I finally used my flight benefits for an international trip! If you don’t know, earlier this year I was hired by an airline as a flight attendant (I know, the perfect job for me). In (January) my boyfriend Dustin and I headed to Panama City, Panama. My biggest takeaways from Panama were:
- It’s very Americanized, more so than I expected
- It’s pretty expensive
- definitely make the journey out of the city, it takes a while but it’s so worth it for activities and day trips
Where we stayed:
Summit Rainforest & Golf Resort: We stayed here the first few nights in Panama, it was a very beautiful hotel with free breakfast and the conceirege was very helpful. The hotel also offered day activities like the monkey island tour and a day of hanging out with sloths! However, the hotel is pretty far from the city center so I would recommend staying here for a night or two but then staying closer to the city center. The rest of our time spent in Panama we spent in an airbnb.
Activities:
monkey island tour: this was more expensive than I thought; I had heard 16$ but it was 60$ each. You get to take a boat trip out to several islands and see monkeys and other wildlife. It was cool but not sure it was worth 120$ for two people….
Panama Canal: obviously you have to go see this! They do have two options one includes an IMAX movie, I would avoid that one but we didn’t realize this until we were charged for it…..
San Blas Islands: this was definitely one of the activities i would most highly recommend! The water is beautiful and it makes for a nice beach day, if you’re the type that’s good at roughing it you can camp out overnight!
Surfing in playa del palmar: we had to take an Uber both ways but a lot of the ocean near Panama City isn’t clean to swim in so we figured it was worth it.
Explore the old town in Panama City, Casco Viejo
Bocas del toro: we didn’t do this but if we had more time we would have!!!!
Where to eat!
Lazotea Restaurant: This place was so perfect! The atmosphere, the view, the service the FOOD! If there was a place I would recommend it would be this one.
Santa Rita: located right next to Lazotea, this restaurant did not allow alcohol or have any since it was a holiday, but you didn’t need any. The food was so delicious, it had more of a “sit down dressed-up Sunday dinner atmosphere” where Lazotea is more of a saturday night drinks, dinner and dancing atmosphere. But, both places had insanely delicious food.
Diablicos: Located in the city center of Panama City’s old town, this place was delicious and not insanely priced, out of all the places we ate I would rate this as the second or third best.
Cafe Coca Cola: This is one of the oldest restaurants in Panama City, food was insanely affordable and pretty good, we had breakfast here.
Tosto: A great place to just grab coffee and a breakfast pastry.
Mahalo Cocina & Jardin: We only had cocktails here but the food looked pretty good as well, the cocktails were interesting and tasty.
Manglar Restaurant: We walked here from Playa del Palmar after surfing and I had the shrimp tacos, they were so good oh my god.
La Taberna Del Canal: This place was okay, not outstanding not bad just a decent place, we had the paella.
Last minute Notes
Ubers are fairly cheap to get around, a lot of the drivers don’t speak english though so brush up on your Spanish
American dollars are accepted, always carry some cash
They do charge an exit fee at the airport, I found this weird but whatever we had to pay it to get home (haha)
Runaway Blond 