They both sound pretty fabulous, honestly. I wouldn’t mind renting a car part of the time to go somewhere not too far where a car is fairly necessary for getting around. I’m still kicking myself for not doing it in the Yucatan when we had not even a whole day to get from Puerto Morelos to Tulum - we ended up taking a local van to the main highway, a bus to Playa del Carmen, and another bus down to Tulum, but it didn’t leave us much time there. I just don’t want to spend the whole time driving, because that’s not very relaxing either. Snd I dodn’t want to drive any 8-hour stretches if we only have a week.
Hmm, maybe land Saturday afternoon, stay the night in Panama City, leave Sunday for somewhere closeish like Portobelo for a day or so, then somewhere further afield until Thursday night or Friday, then back to the city until Sunday evening departure?
Lots to think about - I just wanted to nail down the long-haul flight while we could still get the nonstop on Copa for miles.
Sounds like a plan. It takes only 40 minutes on the new highway to cross the isthmus from Panama City to Sabanitas, the turn off to Portobelo, then maybe a half hour to Portobelo itself. A car there would give you more flexibility to explore.
There are flights to Pedasi on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for about $190 round trip. The flight is under an hour. As I said, if you mainly want to do beach/snorkeling you should be able to make arrangements with your hotel. My favorite place is Dim’s Hostal.
Yeah, they’re making the highway four-lane all the way to Costa Rica, so the stretch between Santiago and David (the last two-lane stretch) will be under construction. There are a few other parts before that they always seem to be repairing. But in general, the roads in Panama are pretty good and have vastly improved in the past 10 years.