3 Days in Panama: First-Timer Plan
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Three days lets you add one real day trip on top of Panama City’s core sights. Pick a single outlying region, San Blas, El Valle, or the Caribbean side around Portobelo, rather than trying to string two together; travel time eats a full day either way. This plan takes the Caribbean route, since it also gets you a second angle on the canal.
Day 1: Casco Viejo and Panama Viejo
Morning
Land at Tocumen (PTY) and taxi or Uber into the city, 30 to 40 minutes. Entry is visa free for 90 days for most passports, 180 for the US and Canada, and there’s no exchange counter to look for at arrivals, Panama’s cash currency is the US dollar (the balboa is coins only, pegged 1 to 1). Settle into your hotel, then head to Casco Viejo for the afternoon.
Afternoon
Walk the old town’s plazas and restored colonial blocks, the neighborhood is safe and well policed for visitors but pickpockets work the crowded corners, so watch your phone and don’t drift into El Chorrillo or Curundú at its edges. If you have energy left, taxi out to the Panamá Viejo ruins, the original city that Henry Morgan’s raiders burned in 1671, now a quieter open air site with its own small museum.
Evening
Dinner in Casco Viejo, try sancocho or a ceviche plate, then a rooftop view of the skyline from the banking district before you turn in.
Day 2: The Panama Canal and Biomuseo
Morning
Spend the morning at the Miraflores Locks, 15 to 20 minutes from downtown. Watch the observation deck, walk the museum halls, and check the day’s transit schedule since there’s no single best hour to arrive. Entry is roughly $17 for a foreign adult, verify the current figure at visitcanaldepanama.com .
Afternoon
Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo, on the Amador Causeway, covers how the isthmus formed and reshaped species on both sides of it, a good pairing with the engineering next door. Walk or bike the causeway itself afterward for the skyline and container ship views.
Evening
Dinner near Amador or back in the city center. Get to bed early, day 3 starts before sunrise.
Day 3: Portobelo and the Agua Clara Locks
Morning
This is a long Caribbean side day, budget the full day and arrange transport the night before. Drive out toward Colón (best done with a driver or guided day tour rather than wandering Colón city itself, which isn’t a place to linger) and stop first at the Agua Clara Locks, the 2016 expansion’s Atlantic gateway, opened to handle the larger Neopanamax ships that don’t fit the original locks. Three viewing platforms look over the new locks and Gatún Lake, plus a short rainforest trail with a real shot at sloths and toucans.
Afternoon
Continue to Portobelo, the fortified 16th and 17th century Spanish port that guarded the gold and silver route to Spain, its forts (San Jerónimo, Santiago de la Gloria, San Fernando) and the Real Aduana customs house are a genuinely underrated stop. The Iglesia de San Felipe holds the Cristo Negro, the Black Christ, honored every 21 October in one of Panama’s biggest pilgrimages. The wider site, shared with Fort San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres River, has been on UNESCO’s danger list since 2012, worth seeing while it’s still standing well.
Evening
Head back to Panama City for a final dinner, or fly out the next morning if your schedule allows a fourth night.
Know before you go
- Currency: US dollars, cash and card both work; carry some cash for the Caribbean side.
- Tap water is safe in Panama City; malaria is a Darién and comarca risk, not this route.
- The Darién Gap remains a do not travel zone per the US State Department and the UK FCDO ; it isn’t part of any circuit tourists actually visit.
- No hurricanes; dry season (mid December to mid April) gives the clearest Caribbean side day.
Book these before you go
Rough cost sense: hotels $60 to $120 a night, Miraflores entry about $17, a guided Portobelo/Agua Clara day trip runs in the low hundreds per person once transport and a guide are included. Budget $250 to $400 per person for three days outside flights.
Read more on the fortifications in our Portobelo and San Lorenzo guide , or compare Agua Clara against the Pacific side in visiting the canal . If you’d rather spend day 3 on the San Blas islands instead, see the 4 day itinerary , which builds in a San Blas overnight.