Panama Attractions
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Gatún Lake
The glistening, artificial heart of the Panama Canal, Lago Gatún covers what was once the fertile Chagres River Valley, until 1907 home to scores of small villages and wondrous rainforested ... Read more
Monkey Island
This popular excursion offers a festive excuse to explore a bit of the Canal, visiting an island that has been "taken over" by four species of monkey: capuchin (white face), howler, ... Read more
Panama Canal
By any estimation among the grandest public works projects in the history of humankind, the Panama Canal is an engineering triumph that cost US$350 million, claimed some 27,000 lives, and transformed ... Read more
Miraflores Locks
It is a mesmerizing scene, the massive machinery - some 700 tons of it, reinforced against the mighty Pacific - of iconic Miraflores Locks in operation. It is particularly impressive when Panamax ... Read more
Casco Viejo
Panama City's oldest surviving neighborhood is also its most defensible, a tejas-tiled cluster of primly painted colonial buildings at the tip of a heavily fortified peninsula. These ramparts ... Read more
Colon Cruise Port
Colon, Panama was founded in 1850 by Americans working to build the Panama Canal. Not surprisingly, today it is the main jumping off point for those who want to see the Panama Canal in action. It is ... Read more
Amador Causeway
Palm-lined Amador Causeway is famed for the fantastic views of Panama's skyscraping downtown, a yacht-strewn panorama across the Panama Bay to the graceful steel span of the Bridge of the Americas at ... Read more
Barro Colorado
This was once a jungled mountaintop overlooking the Chagres River Valley, which was flooded, beginning in 1907, by Lake Gatún as part of the Panama Canal. Evolutionarily isolated and protected ... Read more
Bayano Lake Caves
Sparkling like a jewel at the edge of the enormous Darién wilderness, tranquil Bayano Lake was created in 1976 and has been a scenic escape from the big city ever since. Monkeys, big cats, and ... Read more
Contadora Island
A lush, volcanic archipelago lies just south of the capital, named for its iridescent undersea wealth: The Pearl Islands. Conquered by the Spanish in 1513, the 227 palm-fringed isles, famed for their ... Read more
Fuerte Amador Cruise Port
Fuerte Amador is an island located on the west side of Panama City, Panama and is the main port of call for cruise chips just before or after traversing the Panama Canal. Panama City itself is a ... Read more
Panama Viejo Ruins
Long before smallpox, conquistadors, and Catholicism made the Americas safe for European occupation, a group of Spanish sailors laid claim to the indigenous settlement of Panamá, "Land of ... Read more
Parque Natural Metropolitano (Metropolitan National Park)
This amazingly accessible park claims to be Latin America's only municipal wildlife reserve, draped luxuriantly across 232 hectares (573 acres) in the city center. Though not exactly pristine (it was ... Read more
