Panama 2025

My wife and I went to Panama for five weeks starting in late January of 2025 for our annual “get out of the Canadian winter” vacation.

We stayed in an Airbnb in Coranado which is a resort town on the Pacific coast about an hour drive from Panama City. It is popular with expats and has a number of restaurants, a nice beach, a couple of good supermarkets and other amenities including nice weather. Photos of Coranado

Panama City is the capital and largest city in Panama with a population of more than 2 million in the greater metropolitan area. The city has an Old Quarter (Casco Viejo) which is an historic area with narrow cobblestone streets, colonial architecture, plazas and churches and a modern area with impressive new skyscrapers. It also has the Pacific end of the Panama Canal with the Miraflores Locks.

We visited Panama City a couple of times and did a walk through the Old Quarter (Casco Viejo) and went to the Panama Canal visitors centre which had a very interesting Imax film on the history and construction of the canal.

I visited the Mercado De Marisco which is Panama City's seafood market. It is near the Casco Viejo district and is a large market with freshly caught fish, lobsters, shellfish, octopi, prawns, crabs and more. Beside the market is a covered area with lots of small restaurants where you can eat the fresh fish from the market. Nothing fancy and mostly out doors with plastic tables and chairs, but good, mostly inexpensive food and cold beer. Photos of the seafood market and Panama City

Another place we visited a couple of times was El Valle de Antón which is a town in central Panama which is in the crater of an extinct volcano, surrounded by mountains and cloud forest. It was about an hour drive from Coronado so easy to get to. While there we visited the Mariposario Butterfly Haven, Sendero del Chorro Macho and the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center Foundation (EVACC) which is a Panamanian non profit organization conserving some of Panama's most endangered amphibians. Photos of Butterfies and Plants, Frogs & Birds

The Mariposario Butterfly Haven is a butterfly garden with native butterflies in a natural setting.

Sendero del Chorro Macho is an area of trails through a rain forest, jungle type area with a nice waterfall.

Between Panama City and Coranado there is Altos de Campana National Park which is Panama’s first national park, established in 1966. It has an area of 4,816 hectares and is part of the Talamanca mountain range so lots of good views.