Panama is almost unfairly good for young backpackers. It is small enough that you can actually see a huge amount of the country without spending half your trip sitting on buses, yet it packs an absurd amount of variety into one narrow strip of land. You can start in a skyscraper filled capital, sleep on a tiny Caribbean island, surf Pacific waves, hike through cloud forest, swim beneath waterfalls, climb mountains, camp on remote islands and spend the evening drinking beers with people you met that morning. And perhaps best of all, Panama still has plenty of places where backpacking feels like an adventure rather than simply following a perfectly organized tourist conveyor belt. These are 10 of the best stops in Panama for young, adventurous backpackers, listed in no particular order. You probably shouldn't try to squeeze all ten into a one week vacation. That would be less of a holiday and more of an endurance competition.
1. Bocas del Toro
If Panama had a backpacker headquarters, Bocas del Toro would have a pretty good claim to the job. The Caribbean archipelago has become famous, but it has not lost the qualities that made backpackers fall in love with it in the first place. Bocas Town is full of hostels, bars, restaurants, travelers, water taxis and people who arrived planning to stay three nights and are still there eight days later. During the day, you can island hop, snorkel, dive, surf, explore beaches and hunt for wildlife. At night, the whole place seems to move toward the bars. It is one of the easiest places in Panama to meet other travelers because everyone is doing roughly the same thing: looking for something fun to do and someone to do it with. Bocas has become more popular and more developed, but that is not necessarily a reason to skip it. The trick is to use Bocas Town as your social base and get out onto the surrounding islands whenever you want a little more space.
2. Santa Catalina
Santa Catalina is what happens when someone takes a tiny fishing village, puts some of the Pacific's best surf nearby and places one of Panama's greatest marine parks offshore. It is remote enough to feel adventurous and relaxed enough that backpackers can quickly settle into the lifestyle. Surfing is the obvious attraction, but it is only the beginning. The real prize is Coiba National Park, a huge protected marine and island ecosystem where snorkeling and diving can put you in the water with reef sharks, rays, turtles, huge schools of fish and an astonishing variety of marine life. Santa Catalina also has that wonderful backpacker quality of having very little reason to wear anything other than shorts, sandals and a slightly sunburned expression.
3. Playa Venao
If Santa Catalina is the rugged Pacific adventure, Playa Venao is the more energetic younger cousin. Playa Venao Beach has developed into one of Panama's major surf and backpacker destinations, with a strong international crowd, surf schools, beach bars, restaurants and a social atmosphere that makes it extremely easy to meet people. The bay produces consistent waves, so you can arrive knowing absolutely nothing about surfing and leave several days later convinced that you are one of the world's great professional surfers. You are probably not. But you will have fun trying. Playa Venao is also one of those places where the line between "going out for one drink" and "somehow it is 3 AM" can become surprisingly thin. It is more developed and generally more expensive than some of Panama's less visited destinations, but for young travelers who want beaches, surfing and social life, it is hard to ignore.
4. Boquete
Then there is Boquete, where you can trade your flip flops for hiking shoes and your beach beer for exceptionally good coffee. This mountain town sits in the highlands of Chiriquí and offers an entirely different Panama. The air is cooler, the mountains are everywhere and the surrounding cloud forests are packed with hiking trails, waterfalls, coffee farms and wildlife. For adventurous backpackers, Boquete can be as active or relaxed as you want. You can hike, go rafting, explore coffee plantations, chase waterfalls or tackle the enormous challenge of Volcán Barú. Or you can simply sit in a café wondering why you have not moved to the mountains permanently. Boquete is also an important crossroads for backpackers heading toward Bocas del Toro, which makes it easy to combine with several of the other destinations on this list.
5. Lost and Found Hostel
Then there is the stop that is slightly different from everything else on this list. Lost and Found Hostel is not a town, beach or island. It is a jungle adventure in its own right. High in the cloud forest of the Fortuna Forest Reserve between Boquete and Bocas del Toro, the hostel sits surrounded by rainforest, mountain views, hiking trails, waterfalls and wildlife. You literally leave the highway and walk into the forest to reach it, which is a pretty good indication of what kind of place you have chosen.
For young backpackers, the location is only half the attraction. The other half is the social atmosphere. You can spend the afternoon hiking or exploring the forest, then come back and meet travelers from all over the world, hang out in the jungle lounge, play games, drink beers, eat together and discover that the people you met yesterday are suddenly planning tomorrow's adventure with you. It is also strategically brilliant for a backpacking route because it breaks up the journey between Boquete and Bocas del Toro. Instead of spending an entire day traveling, you can turn the journey itself into part of the adventure. It is one of those places where you arrive expecting a hostel and leave remembering the experience.
