Panama City...Hop On Hop Off or Monkey Island??

[SakeDad]

We overnight in Panama City after a full day Canal transit. Never been. Would we get a better experience from Hop On Hop Off bus or doing a Monkey Island excursion??

[BillB48]

Rather two very different ways to spend the day.  Monkey island would take you out to Gamboa where you board a small craft for the trip to the "Island". the trip would include traveling the main shipping channel of the Canal for a fair part of the trip.  It certainly would be seeing that part of the Canal from a completely different perspective.  With any luck you might pass a ship or two.

 

The Hop On/Off does cover many of the interesting areas to visit such as Miraflores Locks, Casco Antiguo, the Bio-museum as well has you will get to see some of the City.

 

Hard to recommend, but the Bus tour might give you a broad overview of Panama City, if that is something that interests you.

[SakeDad]

3 minutes ago, BillB48 said:

Hard to recommend, but the Bus tour might give you a broad overview of Panama City, if that is something that interests you.

Thanks. We are looking at other places to be ex-pats in. We were in Vallarta for 3 years before its started to get overbuilt and expensive. So this cruise is a possible check on that.

[BillB48]

17 hours ago, SakeDad said:

Thanks. We are looking at other places to be ex-pats in. We were in Vallarta for 3 years before its started to get overbuilt and expensive. So this cruise is a possible check on that.

While a number of ex pats live around Panama City, I think you will find a large portion of them that live in that area live in sections of the old Canal Zone.  The areas of the old Canal Zone would include the civilian communities such as Balboa, LaBoca, Los Rios and Cardenas.  There is also a lot of ex pats living in the former US Military areas such as Albrook, Howard and Ft. Clayton.  Ft. Clayton is now known as Ciudad de Saber.

 

Also very popular with the ex pat community are the beaches starting about 50 miles up on the Pan American Highway at Gorgona, Coranado, Rio Mar and Santa Clara to name a few.  Another favorite spot would be in the Chiriqui highlands much further up the PA Hwy in Boquete.  Much cooler temps since it is about 5000' and up.

 

If you really want to get to minimum development and maybe even a wee bit on the exotic side, have a look at Bocas del Toro near the Costa Rican border on the Atlantic coast.  Of course it will take much more than a day to track down the places I have mentioned.