pub crawl with Spring Break vibes. Come here on a weekend to party and then chill by the pool for the week.
There are several tours offered in town that take you around the islands to see starfish, bats, dolphins and white-sand beaches (Isla Zapatilla). Make sure to negotiate prices as gringo prices are inflated. It is definitely worth doing at least one of these tours.
Stay: Bambuda Lodge, on Isla Solarte. An actual heaven for backpackers: it feels like you’re living on a luxury budget but at backpackers prices. There are free boats to the main island twice a day but you don’t even need to leave the island, or the lodge, some days. The dinners are seriously out of this world and without a doubt the best food that we had in Panama. And it has a waterslide into the ocean.
Spend: 5-9 nights here. We extended our stay twice just for the food at Bambuda Lodge.
Boquete - The Americanised Mountain-Town
Ahhhh, there is nothing when you’re backpacking like a giant, well-stocked grocery store. This was the first thing about Boquete that stole our heart - an Organic grocery shop stocking all of our favourite American gluten-free and paleo products. Hello GF protein pancakes for breakfast every morning!
The town reminds me of a slightly cheaper American ski-resort town in the summer - surrounded by mountains and Volcano Baru, this is the coffee-growing region of Panama. The climate and weather is sunny and warm with afternoon showers - perfect for doing activities in the morning and then drinking coffee on a balcony in the afternoon. The main draws to this town are coffee tours, coffee drinking and hiking (specifically Volcan Baru).
Where to drink the best coffee?
At The Perfect Pair, Ruiz Coffee Shop and Kotowa Coffee House (There’s TWO of these - don’t go to the yellow one, go to the one further up in town that sells chocolate truffles too).
Although Panama GROWS great coffee, it was a struggle throughout the entire country to find great coffee because they don’t exactly know how to MAKE great coffee. These cafes were the best that we found in Panama!
Tour: Make sure to take a coffee tour in this region (we took the coffee tour with Bambuda and it was great) as the most expensive coffee in the world is grown here!
Stay: Bambuda Castle. The same owners as Bambuda Lodge and an out-of-this-world stay for $10 a night for a bunkbed. The castle has excellent views, a Netflix TV room, communal dinners every night, great food for breakfast and lunch, coffee all day, a pool and spa (hot tub), a grassy area for activities or working out and a rock climbing wall on the outside of the castle. You can book tours directly from the castle (go on the coffee farm tour) and it’s a cheap taxi ($3 per person) or a 20-30 minute walk to get into town.
Spend: 3-7 nights here. We meant to stay 3 nights and then kept extending our stay.
Lost + Found - The Destination Hostel
By Destination Hostel, I mean this is a place where you don’t really leave the hostel (except to go hiking). And it’s amazing. Located in the Cloud Forest in Panama and surrounded by hikes, this is the perfect place to spend time hiking through the mountains, drinking tea and laying in hammocks reading a book. This is an outdoors and nature lovers dream hostel. This hostel will keep you fit on your travels!
Warning: There is a terrible 20-minute uphill (stairs) walk to get to the hostel, carrying all of your luggage. It sucks, so take breaks and whine about it, but it is totally worth it once you get to the top.
During the day, do one of the hostels’ treasure-hunt hikes or go on your own self-guided trek down to the river to swim and lay on the rocks, visit a local canyon to swim or go horseback riding. There are plenty of outdoors activities to do from here. During the afternoon, drink warm tea in a hammock (cause it gets cold up there!) and play boardgames or read. During the night, visit the hostel bar for giant jenga and drinking games.
Stay: Lost + Found Hostel. It’s literally the only place around. It’s amazing. There is SO. MUCH. WILDLIFE. HERE. Butterflies (and insects) EVERYWHERE. You can easily get here from Boquete (or vice versa) via vans or buses. If you tell any bus driver to take you to Lost + Found Hostel (or in Spanish: Objectos Perdidos), they will know where to drop you off.
Spend: 4 nights here. They had a deal running where you stay 3 nights and get the 4th night free when we went!
