I love you Panama City.

I <3 Panama City.

City of lights, of tropical artsy vibe, of street cats and uptown feels and terraces overlooking the stunning skyline of skyscrapers and lights. Of the land stretching along the ocean, of accented foreign English, of people from all over the world, of bumpin’ reggaeton and amapolas (virgin piña coladas) and seafood. Of clean drinking water (apparently, I didn’t try) and rustic colonial area, of hot humid weather and tropical trees. Of chill hipster hostels and classy servers and tourists everywhere.

Panama City, you are my second favorite city in the world (yeah, Miami changed my life…)

Here are some highlights of Panama City that I loved… feel free to hit these up if you get the chance to swing by (we had quite the experience on only a 24 hour layover.)

The Amapola – I don’t know if this is a thing in other parts of the world, but I have never heard of it before. It’s basically a virgin piña colada and as you know I don’t drink especially when I travel (safety step) and it was simply delicious. It had it’s special name and was on a bunch of the menus.

Panama Canal – obviously. You can go to the Miraflores museum for about 20 dollars; we opted out because we didn’t have much time. We hired an Uber driver to take us to a lookout which happened to be blocked by construction so we happened to find a little chunk of river alongside the road that is technically the canal (whoo!) and checked that off the bucket list. Next visit to Panama I’d check out the museum if I had more time. I found this blog to be very helpful as far as getting an idea of how to see the canal.

Bridge of the Americas – There is an overlook that is a neat place to see the canal and the overarching bridge, also called in Spanish La Puente de las Americas. Fun little spot to check out with little touristy souvenirs in case you’d like that.

Rooftop terraces at night – There were incredible rooftop terraces! We loved Storx was our favorite (don’t crowd it please), there was also Gatto Blanco with some great bumpin’ music, and we also checked out the popular Tantalo (very crowded but great place to mingle with international people if you’d like.)

Other perks of Panama City:

• Historical
• Felt fairly safe – Noemi and I were walking around by ourselves at like midnight in the historic area as soon as we arrived, all dressed up and unfamiliar with the area, and we didn’t feel like it was a bad call. Very few places in the world I would do that, I would personally not have even done that in Quito where I lived. So we felt very safe there.

We stayed a the hostel Hospedaje Casco Viejo – definitely a hostel of hostels but i loved it …..

Thanks Panama City 🙂