10 09 19

Panama adventure travel locations are a hot thing to do right now. Few locations include Pearl Islands, Indigenous peoples populated the Pearl Islands until Spanish Conquistadors discovered the archipelagos’ wealth of pearls in the 1500s. The islands gained new popularity after being featured on the reality television show Survivor. The islands feature lush forests surrounded by white sandy beaches. Contadora Island is the most developed of the Pearl Islands, with several resorts and an airstrip. Visitors can charter private yachts to cruise and explore the islands.

One of the very few places in Panama where you can watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, the Sunset Coast is an undiscovered area with small towns, wide open beaches, and a small number of lodges where you can get away from the tourist scene. This is rural Panama, home to rolling hills, small villages, family farms, and huge beaches lined by palms and forest. Foreign tourists are not plentiful the way they are in other areas of the country, and many of the visitors are Panamanian. The road down to the Sunset Coast from the Pan-American Highway is twisty and has a few potholes to dodge, but every mile takes you further off the beaten track. This area is also popular with surfers. The wide-open beaches take the brunt of the Pacific Ocean rollers, and it’s rare that you’ll need to share a wave. If you want a beach all to yourself, this is the place to come.

The Pacific Coast of Mexico has been a great place for sport fishing and certainly in San Blas you can live a great adventure and find a variety of fish such as Dorado, Sailfish and Marlin, as well as Mojarra, Pargo, Sierra and Snook, depending on the season. Be sure to visit the famous International Tournament Sailfish, Marlin and Dorado which is held every year during the months of May and June.

Our last stop, an island famous among sailors who know the best kept secrets in San Blas, gives you more time to swim in the beautiful calm waters. With two islands right next to each other and home to a big shipwreck, stranded on its outer reef, you can enjoy the pristine beaches and beautiful scenery. Between 3-4pm we will leave this island paradise and head back to the Port of Carti. Your driver will be waiting for you and safely drive you back to Panama City, dropping you off at your lodging by 7pm. San Blas is one of the last unspoiled and undeveloped places in the world and we hope you will get to experience the beauty of the islands and the innocence of the unique Kuna culture. For our guests who only have one day to travel to the “Guna Yala” nation, the San Blas Day tour is the best option and will surely make you want to come back again. Extra info on San Blas tours.

To get to San Blas you’ve got four options. You can fly from Panama straight into the San Blas Islands, take a sailing boat from Cartagena, take a speedboat from Capurganá, or take the bus from Panama City. Most backpackers travelling between Colombia and Panama choose one of these options. For a good reason: Travelling over the land border, known as the ‘Darien Gap’, can be very dangerous . This is a popular drug trafficking route out of Colombia to Panama and is not safe (plus it’s just untamed jungle the whole way!).

There’s not a great deal to do on the San Blas islands – in a way, that’s the point. Much of the time you’ll be swimming, snorkelling or reading on the beach. Normally there will be day-trip or two, to a nearby island that offers something different; that could be a shipwreck to explore, or an area full of starfish. Meals will usually be rice and fish. Once the generator cuts out in the evenings, it’s time to bed down. As the better tour operators will tell you, when you visit the San Blas islands you are doing so as a guest of the Kuna – and they are an indigenous group, not a tourist operation. So the jeep that picks you up from Panama City might be late, or might make unscheduled stops. The water taxi at the port might take a while to turn up. The toilets will be very basic. And so on. It’s certainly worth reading this list of what to expect before you go. Source: https://www.taotravel365.com/.