Panama City 2 Day Itinerary (No Traps)
Panama City 2 Day Itinerary (No Traps)
Two days is tight, so this itinerary skips the bundled canal tours and the plaza-front restaurants and puts you straight in front of the two things Panama City actually delivers: the colonial peninsula and the canal itself. Day one is the ruins and the old town. Day two is the Miraflores Locks and the Amador Causeway. That’s it. If you want more, our 4 day itinerary and 7 day itinerary extend this exact spine.
| Day | Focus | Distance from Casco Viejo |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Panama Viejo ruins, Casco Viejo old town | 20-30 min / in town |
| 2 | Miraflores Locks, Amador Causeway and Biomuseo | 15-20 min |
Book these before you go
- Miraflores skip-the-line ticket : buy online, the walk-up queue builds fast after 10am.
- A Casco Viejo hotel: the boutique scene is small and books out on weekends. Compare rates on Panama City hotels .
- Donde Jose, if you want the tasting-menu splurge: 16 seats a night, booked weeks out. Reach them on WhatsApp, not email.
Getting from Tocumen to Casco Viejo
Tocumen International sits 25-40 minutes east of the city depending on traffic. The official taxi desk past customs charges a fixed $30-40, no meter, no negotiating. Uber runs $15-25 for the same trip but can’t collect you at the arrivals curb; walk to the signposted rideshare zone across from the terminal instead. Two days doesn’t leave room to waste on the more expensive option.
Day 1: Panama Viejo, then Casco Viejo
Start at Panama Viejo before the heat sets in. These are the actual ruins of the original 1519 city, burned by Henry Morgan’s pirates in 1671, after which the survivors relocated and built what’s now Casco Viejo. The two sites are several kilometers apart and get confused constantly; keep them straight. Entry runs around $15, the cathedral tower is climbable, and going at opening beats the tour groups that arrive after 10am.
Uber over to Casco Viejo for the afternoon. The old town is fully walkable and pedestrianized, the one part of this city where wandering without a destination works. Plaza Herrera and Plaza de Francia anchor the two ends, and the Iglesia de San Jose’s gilded altar, supposedly painted black once to hide it from the same pirates who burned Panama Viejo, is free to see with a small donation appropriate. Lunch at a fonda tucked off the main plazas runs $5-8; skip the tables directly on the plaza, which charge three times as much for the same food and a view.
Stay in Casco Viejo. It’s well policed and walkable, and the boutique hotel scene here has genuinely matured. The one rule: El Chorrillo, the rough neighborhood next door, borders the old town directly, and it’s an easy wrong turn after dark. Take the short Uber instead of walking it. Our Panama City travel tips page has the rest of the after-dark logistics.
Day 2: Miraflores Locks, then the Amador Causeway
The Miraflores Locks Visitor Center is the canal visit that matters here, not Agua Clara, which sits 90 minutes to two hours away on the Atlantic side and only earns a slot if you’re already headed to Colon. Miraflores is 15-20 minutes from Casco Viejo, non-resident adult entry runs roughly $17 (verify the current price at visitcanaldepanama.com), and it covers four observation decks, a museum, and an IMAX. Ships transit in waves, generally northbound in the morning and southbound in the afternoon, so time your visit around the schedule rather than showing up at random. Our Panama Canal deep dive covers the transit windows in more detail, and the official Miraflores Visitor Center site has the current hours.
From Miraflores, head to the Amador Causeway, a flat strip connecting three former islands with marinas and waterfront restaurants. Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo sits at the entrance, his only completed building in Latin America; non-resident entry runs roughly $18-20, though the grounds and Level One are free if you’d rather skip the ticket. Have dinner on the Causeway itself for the skyline view across the bay before heading to the airport or your next stop.
Things to know before you land
Panama uses the US dollar. The balboa is pegged to it 1:1 but exists only as coins, not banknotes, so there’s no exchange rate to work out and nobody will hand you balboa bills. Tap water is safe to drink across the city, unusual for the region and worth knowing before you buy bottled water out of habit. Uber beats a street taxi on price and hassle almost everywhere here, and with only two days you don’t have time to negotiate fares. For everything beyond these two days, our things worth doing in Panama City guide covers the rest of the city.