Playa Venao - The Beginner Surfers Dream
We got lost in the wormhole that is Playa Venao and we ended up extending our stay multiple times to stay for 2 weeks. Could’ve stayed a couple of months happily. There are a lot of places in Panama for more expert surfers, but this is the place for beginner surfers (and more experienced as well). Set within a horseshoe shaped cove, the bigger waves break in the middle and taper out to smaller waves along the sides. So anyone can find their perfect wave. The waves were gentle, rolling waves that break left and right and the surf was consistently good.
Playa Venao is a strange place. It isn’t even a town. Before hostels and hotels started arriving a few years ago, there was nothing there. So there’s hardly any locals, no infrastructure like grocery stores and police stations, and it has a very Wild, Wild West vibe about it because you can trek up into the cow paddocks and pick your own magic mushrooms and then chill on the beach listening to techno all day.
If you are looking for max pool/beach chill time and a laid-back environment with not much to do but surf, then you will love Playa Venao like we did.
Stay: Selinas Playa Venao (get a teepee tent if you can). We LOVED staying here so much - the staff was amazing and friendly, they made great food and cocktails and there were plenty of places to chill in hammocks, watch movies in refurbished school-buses and plenty of room along the beach to surf or tan.
Note: This is a pretty remote location, so if you intend on doing anything besides surfing and drinking, then you will need to take the local bus to Pedasi or Las Tablas to do so. These bigger towns are equipped with grocery stores, hardware stores and restaurants. The local bus leaves from just outside the Selinas hostel; ask for the timetable at the hostel.
Eat: The food here is amazing. It has a heavily Israeli influence so expect to get mostly hummus. We loved The Hummuseria that serves one dish: hummus + things to dip in it. Get the chicken shwarma plate at Coleos and I promise you it will be the best thing that you eat in Panama. La Bicicleta does a cheap menu del dia and Pizza Gavilan + El Sitio have a bit pricier food but are worth a visit.
Spend: 1-2 weeks here and try not to get caught in the surfing, chilling, techno wormhole.
Panama City - The Trash-Can City
Our first venture into civilisation after about 6 weeks in Panama, the City just didn’t cut it for us. While the old city Casco Viejo is cute to walk around for an hour or so, there aren’t any attractions and we didn’t find any good food either. There are far better cities (ahem, Medellin), so don’t waste your time here - come to catch a flight and stay only 1 or 2 nights.
Stay: Luna’s Castle or Selinas Hostel.
Spend: 1-2 nights here or as little as possible.
San Blas Islands - Panama -> Colombia
The San Blas Islands are always heavily debated by travellers - should I go? Or should I skip it? - Well, I think it should definitely be a GO if you have interest in experiencing life on beautiful remote Caribbean Islands. Hint: It’s paradise.
It was a really different experience than the rest of Panama and it was epic - sleeping in hammocks, getting to know the local indigenous communities (The Kuna), eating fresh coconuts and living with no power, running water or wi-fi for a few days. If you’re looking for a few relaxing days to unplug and unwind and be totally remote - this is the perfect place.
You can take tours that leave and return back near Panama City, but we chose to take the most popular route - using this tour to get from Panama to Colombia. You can also do it vice versa from Colombia to Panama. The only other way to get from Panama to Colombia, and vice versa, is by flight because a dense and dangerous forest - The Darien Gap - borders Panama and Colombia so there is no land crossing available. You can either choose to take a sailboat or a speedboat on this journey - the sailboats drop you off in touristy Cartegena, while the speedboats drop you off in Capurgana, a tiny town on the border of Panama + Colombia. You then have to make the 10-12 hour trip to Cartagena or Medellin via ferry + bus after spending a couple of days in Capurgana.
We took the speedboat tour with San Blas Adventures and it was perfectly organised and catered for. All we had to do all day was choose our activities and hang out with everyone on the tour: it felt like a tropical travelling hostel. The best thing about it was that wherever we went in Colombia for the next month, we bumped into someone from our tour! It was nice having a big group of friends scattered around a country while you explore it.
Well, that’s all of the places that we got to in Panama! It really was a gem to backpack and I highly recommend it. If we had more time, we would have gone to Santa Fe and Santa Catalina and Kalu Yala as well - we heard good things about these places!
I could go more in-depth about all of these places, but the beauty of travelling is figuring it out for yourself, winging it, discovering these gems and creating your own itinerary more from the soul than the computer.
