Panama City Layover Itinerary: Canal + Casco Viejo (Map + Tips)
Last updated: January 2026
While browsing Google Flights for my return to the US from Chile, I noticed many of the cheapest options were on Copa Airlines (Panama’s flag carrier) with layovers in Panama City. Being the opportunist that I am, I couldn’t resist squeezing in a mini adventure. The best option was a 12-hour daytime layover (6AM–6PM), which I determined after a brief search was just enough time to watch ships transit the Panama Canal and explore at least one other part of the city before heading back to the airport. (I later discovered that Copa actually offers a free stopover program, which I definitely would’ve considered).
Since I only travel with an everyday-sized backpack, I had no literal baggage holding me back from being spontaneous (grab my full one-bag setup →). Below, I break down my plan with an hour-by-hour itinerary, map, logistics, and tips you can follow or adapt.
Quick Plan (TL;DR)
Total time needed: 10–12 hours
Start / end: Tocumen International Airport (PTY)
Transportation: Uber (essential)
Pace: Moderate, heat-aware
Best for:
Long daytime layovers
First-time visitors
Travelers who want highlights without overplanning
What you’ll do:
Watch ships cross the Panama Canal (Miraflores Locks)
Walk and eat your way through Casco Viejo (Old Town)
You can optionally add one extra stop (e.g. Parque Natural Metropolitano or Panama Viejo) if weather and energy allow
If you only have 7-9 hours: Prioritize Panama Canal or Casco Viejo
Biggest constraint: Canal timing + weather (heat and thunderstorms)
Is Leaving the Airport Worth It?
Yes — if most of the following apply to you:
Your layover is 7+ hours in the daytime
You’re comfortable using Uber (recommended) or taxis
You’re okay with heat, humidity, and adjusting plans on the fly
You want a taste of the city, not an exhaustive checklist
Maybe not — if:
Your layover is under 7 hours
You’re arriving late at night or leaving very early
You strongly dislike heat, humidity, or unpredictability
You prefer slow travel over quick highlight visits
If your layover is 7-9 hours (vs. 10-12 hours), I’d prioritize just one area (either the Panama Canal or Casco Viejo) rather than trying to squeeze everything in.
Map of Route
This route optimizes for timing of ship transit at the canal and minimizes ride time (e.g. shorter distance during potential rush hour).
Hour-by-Hour Itinerary
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Built with buffers for immigration, rides, and airport re-entry:
6:05 AM: Landed in Tocumen International Airport
6:05 AM - 7:30 AM: Airport exit process (plane taxi, immigration, customs)
7:30 AM - 8:00 AM: Uber from airport to Panama Canal Miraflores Visitor Center
8:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Slowly seeing everything at Panama Canal (check ship transit schedule here)
10:30 AM - 10:50 AM: Uber from Miraflores Visitor Center to Casco Viejo
10:50 AM - 12:00 PM: Walking around Caso Viejo (Old Town)
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM: Lunch at Fondo Lo Que Hay (Panamanian cuisine in Casco Viejo)
1:30 PM - 2:10 PM: Uber from Casco Viejo back to airport
2:10 PM - 5:50 PM: Airport re-entry process (immigration, security)
5:50 PM: Flight leaving Panama City
Read This Before You Go
Plan the Panama Canal around ship transit timing.
The Miraflores Locks are the original canal locks and the ones to prioritize (vs. Agua Clara) for a layover.
The key thing: ships typically transit until sometime in the morning, then resume sometime in the afternoon — so there’s often a dead zone for a few hours around midday. The schedule changes daily, and you won’t know the exact times until the day of, but you can check for a few days beforehand to get a rough sense of whether your layover lines up.
Honestly, seeing the locks in action is the main event, so it’s worth planning to be there when ships are actually crossing.
Don’t underestimate the heat, humidity, and unpredictable thunderstorms.
Panama City is hot and humid year-round. And especially after coming from a red-eye flight with less-than-ideal sleep, your body might not be able to deal with the heat very well (I definitely felt that).
So, definitely plan to wear layers on the plane that you can easily take off to accommodate the hot weather, and carry plenty of water.
