Editor's Comment: The Golden Altar of the Church of San Jose is located in downtown Panama City, in the Casco Viejo area. You are in the Sheraton Biajo beach resort in Santa Clara. It will take about an hour and a half to drive to Panama City, and then once you are in the city to navigate down to Casco Viejo to see the Golden Altar. Once you're in the city it's an easy jump via taxi. All of the cab drivers know where that one is, because it's on the menu for tourists. Good luck. Check the link above for more details and maps on the location of the church.

Copyright 2012 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.   

Editor's Comment: I would go the whole nine yards. I would not mind paying an established fee to enter any public beach area, as long as there were security guards in the parking lots, fresh water showers (clean) to rinse off the salt water and sand before you get back into your car, bathrooms, trash cans for garbage, if the beaches were clean and litter free, etc. I would suggest that the government of Panama could provide the "seed money" to build these facilities in places like Gorgona, and then the local community board can collect and manage the fees to hire the employees, to the maintenance (I know, try not to laugh), etc. Hey, it's not a perfect world, but there's nothing wrong with trying to make it a little better, right? I would even pay a daily use fee for a bohio or something to get out of the sun, lifeguards, etc.    

Among the notable development projects is the Panama Canal itself, which is in the early stages of a multibillion-dollar expansion. The project will widen and deepen the existing canal and add two locks, doubling the canal’s cargo capacity. For those who want to see the waterway as it was originally designed, now is the time. The expansion is expected to be completed by 2014, the canal’s 100-year anniversary.

Other high-profile projects include the construction of three firsts: The Panamera, the first Waldorf Astoria hotel in Latin America (set to open in June 2012); the Trump Ocean Club, the region’s tallest building, which opened last summer; and Frank Gehry’s first Latin American design, the BioMuseo, a natural history museum scheduled to open in early 2013. Even Panama City’s famously dilapidated historic quarter, Casco Viejo, has been transformed. The neighborhood, a tangle of narrow streets, centuries-old houses and neo-colonial government buildings, was designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 1997 and is now a trendy arts district with galleries, coffeehouses, street musicians and some of the city’s most stylish restaurants and boutique hotels.

Across the isthmus, on Panama’s Caribbean coast, the Bocas del Toro archipelago has become a popular stop on the backpacker circuit, with snorkeling and zip lining by day and raucous night life after dark. FREDA MOON.

Editor's Comment: To see the full article as it appeared in the New York Times and the other 44 destinations that are not as cool as Panama, click this link. Panama has been getting more and more attention as a tourist destination in the mainstream media in the United States this year. Panama saw more than 2 million tourists in 2011 - the first time the "2 million" barrier was broken. Tourism is very important for the local economy, with tourists leaving behind billions of dollars of spending on hotel rooms, rental cars, restaurants and eating out, tourism services, and trips such as fishing, scuba diving, boats, or zip lines through the jungle canopy. Panama seems to be growing up as fast as it can, but there are still fundamental problems to be addressed (see the earlier article about a woman who fell through a manhole cover after eating dinner at a restaurant.) Anyway, I hope all of those people who will be coming to Panama as tourists find this website as part of their explorations and preparations to visit. Come on down, the water's fine...   

Editor's Comment: Very cool. Well done, professionally made promotional videos. Fun to watch, visually pleasing, generally accurate. Great stuff. Thanks. And for all you tourists out there - yes, it's true. There really are hot chicks in bikinis running around all over the place. I tripped over three of them going to lunch today. It's amazing ... wildlife. In the first video right when the voice-over says Panama is a "land of amazing wildlife" the video cuts from a breaching humpback whale to the hot chick in the purple bikini. I love it. Perfect. How about "Panama - where the world comes together." Nah, that's OK, ladies first (grin). And I always wondered where Larry met Carmen. Now, I know.

Copyright 2011 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.   

