Panama Expat Forum

davisodb
Joined 2014
Posts: 12

9 years ago

My recent trip to Panama

9 years ago

My wife and I just returned from 15 days in Panama. The following is our trip experience. Let me first preface our experience by stating the obvious, ours is not the standard, or the final say so on Panamanian travel, it is only what WE observed in our short stay.
As the trip originated with the idea of retirement and as others may be contemplating the same, I would say that I cannot imagine living in Panama and not being at least functional in Spanish. We found precious few people who spoke even a smattering of English so the Spanish I knew, though far from functional, was a life saver. There seem to be schools teaching Spanish to expats everywhere.
I found the Panamanians friendly, often greeting us with a “Buenas” and the children seemed well behaved. Only once did an individual demand a tip and that was the airport taxi/mini bus baggage loader. It is my understanding that standard tipping is 10% (restaurants) and one should round up. I only tipped a taxi driver on a couple of occasions and none ever asked for one.
I found the country very beautiful, lots of jungle, many rivers and many waterfalls, mountains, and obviously beaches, the latter being mostly deserted.
The big Albrook Mall in Panama City (PC) is a modern facility the inside of which is indistinguishable from an American mall.
Taxis are fairly cheap though none of them seem to use meters--price is negotiated AHEAD of time. The drivers, by and large, appear to be honest and can be helpful if you speak enough Spanish. Yellow taxis are cheaper than the white taxis but one white taxi driver claimed the white taxis are safer (from crime); best to get an expat response on this one. My ride from the airport (Tocuman) to PC was $30. They initially asked for $35, I said $25 and then was told $30 was the standard. I asked at the information desk (they spoke little English) and they said $30 was standard. My ride back to the airport using the Hotel shuttle was $13 per person.
I found that most places only accepted cash, even at many of the hotels we stayed in. Restaurants were the most consistent in accepting credit cards even at a few of the local diners (called fondas), but still, some did not. However, banks are everywhere, at least in any town, so it is easy to simply withdraw cash from the ATM. For a 15 day trip, I took $600 in cash and had to make two $500 cash withdrawals while in Panama. The majority of this cash (at least the big expenditures) was spent on hotels and tours.

As this is long, I'll add to it in future posts. I hope this helps future visitors.

Kovalenko & Vera Attorneys at Law in Panama

William Russell

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