“Panama 360°” 9-Day Family Adventure

Boquete Outdoor Adventures invites you to experience the biological, ecological and recreational diversity of Panama!

The following itinerary was created for the family on-the-go looking for a truly remarkable and unique experience. On our whirlwind tour of Panama, we’ll experience a number of landscapes as well as activities and we’ll observe an impressive variety of wildlife. A typical 9-day trip begins on Saturday and ends on Sunday.

Day 1

We will meet you at the airport when you arrive in Panama City and deliver you to your hotel. From this point on, our job is to take care of every detail. Your job is to enjoy the vacation of a lifetime!

Day 2

We head out to El Valle, a fertile volcanic valley filled with bright flowers, square trees and golden frogs and a climate much more pleasant than the lowland heat of Panama City (a couple of hours away). Today is Sunday and it is famous Market Day in El Valle. Here you will have an opportunity to purchase a huge variety of Panamanian handcrafts that reflect the ancestral traditions of indigenous cultures that still exist in Panama.

El Valle’s unique location in the crater of an old volcano, provides spectacular opportunities for hiking to waterfalls, horseback riding, and canopy tours. And at the end of the day, you can even soak in a mud bath.

We will spend the night in El Valle.

Day 3

From Ell Valle, we head to Santa Fe, a traditional mountain town with panoramic views overlooking the valleys of the Veraguas province. Famous for a huge variety of rare orchids as well as for the Panama Hat, Santa Fe’s unique proximity to the Continental Divide allows for sweeping views of the wilderness of Panama’s Atlantic slope. A short 4WD ride into the remote Atlantic side of Panama provides many opportunites for exploration and adventure. We will hike to one of many nearby waterfalls in the morning and then go horseback riding in the afternoon, where we’ll observe small communities that appear not to have changed very much in the last 100 years.

We will be spending the night at a very rustic hotel in Santa Fe (it is the only hotel in Santa Fe).

Day 4-5

From Santa Fe, we will take a 2 hour drive to the port town of Puerto Mutis. Here, you will meet our custom made Super Panga for a trip out to Isla Coiba. We can’t say enough about Coiba. It is one of the largest marine parks in the world (over 675,000 acres). Once home to a penal colony, it is now unihabited (except for the park station and police station). Coiba is also home to the second largest coral reef in the eastern Pacific, the largest island in Central America and home to an amazing variety of sea life (whales, dolphins, turtles, crocodiles and more!). On land you will easily find monkeys, iguanas and scarlet macaws as well as many other birds.

The beaches are incredible. The snorkeling is incredible. The fishing is incredible.

We will be spending two nights at the ANAM ranger station (simple huts with air conditioning as an option). Camping on one of the more remote beaches of Coiba is also an option.

Day 6

After two days on Coiba, we leave early in the morning for an amazing boat ride to the small town of Boca Chica. From here, we take a half-hour drive up to the mountain town of Boquete. After checking into our hotel and getting comfortable, we will have the afternoon to explore this beautiful mountain town and sample some locally grown coffee at one of many cafes.

Day 7

After breakfast, we’ll climb up into the rainforest canopy for a bird’s-eye view of the tropical rainforest and cloudforest of the Chiriqui highlands. On our canopy tour, we’ll zip through the trees and take in as much as we can of the many incredible views available to us from deep within the virgin forest.

In the afternoon, we will do a coffee tour and learn about the coffee making process from the farm to the factory to your cup.

Day 8

A trip to Panama wouldn’t be complete without seeing the Panama Canal. After our short plane flight to Panama City in the morning, we will visit Miraflores Locks. This is a great place to watch ships transit the locks and visit the magnificient museum here. After our visit the canal, we will visit Panama Viejo and see some of the amazing colonial architecture. Of course, we will have time to visit some of the local artisan markets to see many of the Panamanian and indigenous crafts. Finally, we will visit one of the many great restaurants in Panama City for our last night.

Day 9

We will deposit you at the international airport for your return flight and say our tearful good-byes until next year!