6. Santa Fe
If you want to see a side of Panama that most international backpackers never bother reaching, go to Santa Fe in Veraguas. This little mountain town is surrounded by rainforest, waterfalls, rivers, coffee farms and rural communities, and it has far less tourism infrastructure than the country's famous backpacker destinations. That is exactly the point. Santa Fe is not trying to entertain you every five minutes. You hike. You swim in rivers. You visit waterfalls. You explore coffee farms. You walk around town. You meet local people. You get muddy. You occasionally have absolutely no idea what you are doing next. Wonderful. The surrounding Santa Fe National Park contains more than 700 square kilometres of protected rainforest, and some of the area's best experiences still require local knowledge and a willingness to get off the obvious tourist trail. For adventurous young travelers, Santa Fe is the kind of place you visit because someone you met in another hostel said, "You have to go there," and then you wonder why nobody else told you about it.
7. El Valle de Antón
El Valle is one of Panama's easiest adventure escapes from the capital and an excellent first taste of the country's mountains. The town sits inside the enormous caldera of an ancient volcano, surrounded by green mountains and rainforest. You can hike La India Dormida, climb to viewpoints overlooking the crater, visit waterfalls, explore the local market or simply rent a bike and disappear down the surrounding roads. India Dormida is particularly popular with active travelers because the climb gives you spectacular views across the volcanic valley. El Valle is more developed than Santa Fe, but that can actually be useful early in a backpacking trip. You get mountains, hiking, waterfalls and cooler weather without having to sacrifice cafés, restaurants and easy transportation.
8. San Blas
San Blas Islands is where your backpacking adventure temporarily stops looking like Central America and starts looking like somebody has designed a tropical screensaver. Tiny palm covered islands sit in brilliant Caribbean water, traditional Guna communities occupy the region and much of the experience remains deliberately rustic. This is not where you go for luxury. You sleep simply, eat simply, swim, snorkel, sail, meet other travelers and spend a suspicious amount of time staring at the water. The journey itself is part of the experience, usually involving a very early start from Panama City, a 4x4 journey through the mountains and then a boat transfer into Guna Yala. It is not the easiest destination on the list, but that is part of what makes it memorable.
9. Panama City
Don't make the mistake of treating Panama City as merely the place where your flight lands. For young backpackers, the capital is an adventure destination in its own right. You have the skyscrapers of the modern city, the old streets and plazas of Casco Viejo, the Panama Canal, enormous markets, nightlife, rooftop bars, cheap local food, international restaurants and a huge range of hostels and travelers passing through. You can spend the morning watching ships move through one of the world's greatest engineering projects and be drinking cocktails in Casco Viejo that evening. Then there is the jungle practically on the city's doorstep. Panama City is also the logistical heart of the country, so it is a natural place to begin or end a backpacking trip and stock up before heading into the smaller towns. It gives you the big city experience without requiring you to abandon the backpacker lifestyle.
10. Isla Coiba
Finally, there is Coiba National Park, which deserves its own place on this list even though most backpackers visit it as an adventure from Santa Catalina. Coiba is not simply another tropical island. It is an enormous protected marine environment with some of the richest waters in Panama. The diving and snorkeling can be spectacular, with sharks, rays, turtles, dolphins, enormous schools of fish and other marine life appearing around the islands. The park is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its isolation has helped preserve a remarkable ecosystem.
For a young backpacker, this is one of those experiences where the journey becomes part of the story. You get up early, climb into a boat, disappear across the Pacific and eventually find yourself snorkeling in water so clear and full of life that you may briefly question why you ever learned how to use a computer. Coiba is wild, remote and relatively undeveloped, and that is precisely why it belongs on an adventure itinerary.
So what does the ultimate Panama backpacking trip look like?
The beauty is that these destinations can be connected into one enormous adventure. You could start in Panama City, head to El Valle, disappear into the mountains at Santa Fe, continue to Santa Catalina, spend time surfing at Playa Venao, climb into the mountains around Boquete, disappear into the cloud forest at Lost and Found Hostel, and then finish your journey floating between Caribbean islands in Bocas del Toro. Add San Blas at the beginning or end, and make sure Coiba is on the list when you reach Santa Catalina. This general route is already being used by backpackers because it links an extraordinary variety of landscapes without requiring enormous travel distances.
And that is ultimately why Panama is such a fantastic country for young backpackers. You don't have to choose between adventure, beaches, nightlife, wildlife, mountains and meeting people. You can have all of them. One week you are surfing in the Pacific, the next you are hiking through cloud forest, then you are sleeping on a Caribbean island with people you met three days earlier. Panama is compact enough to make that possible, but wild and varied enough to make every stop feel completely different.
If you are young, adventurous, traveling with a backpack and want a trip where the journey itself becomes part of the story, Panama is one of the best countries in Central America to simply point yourself west and see what happens. And if you occasionally get lost along the way, there are worse places to be lost than a jungle, a beach or a Caribbean island.