Finally! A plan for my Panama travels...

I finally decided on my itinerary for Panama.

There is a flight on Aeroperlas Regional airline (the TACA affiliate) from Tocumen International airport in Panama City at 3:39 pm that puts me in Bocas del Toro at 5:14 pm.  I will have roughly three and one half hours to get through immigration and customs before the flight to Bocas.  That is probably way more time than I will need, but I would rather waste an hour on arrival than spend too much time driving over the next several days.

Arriving in Bocas del Toro late afternoon/early evening leaves plenty of time to get settled into my hotel, wander around town, grab dinner and have a few beers before enjoying a good nights rest at my hotel on the shore of the Caribbean.  I will stay in Bocas for three nights and catch the 8:45 am flight on the 6th back to Panama City and arrive at 10:20 am.  There are similar flights from the Albrook commuter airport on Air Panama at roughly the same cost, but I would have to pay $30 to $50 for a cab to get from one airport to the other and would gain nothing.

Once I am back in Panama City I will pick up my rental car and head west on the Pan-American highway towards Azuero Peninsula with stops in Coronado, San Carlos and Santa Clara along the way.  While I haven't yet figured out where in the Azuero Peninsula I will stay (Chitre, Las Tablas and Pedasi are all good candidates), it will be for at least three nights.  I'm leaving myself one day of flexibility so I could spend that roaming around David and Boquete, drive up to the Costa Rica border and make a side trip to Puerto Armuelles, spend another day in the peninsula or go back and take a closer look at Coronado and environs.  How I will use that "flex" day will be made once I am on the ground and have a better feel for things.

Finally, I will drive back to Panama City on Thursday the 10th and then spend the last two days seeing the Panama Canal and Darien before leaving at 8:00 am on Sunday the 13th to go home.  Arriving home in Florida around mid-afternoon will leave plenty of time to do the laundry and sort through the mail.

This plan feels good and appeals to my peripatetic soul; enough time to accomplish the goal of my trip while allotting enough time to just wander around and play tourist.  My next installment will address where to stay.  In the meantime I need to change my car reservations and book my Aeroperlas flights. 

Choosing a hotel in Bocas del Toro, Panama...

I still don't have my itinerary locked down, but I did quite a bit of reading and research over the weekend to narrow down the possibilities and that included searching for hotels.  Actually, some of the places I looked at don't really fit the description of "hotel" as much as B&B or guest house.  A number of the homier, less expensive places are family owned or just down right funky.  Since I am not looking for luxury, a place to lay down that is clean and has at least tepid shower water will be good enough.  I'll have my netbook with me so I'm not quite ready to settle for a backpacker's hostel (for security reasons), but one step above that is fine with me.

I'll start with Bocas del Toro.  There are a lot of really cool and funky places on the island and at reasonable rates.  Trip Advisor provided me with a list of lodging establishments to look at  and after reading through a lot of reviews and taking a look at their web sites I narrowed my choices down to three:  Hotel Olas, CalaLuna Hotel and Hotel Angela.

Hotel Olas is a colorful place (literally… the paint job is amazing) and is right on the water.  The rooms all have AC and include internet access as well as breakfast.  They keep their costs down by accepting cash only -- $40.00 per night for a standard room, $60.00 for ocean front.  From what I can tell, Hotel Olas is close to everything in town.

My other pick that is on the ocean is Hotel Angela.  With only thirteen rooms, Angela also offers free breakfast, a restaurant on site, AC in every room, internet and decent prices:  $50.00 to $80.00 per night.  Trip Advisor includes them in the list of establishments with internet but I didn't see it mentioned on their web site.  I sent them an email and got a response within about 30 minutes (a good sign in itself) assuring me that wi-fi is available throughout the property.

My last choice is not on the water, but still in the heart of town and only a block or so away from the ocean.  CalaLuna Hotel is an Italian owned property with a restaurant on site (they reportedly have excellent, authentic pizza), internet access and have rooms for as little as $45.00 per night.  They also have a small bar and a ping pong table.  One of the things about CalaLuna that may appeal to folks who don't sleep well with noise in the background is that the AC is a mini-split system instead of the through-the-wall units found in many inexpensive properties.  The advantage of the mini-split system is that they are quieter and probably more reliable than wall units.  Although, if they break down you can't just pop a new one in the wall -- they require an HVAC technician to fix them.

I am leaning towards Hotel Angela or Hotel Olas.  Both are really cool properties and appear to be clean and well maintained.  All of the properties offer to help with booking activities.  When I owned my B&B in Key West, all of the boats and dive shops paid an incentive for booking them.  I am not sure if that is the case here, but I know that most guest house owners took a lot of pride in booking the best activities in town and wouldn't let their guests go out on just any boat.  After all, their recommendation reflects back on them and they want every guest to be a return guest.

One of the curious things I found in many lodging web sites throughout Panama  is that they proudly proclaim that they have orthopedic mattresses.  Apparently Panamanians place a high value on a good night's sleep!