Editor's Comment: Yup, tourists are great. They come here, look around, spend money, buy some stuff, eat at the restaurants, and leave. We love tourists. Now, if only the government of Panama would WTFU and start doing some things to help tourism. Like - putting a stop to the corrupt cops who continue to suck bribes out of tourists on the Inter American Highway with a radar gun and a threat of a huge fine. I received another email about that same thing just today. Whatever. Maybe getting pulled over by a corrupt cop in a third world country is part of the "charm." Honestly, it's hard for me to see some of the stuff that needs to be fixed (from a tourist point of view) because I've been here for so long. OK you sun baked partially dehydrated rental car warriors from Oshkosh ... what should Panama do to make the country more tourist friendly, to attract even more billions of dollars to the local economy? Comments down below, pur flavor...   

Panama Featured On NBC Today Show This Morning: I got a tip this morning (thanks, Joe) that Panama was being featured on the NBC Today Show with Matt Lauer in a piece entitled "12 Must See Travel Destinations For 2012" (click the link to see the video). There were several destinations highlighted in the piece and the part about Panama was very well done, at least the video part of the segment. Of course for all of you who follow this website regularly Panama isn't a hidden secret or a surprise destination, and you've already discovered Panama's charms. In the piece they sort of say "get down to Panama before everyone else finds out about it, before it's too late." Of course I love this kind of publicity and exposure for Panama as a travel destination, because all of that turns into traffic to this website. Even if they did focus on a museum that's not open yet and the expansion of the Panama Canal that tourists can't really see. Whatever. Buzz is buzz. Here's the text of the interview:

• "Matt: Few locations make the list down south, st. vin gent acent and the gr grenadines, but your pick is panama.

• Nilou: If you've been to Belize and craving the Central American excitement this is the place to go. Frank Gehry is building a "bio museo", a museum devoted to biodiversity. The panama canal is having a $5.6 billion expansion happening in a couple of years.

• Matt: ...to accommodate the super ships...

• Nilou: ...and great hotels, Manray, a great hotel.

• Matt: We were there for "where in the world" and we saw a lot of americans and all said they loved it.

• Nilou: Go before it changes. This is the moment to go."

Copyright 2011 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.   

Copyright 2011 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.   

On the other hand, in regard with the domestic market, passenger traffic increased 6%. There were 30% more flights to and from Bocas del Toro, 44% increase to Chiriqui, 20 to the Kuna Yala, and 7% increase to Contadora, each with important domestic tourist areas. Domestic cargo also increased by 10%.

The country had 1,113,162 visitors, 12.3% more than in 2010. Of that total, 77.1% were tourists, cruise passengers 18.5% and 4.4% hikers. (Panama America)

Editor's Comment: The numbers make sense. If there were more than 1 million tourists and each spent an average of just $1,000 dollars, then there's your billion dollars. Tourism is a very important aspect of the Panamanian economy. Just this morning I was down in Casco Viejo near INAC and the French Embassy, and there were three different groups of tourists being lead by a guide, about 20 people in each group. The ATP set 2 million tourists as their goal for 2011, let's see if we hit it. Tourists are "perfect" from an economic point of view because they come here, spend money, and leave - it's almost all positive for the host nation. Up in Costa Rica they are starting to feel the pinch as more people choose Panama instead. Costa Rica's annual take from tourism is only about $2.2 billion dollars so Panama isn't that far behind. Costa Rica's tourism industry is relatively new. They didn't see their first year with a million visitors until 1999, and in 2008 they had their first year with more than 2 million visitors. By comparison last year in 2010 Panama had 1.3 million visitors generating $1.6 billion dollars in revenue. As more and more people discover Panama as a tourist destination, then the sector will take on an ever increasing level of importance for the national economy. One indication: there's a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to tourism in Costa Rica, but there isn't a similar article for Panama. When I first got here in 1987 there were practically no tourists (Noriega, war, etc.). Anyway - what you already knew - tourism is growing in Panama and it will continue to grow.    

Editor's Comment: They were doing this with Bocas for awhile, don't know if it's still valid. Basically the government sponsors or subsidizes these packages as part of an effort to get Panamanians to travel to see other parts of Panama.