San Blas Islands (Guna Yala), Taboga Island & Contadora (Pearl Islands) Day Trips

Because Panama City sits at the waist of a narrow two-ocean isthmus, travellers can choose between two completely different marine worlds for a day trip: the indigenous-governed Caribbean coral reefs of the San Blas Islands (Comarca Guna Yala) two and a half hours northeast, or the volcanic Pacific islands of Taboga and the Pearl Archipelago directly off the Amador Causeway.

San Blas Islands (Comarca Guna Yala) on the Caribbean

Stretching along Panama's northeastern Caribbean coast, the autonomous indigenous territory of Guna Yala encompasses more than 365 palm-fringed coral islands and sandbars protected by a barrier reef and administered by the Guna General Congress, which bans international hotel chains and billboards. Full-day excursions from Panama City depart between 05:00 and 05:30 in six-passenger 4WD vehicles (the only vehicles permitted on the steep, winding mountain road over the Cordillera de San Blas to the port of Cartí), arriving around 08:30 to board wooden Guna motor launches (lanchas).

Typical day routes visit three stops: Isla Perro Chico (where you can snorkel directly from white sand over a coral-encrusted sunken gunboat wreck in three metres of water), Isla Pelícano or Isla Aguja for a fresh catch-of-the-day lunch, and the waist-deep sandbar of the Piscina Natural surrounded by cushion starfish. Essential checkpoint rule: Every passenger crossing the Nusagandi border checkpoint into Guna Yala must present their original physical passport (digital photos or paper copies are turned back) and carry US dollar bills for the autonomous comarca and port entry fees. You can also admire historic Guna mola textiles before your trip at MUMO in Casco Antiguo.

Taboga Island ("Island of Flowers") in the Gulf of Panama

If you prefer a gentle 30-minute catamaran ride over a five-hour round-trip mountain drive, board the morning ferry from Flamenco Marina on the Amador Causeway to Isla Taboga, twenty kilometres out in the Pacific. Founded in 1524, Taboga is known as the Isla de las Flores for the bougainvillea, hibiscus, and jasmine cascading over its car-free pastel lanes, where post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin convalesced in 1887 after working as a labourer on the French Canal. Step inside the whitewashed Church of San Pedro (founded in 1524, making it the second-oldest church in the Western Hemisphere), walk across the tidal sandbar to El Morro Island at low tide, and hike through brown-pelican nesting reserves to the cross atop Cerro Vigía (307 metres) overlooking dozens of ships waiting to enter the Panama Canal.

Contadora Island and the Pearl Islands (Archipiélago de las Perlas)

Ninety minutes farther out in the Gulf of Panama by morning catamaran from Amador lies Isla Contadora, ringed by eleven white-coral beaches (including Playa Cacique and Playa Ejecutiva) and serving from July to October as Panama City's prime base for watching breaching humpback whales.