The Best Beach Hotels in Panama

Where Panama’s northeastern Atlantic coast meets Costa Rica, it fragments into mangrove forests, lagoons and jungly islands. In Bocas del Toro, Tesoro Escondido sits on a rocky bluff near Bluff Beach. Accommodation is simple and hard to reach (with sporadic shuttles to Bocas del Toro town). Given the pack of barking pooches, you’ll need to like dogs, too. However, the surrounding forest and the brightly painted fishing-shack cabins create a barefoot, back-to-nature stay, complete with snorkeling over coral reefs, surfing and hiking.

Koko Acqua Lodge provides comfortable accommodation in bungalows over a scruffy harbor in the tiny Caribbean fishing town of Bocas del Toro. It’s a popular choice with the young, gap-year crowd who are mostly here to flop on the long, sandy beach (a five-minute walk away) by day and party in the spit-and-sawdust bars by night.

Within gardens filled with heliconia and hummingbirds, the Hotel Santa Catalina Panama is an idyllic hideaway comprising terracotta-roofed cabins with Pacific Ocean views. There’s an infinity pool as well as a curling surf break, and the island is fringed with soft sand. A 20-minute kayak’s paddle away is a reef where turtles glide.

If you’re looking to stay in the Bocas del Toro wilderness in comfort, you’ll find it at Bird Island, where modest, bright, whitewashed rooms are decorated with artsy driftwood mobiles and wall hangings and have sweeping ocean views. While the lodge is nearly an hour from Bocas del Toro town, it never feels far removed from civilization, thanks to attentive service, an infinity pool, a beach on the doorstep and decent food. If you crave more adventure, self-guided coast and forest trails run from the hotel grounds, or you can take one of the reef and wildlife tours.

While it’s a pricey place to stay, involving a long, expensive boat ride to go anywhere, and doesn’t have a beach, this luxury lodge features a cluster of Maldivian-style overwater bungalows. The resort has views of molten sunsets over the ocean, a fish-flickering coral reef at your feet and a mangrove forest all around. All of that makes the Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge on Bocas del Toro’s Bahiá Almirante lagoon idyllic, and the food is good, too.

With fiery sunsets over the sea, a long beach framed by rainforest and shaded by palms, with rolling waves cut by a clear-water river, Hotel Playa Reina is an attractive place to stay. The terracotta-roofed cabins (with shared hammock-slung terraces, chunky wooden furniture and whitewashed walls) are simple, and there’s a small infinity pool. There are also a host of activities, including surf classes, fishing and snorkeling trips.

This no-frills condo complex sits behind a broad half-moon bay on Panama’s central Pacific coastline. La Tronosa Forest Reserve and Cerro Hoya National Park – comprising one of the largest stretches of unspoiled rainforest in the country – are a half-hour drive away. The blocky, functional villas are for sleeping and self-catering, and while most are private residences for vacationing Panamanians, rentals are possible.

These big, bright traditional Panamanian terracotta-roofed bungalows sit in a leafy condo complex at the far end of the long, curving Playa Venao. With an outdoor swimming pool, a shady beachside garden with ample sun-lounger space, an all-day restaurant-bar and a calm shallow sea right in front of the resort, it’s great for families. There are boards for rent, and you’ll find good surf breaks farther along the sand. Don’t surf? Why not take classes while you’re here?

While you may be here for the beach, you can’t miss the Panama Canal, so spend at least one night in Panama City. The Hotel Plaza Paitilla Inn is a safe spot on the harbor, complete with skyscraper and bay views and bright, business-like rooms. It has a pool, a decent seafood restaurant and more to graze on in the vicinity, with nightlife a taxi ride away. You can catch a canal tour group in the lobby.

Wall stencils and sleek wooden furniture adorn the boxy, pared-back rooms at this down-home inn on Panama’s Gold Coast; its location is the reason for staying here. The Punta Duarte Garden Inn sits over a rocky cape between two long, empty Pacific beaches, where you’re more likely to see a fisher than a tourist. Here, dolphins and whales swim offshore, and the sun sinks into the cobalt Pacific in a brilliant nightly blaze of orange.