Also, the thunderstorms are real. I’d planned to visit the ruins of Panama Viejo after lunch before heading back to the airport, but it started pouring, so I played it safe and headed back to the airport instead.
If weather and energy allow, you can maybe add one more stop.
If you do add one more stop, I’d make sure that it’s close to the city center / Casco Viejo (within 20 minutes Uber ride), or that it’s on the way back to the airport.
Two stops to consider are: Panama Viejo (ruins of the original Panama City destroyed by pirates in the 17th century) or Parque Natural Metropolitano (protected tropical forest for hiking/wildlife).
Luxury high-rises in Punta Pacifica in the thunderstorm, on the way to the airport.
Getting Around
Quick verdict
I recommend using Ubers to go around: Ubers are safe, clean, readily available (and could be affordable without the airport surcharge.
If you feel confident negotiating prices in Spanish, taxis could work too, but I feel that Ubers give you better peace of mind since you can see the price ahead of time.
I usually like to learn and navigate the public transport system, but I’d say for a half-day trip with limited time, it’s not worth spending more time in transit, and plus the major tourist sites are not so close to each other.
Typical ride costs (what I paid in August 2025)
Airport → Panama Canal Miraflores Visitor Center: ~$30
Panama Canal Miraflores Visitor Center → Casco Viejo: ~$9
Casco Viejo → Airport: ~$22
Traffic notes
I read online that traffic in Panama City could be terrible, but personally I did not experience that except in the middle of the Old Town area. I was there on a Sunday though, so perhaps I was saved from weekday rush hour traffic.
Traffic in Casco Viejo (Old Town) did get very congested,
Solo safety note:
If you’re a solo traveler, I’d highly recommend Uber over taxis, even if you’re good at Spanish – Uber gives you safety and security features (e.g. tracking) that taxis don’t.
More Itineraries
If you’re in planning mode right now, here are a couple more posts in the same format:
Deep Dive: Panama Canal (Miraflores Visitor Center)
There are four sets of locks to the Panama Canal system: two on the Pacific side (Miraflores and Cocolí) and two on the Atlantic side (Agua Clara and Gatun). Only Miraflores and Agua Clara have dedicated visitor centers. The Miraflores Locks, which allow ships to pass between the Pacific Ocean and the interior waters, are the original canal locks opened in 1914 and are ~30 minutes by car to the city center; the Agua Clara Locks, which allow ships to pass between the Atlantic Ocean and the interior waters, are 1 hour 15 minutes away and feature locks with increased capacity for larger ships and opened in 2016. For a layover, Miraflores is definitely the one to visit to both see the original engineering marvel and to see much more extensive tourist facilities (including a museum, a film narrated by Morgan Freeman, and a gift shop).
The Miraflores Visitor Center opened at 8AM – I Ubered directly from the airport and I got there right at opening, and there was already a line outside. However, the wait wasn’t long, and I was able to buy my tickets and head to the locks in 15 minutes. That was important since for that day, the ships were only going to pass until 8:45 AM and it would’ve been so sad if I missed it.
I made a beeline to the locks area, which has an observatory stand that tourists have to stay at to see the locks in action. To go between sea level (either the Atlantic or Pacific) and the interior Gatun Lake (about 26m / 85ft above), the ship goes through a series of chambers that act like giant water elevators. To go from the ocean to the lake, the chambers raise the ship, and to go from the lake to the sea, the chambers lower it. To do so, the ship enters a lock chamber, massive gates close behind it, and water is either pumped in (to raise) or drained out (to lower) purely by gravity through culverts in the lock walls and floor. By moving through a series of chambers, vessels make the 80 km (50 mi) trip across Panama without having to sail around South America.
The Miraflores locks have two chambers, and it takes about an hour for a ship to pass through both. When I got there, the ship was just about through the first chamber, so in the half hour I was there, I was able to see the ship fully pass the second chamber. The direction I saw was from the ocean to the interior, so water was raising the ship. This was honestly amazing to see. I was awed that engineering was able to take advantage of natural forces and use only water and gravity to do the heavy lifting in this system. So this was possible because Gatun Lake was manmade for this purpose by damming the Chagres River, which allows the Canal to control the elevation change – ships cannot handle the natural changes in elevation of the Chagres River themselves. The engineers did originally consider using mechanical pumping, but with this dam, they realized they could harness water stored at elevation to fill locks by gravity — no external power needed. This solution was simpler, cheaper, and self-sustaining. Engineering marvel indeed.