A few of the other web sites I used to read up on Bocas del Toro as well are Panama Info,  Extreme Panama and what touts itself as the "official" Bocas del Toro web site, bocas.com.  Panama Info covers all of Panama and includes information on hotels, restaurants, activities and has regional descriptions of the country and much more.  Two other websites that include information on Panama but are really geared towards future expats like myself are Escape from America Magazine and The Escape Artist.

Next up will be the information I found on lodging establishments on the Azuero Peninsula including Chitre, Las Tablas and Pedasi.

Bocas del Toro by air or by ground?

As I have worked on the itinerary for my Panama trip, I have tried to find ways to save time by flying between some towns or flying to a town in the west and picking up a rental car.  For instance, I thought if I could fly to Bocas del Toro and then pick up a rental car I could save quite a bit of time and still see the same territory.  One of my concerns is that I don't like the idea of leaving my rental car on the mainland while spending a couple of days on the islands.  There are flights to Bocas del Toro on the commuter airlines, but no rental cars in any of the nearby mainland towns so that idea is out.

OK… what about flying to Bocas del Toro and then on to David and pick up a car there?  That is doable, but the flight from Bocas to David is around $250.00 and there is a $180.00 drop-off fee to pick up the car in David and return it in Panama City.  $430.00 is a lot of additional cost just to save a few hours. Plus, if you add in the time waiting at airports to the flight time, you really don't save that much.  When all is said and done, the savings would cost me $75.00 to $100.00 per hour, which makes the decision pretty easy.

There is one other alternative.  I can fly round-trip from my arrival airport (Tocumen International in Panama City -- PTY) to Bocas on Aeroperlas Regional (a TACA affiliate) for $234.00.  If I were to arrive at Bocas late afternoon of the 3rd and go back to PTY the morning of the 5th or 6th I could pick up a car and still explore the area from roughly Coronado to Puerto Armuelles over the next several days before returning to Panama City to check out the canal and do a one-day trip to Darien Province.

It looks like there are two reasonable choices for what I want to see and do:  1) Fly to Bocas del Toro and back and then explore the whole south coast by car or 2) Use the original plan of getting a car in Panama City and doing the whole trip on the ground.  At least my choices are getting narrowed down.  I've got less than seven weeks to get everything nailed down and I'm starting to get a bit nervous.  I did a lot of research over the weekend on lodging in Bocas and the Azuero Peninsula, I'll be sharing that information next.

Have map, will travel...

One of the things you need when traveling in a foreign country is a good map... especially in the hinterlands.  If I am driving around the back roads of California, Florida or Minnesota and get lost I could just stop and ask some one for directions.  I can do the same in Panama but will they understand what I am asking for and will I understand the answer?  Even if I spoke fluent Spanish I think a good map would be wise.

On my trip to Belize I got a really great map made by the German map makers, Borch GmbH; it is heavy duty and small enough to use while driving yet big enough to show the details I needed.  Unfortunately, Borch doesn't make a map of Panama.  So I went to Amazon and ended up buying three maps.  Trust me, I didn't want three maps.  The first one I got is the National Geographic Adventure Map.  Sounds like just the thing for a trip that will take me to the four corners of Panama, right?  Well, it is a good map (waterproof and tear-resistant) but it is also big enough to keep a family of four totally dry in a Cat 5 hurricane.  I will use it extensively before going and bring it along, but it is not the kind of map I want sitting in the passenger seat of my Suzuki Jimmy as I head down the Pan-American highway.

So I went back to Amazon and bought two more maps:  The Panama International Travel Map and the Mapi: Panama map.  The second one is exactly what I was looking for -- complete yet handy and durable; this is the one that will be next to me in the car.  The International Travel Map is much like the National Geographic map, but not quite as good.  Fortunately the two maps together cost only about $15.00.

I have the National Geographic map spread out on the dining room table and I'm trying to figure out my route.  Now I just need to figure out if my initial plan is still a good one or if, now that I have the maps, I should use an alternative.   Until I finalize my itinerary I can't make lodging reservations or set up meetings with realtors.

"Map out your future - but do it in pencil.  The road ahead is as long as you make it.  Make it worth the trip." -- Bon Jovi

Airline options for intra-Panama flights...

As I come across new online resources for my Panama trip I will be sure to share them here.  My itinerary continues to develop and  it occurred to me that maybe flying in to Panama City and immediately catching a plane to Bocas del Toro would save some time if I could pick up a car in BT and then drive south to Chiriquí Province and from there follow the coast back to Panama City.

Is it possible?  I don't know yet but I did come across three local airlines that may make that an option.  First is Nature Air, which is a Costa Rican airline that seems to only have flights from CR to Bocas del Toro.  This won't work for me this time but could be an option for short hops to and from CR on future trips.

The second airline is Air Panama.  Air Panama has a varied fleet of 15 aircraft ranging from the 9-passenger Britten Norman Islander twin prop to the 50-seat De Havilland Dash.  They serve 22 locations throughout Panama.  The only drawback for my particular needs is that they fly in and out of Albrook airport, which is the commuter, general aviation airport of Panama City and I am not sure of how much time it takes to go from one to the other.

