Panama City is the capital of Panama and the only city in the world where you can see the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans simultaneously from a single viewpoint — the Miraflores Locks viewing platform of the Panama Canal gives you both bodies of water in one panorama. The city of 1.5 million is unique in Central America as a financial and banking hub (the 50+ skyscrapers of the modern Punta Paitilla district are visible from the 400-year-old ruins of Panama Viejo), the gateway to the world's most important maritime shortcut (the Canal handles 3–5% of world trade), and the site of the most remarkable pre-Columbian ruins in Central America accessible by public transit. Panama City was actually founded twice: first as Panama La Vieja in 1519 (the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas, destroyed by Henry Morgan's pirate attack in 1671) and then as the current city (Casco Viejo, or San Felipe) in 1673, rebuilt 2 km west on a more defensible peninsula — giving the city two historic centres for the price of one. Casco Viejo (UNESCO 2003) is a crumbling-but-rapidly-gentrifying colonial district of French, Spanish and Republican-era architecture surrounding plazas where the Panamanian national anthem was first played and the Declaration of Independence from Colombia was read in 1903 — for it was here that Panama separated from Colombia with American support in order to allow the Canal to be built. The Canal itself (opened 1914, expanded with new locks in 2016) remains the most extraordinary feat of engineering in the Americas.
The four-floor museum at Miraflores (16 km from the city) explains the Canal's history, the French failure (40,000 workers died 1880–1889), the American completion (1914) and the 2016 expansion locks; the viewing platform gives live views of Panamax and New Panamax container ships passing through — the largest ships in the world navigating a 110 m-wide lock.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe UNESCO ruins of the original Panama City (founded 1519, destroyed by Morgan 1671) include the Cathedral Tower (the largest pre-Colombian colonial ruin in the Americas), the convent of San José, the bridge of the King and the gold museum — the city was the Pacific endpoint of the Camino Real (Royal Road) that transported Peruvian silver to Spain.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 1673 colonial peninsular city has crumbling French-era mansions alongside renovated boutique hotels, the Plaza de la Independencia where Panama declared independence from Colombia in 1903, the National Theatre (1907), the Metropolitan Cathedral and the rooftop bars overlooking the Pacific with the Punta Paitilla skyscrapers reflected in the bay.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePanama City's Pacific coast seafood: ceviche de corvina (sea bass ceviche marinated in lime, the national dish), langostinos (grilled prawns), octopus and the Panamanian sancocho (chicken, yuca, corn and culantro herb stew); the rooftop restaurants of Casco Viejo with views of the Bay of Panama and the city skyline at sunset.
Casco Viejo has the best nightlife in Panama City — the rooftop bars of Tantalo Hotel, the Tantalo Kitchen with Pacific ceviche, the Relic Bar in a 300-year-old colonial building and the salsa clubs of Via Argentina; Panama's musical identity blends Caribbean reggaeton with Colombian cumbia and traditional tamborito.
The Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side (80 km from Panama City by the Trans-Isthmian Highway) have a visitor centre and viewing platform overlooking the three-step lock system that raises ships 27 m to the level of Gatun Lake — the artificial lake (created by the Gatun Dam, 1913, the largest dam in the world at that time) is the world's largest man-made lake by water volume.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe San Blas Archipelago (370 islands off the Caribbean coast, 1 hr by small plane or 3 hrs by 4WD + boat) is an autonomous Guna Yala territory — the Guna people have maintained political autonomy from Panama since 1925; the islands have white sand, clear Caribbean water and the Guna mola (reverse appliqué textile panels, the finest indigenous textile art in the Americas).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideReturn to Panama City for dinner at the Miraflores Restaurant within the Canal complex — the restaurant overlooks the locks and ships pass by lit at night; the Pacific-influenced Panamanian menu with fresh fish, plantains and patacones (fried plantain chips) is excellent.
The Amador Causeway (4 km, built from Canal excavation spoil in 1913) connects four islands in the Bay of Panama with the mainland — the views from the causeway end look simultaneously at the Panama City skyline, the Canal entrance, the Bridge of the Americas and the Pacific Ocean at night.
Frank Gehry's first (and only) building in Latin America — the Biomuseo covers how the land bridge of Panama formed 3 million years ago (the Great American Biotic Interchange, when North and South American animals could first cross) and explains the extraordinary biodiversity that resulted; the colourful corrugated-steel roof is the most distinctive building in the city.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Soberanía National Park (on the Canal banks, 25 km from the city) holds the Pipeline Road — the single best bird watching road in the world (for number of species per kilometre) with 400 recorded species including harpy eagles, toucans, army ant swarms and 30+ raptor species; morning is peak activity.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Bridge of the Americas (1962, 1,653 m) was the first fixed crossing of the Panama Canal and the southernmost point of the Pan-American Highway — the view of the Canal entrance from the Pacific side, the ships queuing outside and the Canal traffic from the bridge gives the most complete understanding of the Canal's scale.
Seco Herrerano (Panama's national spirit, a cane-sugar distilled rum-like liquor from Herrera Province) with ceviche de corvina at the Mercado de Mariscos (seafood market) at the Casco Viejo waterfront — the freshest and most affordable ceviche in the city, bought from the market stalls and eaten at plastic tables above the Bay.