COLONIAL PANAMA: Old Panama, Portobelo and Ft. San Lorenzo are tolerating tourist cameras and flashes with serene equanimity. In earlier days, beaten upon by the likes of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Henry Morgan and Admiral Sir Edward Vernon, they experienced noisier flashes.

CASCO VIEJO PANAMA: New Orleans South, minus Basin Street. The balconied, narrow-streeted Old Compound, so named for having once been behind the city wall, shares the mixed Spanish and French heritage of New Orleans. The French Connection, in this case, was Ferdinand de Lesseps’ scandal-shattered attempt to repeat France’s Suez accomplishment here.

INSTANT PANAMA: Hotels, office blocks, condominiums and homes are sprouting faster in Pamama City than in Latin American capitals many times its size. Architecture is often imaginative, sometimes nostalgic.

LAS VEGAS PANAMA: Some hotels and shopping centers have casinos. The other hotels are within dice-throw of these casinos. If they had been in operation when Morgan travelled here, he could have gotten his money without burning the place down.

PANAMA, SHOPPING CENTER OF THE AMERICAS: A trading post is what the Isthmus has always been. The point about being the shortest crossing between the Atlantic and the Pacific is that commerce shall use the route. Hence Panama City’s many shopping malls and the Colon Free Zone.

ISLAND PANAMA: The Pearl Islands, Contadora, San José, San Blas Archipelago, Taboga, Coiba, Isla Grande, John Wayne Island, Bocas del Toro. Islands all, and all different in their offerings of sun and sea resorts.

BEACHES PANAMA: The Pacific beaches. Choice of glistening white sand or sparkling black sand. Vast acres of it. For swimming from, surfing from, running or jogging on.

MOUNTAIN PANAMA: This idyllic seashore land of the tourist brochures is blanket and fireplace country when you take to the proudly-farmed mountain slopes of Chiriqui province near the Costa Rican border.

PRE-COLUMBIAN PANAMA: The term connotes archaeological artifacts –bits of some Indian’s ceramic lunch pail. But consider the Atlantic shoreline of the province of Veraguas. And the Darien wilderness. Columbus would find them as daunting now as then. Nothing has changed, not even the tapirs.

General Facts About Panama
Things to Know in Panama

Road Distances from Panama City Tocumen International Airport Panama Grows