No trip to Panama would be complete without a visit to the Caribbean islands of Bocas del Toro, near the Panama-Costa Rica border. We had the chance to visit twice while we lived in Panama City, the first time during the country’s Carnival celebration and the second time when we needed a break from city life. We got some nice photos while there so I thought you’d like to see them, in case you’re thinking about visiting.
The island where the main town is located is called Isla Colón. The main town, Bocas Town, is connected to an island by an isthmus and surrounded by water on three sides.
If you arrive by water, the first thing you’ll see see is a mass of docks and restaurants jutting over the waterfront. Once you get off the boat you’ll find a street full of colorful, weather-worn shops, designed to appeal to tourists.
Since it’s a tourist attraction Bocas Town has quite a few nice hotels. If you don’t speak Spanish, no worries. Bocas is your type of place because English is widely spoken.
It also has more good restaurants than you’d be able to try in a month. And there are plenty of cheap places to eat (and drink) as well. Nightlife spots are open late into the night, if you’re into that.
There are plenty of diving, snorkeling, surfing and tour outfitters based here. You can even take surfing lessons.
In Bocas Town itself, the houses aren’t much different from the ones in Florida. But as nice as they look the town is so built up that there are no nice beaches nearby.
A house in Bocas Town
Bocas is a great vacation destination, but it’s not the most ideal place to retire, at least not for us. Later that night, as we vainly attempted to sleep to the full-volume beat from a nearby nightspot, we decided that Bocas Town deserves its reputation as Party Central.
We prefer local entertainment to loudspeakers. But that’s just us.
Once outside of town, Bocas del Toro is beautiful
That said, the beaches are stunning. We took boats to other islands and wandered around to see what was there.
We found restaurants …
beaches …
homes …
and deserted areas.
Bocas essentials
As you can imagine, life is a bit rustic on these islands. There are supermarkets but no mega-marts anywhere to be found. Cell signal and internet were fine in Bocas Town but we didn’t check either while we were on the other islands.
So what do you think? Would you like to retire here? Or visit? Chime in below.
Tip: There are no bridges over to Bocas; there are only two ways to get there: by air or by water. We’ve done both. Let me tell you, air beats water hands down. The flight only takes an hour and costs less than $100, whereas it can take the better part of a day to drive or bus from Panama City, with long stretches of road with no restaurants or gas stations and little more to see than sugar cane fields.
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