The third option is Aeroplas Regional airline and they fly through both Panama City airports.  Using my idea above of flying to Bocas del Toro, I would have a several hour layover in the airport before continuing on to Bocas del Toro and arrive around 5:15 pm.  Now if I can get a car there that might be worth the $116.00 for the flight.  This is definitely worth checking out.

Since most of the major car rental agencies operate in Panama along with some local groups I have never heard of, I would think that renting a car in Bocas del Toro would be an option.  Using this strategy could save me a couple of days travel and allow me to spend more time really looking at the areas I am most drawn to.

I'll let you know what I find out.  Either way it makes the most sense to spend the last few days in and around Panama City so that part of my initial plan remains in tact.

The world's best places to retire?

The September edition of International Living magazine includes their annual Retirement Index and I am glad to see that two of my top choices are ranked near the top.  Now, as IL readily admits, the rankings are based on a weighting of eight factors and then totaled, but the various factors and how important they are to you is what is most important.  Would I make a decision based on this index?  No way -- but it does provide interesting indicators of how countries compare against each other.

The index categories are:  real estate, special (retirement) benefits, cost of living, culture, health, infrastructure, safety/stability and climate.  The scoring for each of these items is based on data provided by multiple sources including international and individual government abstracts.  Each of the categories have huge areas of interpretation and giving a single number to a whole country clearly is not meaningful since every country, even tiny little Belize, has wide fluctuations within its borders.  For example, giving a single number to "real estate" regardless of whether you plan to buy or rent and regardless of where within that country you intend to live is a bit absurd.  But, as already noted, the comparisons between countries still warrant a look.

The top five countries by total score are:  Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Spain and  New Zealand.  The index only lists 23 countries but does include many of the other destinations I have under consideration such as Costa Rica, Columbia, Brazil, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. 

An example of the difficulty I have with some of the scoring is in the area of climate.  Mexico is assigned a score of 99 while Belize is assigned a score of 62.  I don't get it.  The two countries are right next to each other; both have highlands with more moderate temperatures and both have Caribbean coasts that are warm and humid.  Is it the Pacific coast that is so much better?  Honduras is just to the south of Belize and rates an 83.  Again, something seems amiss here.  Another area I have a problem with is assigning a number to "culture."  Granted, France (with a score of 100) has a great culture -- a great history, amazing food and wine, widely acclaimed museums, etc.  But to assign a 75 to Uruguay seems a bit much for a country that has great colonial architecture and is frequently referred to as "little Europe."  Anyway, you get my point.

Since IL provides the annual Retirement Index to subscribers I won't reproduce it here, but you can get a copy by subscribing to their Postcards, an email teaser to their magazine and special reports.  It doesn’t cost you anything and before becoming a subscriber myself, I found many intriguing articles and information about locations I had not really considered before.  Yes, they occasionally try to sell you special seminars and other information, but just ignore those if you are not interested and let your mind wander to exciting new places with each email you receive.

Dealing with the details...

Well…  August was a busy month.  In addition to dealing with my health issues I had three weeks of continuing education at work so I was a bit off my usual routine.  I followed that up with a four day trip to Key West and I am now back on schedule and beginning to work on the details of my trip.

I picked up a bit of information from my friends Craig and Joyce, who used to live in Panama for a while as an interlude to their sailing.  We met up with a couple of their friends (ex-military) who also used to live there and continue to make occasional trips to Panama City.  Based on their collective feedback I gleaned the following general pointers:

• Colon is a cess pit full of crime and other than some cool colonial architecture, there is not much to see.
• The canal and its workings are a must see.
• Since I am looking to see if I can live here, concentrate my time and efforts on the Pacific side.

• A guided trip to the Darien jungle and possibly a visit to the Embera tribes would be worth while.
• Bocas del Toro and environs is worth the trip.

Once I returned from KW, I booked my airline tickets (30,000 points on American) and will arrive at Tocumen airport outside of Panama City at about noon on November 3.  I also made a car rental with Thrifty for $192.00 including taxes and fees for the 3rd through the 12th; I reserved the same vehicle I used in Belize -- a Suzuki Jimmy.  I depart Tocumen at 8:00 a.m. the morning of the 13th.  I am thinking of spending the last few days in and around Panama City, so I may reduce the total time of the car rental since it may be more practical to rely on taxis and tour operators on those days instead of driving around a major city I am unfamiliar with.

I made the car reservation with my Citibank AAdvantage card that earns American Airline miles and covers the CDW.  I also bought travel insurance through American Airlines for a pittance (I think it is about $25.00); the insurance is through Access America, which is a reputable travel insurance company and has been around for a long time.

So now I just need to figure out what areas to visit, how much time to spend in each place and what side trips to take.  Once I have an itinerary, I can book hotels and research restaurants, etc.  I bought a couple of road maps on Amazon.com today and that should help in figuring out distances and time of travel.

I will also correspond with two or three realtors to set up half day property viewings to get a feel for what is available and at what price.