After the ship had passed and I was thoroughly amazed, I went into the visitor center to catch the IMAX 3D movie narrated by Morgan Freeman: “Panama Canal 3D: A Land Divided, A World United.” The movie is around 45 minutes and runs every hour-ish. The movie goes through the history and construction of the canal, from the failed French attempt to the US one that succeeded in 1914. The tone of the movie is definitely triumphant, though it did spend some time on the human costs of building the canal, including the exploited labor, lives lost from diseases and construction perils, and unequal power dynamics (the Canal was under control of the US government until 1999, when it was finally transferred to full Panamanian control).
Afterwards, I got a coffee in the cafeteria, briefly walked around the gift shop, then headed out.
Deep Dive: Casco Viejo (Old Town)
I Ubered directly from Miraflores Visitor Center to Casco Viejo. Try to Uber directly into the heart of Casco Viejo (like setting your destination to the Panama Canal Museum around Plaza de la Independencia) , since the surrounding areas of Casco Viejo did not seem very secure.
The old town area is fairly small, so I was able to walk around most of it. It was fairly quiet that day, with not too many people around, so it felt pretty peaceful, if not a little lonely, for most of the walk. The architecture is a blend of styles: Spanish colonial with stone churches and plazas, 19th century French Neoclassical townhouses with balconies, arched windows, and pastel facades, and Caribbean houses wooden shutters and brightly painted walls. And overall, some buildings were restored into boutique hotels and cafes, whereas some had a weathered, unrestored feel. That combination, along with the narrow cobblestone alleys and sparse people, gave the entire area a distinct vibe.
Spanish colonial townhouses with thick stucco walls and wood shuttered windows.
French and Neoclassical influence, with tall arched windows and decorative molding.
At the edge of Casco Viejo, you can see the crumbling stone remains of the old city walls, part of the original colonial fortifications built to defend the city against pirates and invasions.
Ruins of the old city walls.
I considered trying to make my way to the coastal walkway a bit, but the heat and humidity and lack of sleep was getting to me. So I ended up sitting a bit at the Paseo Esteban Huertas, a passageway covered on top with bougainvillea flowers, with Guna women selling crafts on the sides. From there, you can see the view of the central business district on the other end, with soaring glass skyscrapers. The juxtaposition was quite stark. When I first saw skyscrapers, I was quite taken aback as I didn’t expect to see something so Dubai-esque. Apparently, a decade ago, a lot of these buildings were actually empty since investors rushed to build them due to anticipated demand from Panama’s growing economy, and actual occupation didn’t catch up. I didn’t get to make it there to experience it myself, but apparently even now, the district is a lot less bustling than it seems from the outside.
My bench on Paseo Esteban Huertas, with CBD on the background.
Lunch at Fonda Lo Que Hay
I eventually made it over to my lunch reservation at Fonda Lo Que Hay, a traditional Panamanian “fonda” (small, informal eatery) with a modern twist. I got an appetizer of tuna carpaccio on top of toasted yuca chip, which was absolutely bomb – the texture pairing was so amazing with the smooth tuna and the crunchy yuca chip, and the flavors were soooo good with the onion ceviche on the side. Honestly I wished I had ordered two. And for my main dish, I wanted the crispy pork belly gaucho, but they were out, so I ordered a pork leg sandwich, and it was also absolutely amazing (and had these super flavorful plantain chips that I loved). Great meal.
Back to the airport
By the time I finished lunch at around 1:30PM, it had started pouring rain, and I decided to just play it safe and head to the airport (in case of bad traffic later) instead of attempting to go to another area.
Overall, this layover trip was totally worth it to experience a bit of Panama City. Next time I have this opportunity, I will seriously consider a stopover to explore more of Panama.
Have a question about this or planning something similar?
Shoot me a message or leave a comment below — I read everything, and I’m always happy to help if I can!
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