CASCO ANTIGUO · PANAMA CITY
JUNE 2026
Four heritage sites in one morning,
and why the sequence matters
The Casco Antiguo de Ciudad de Panamá is one of the few places in the Americas where it is possible to walk between four UNESCO World Heritage sites before noon. Most visitors visit one or two. The ones who understand the country visit all four, and understand that the order in which you visit them determines what you see.
Begin at Panamá La Vieja before the heat arrives. The ruins of the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas look different at 7am than they do at 11. The Cathedral tower still stands. From there, the logic of why Panama City exists, the crossing point, the transit route, the place where silver from Peru was transferred to ships bound for Spain, becomes readable in the landscape.
Then the colonial quarter. The Casco itself contains the second founding of the city after Morgan's raid in 1671, the French Canal headquarters, the American influences of the twentieth century, and the contemporary restoration that has made it one of the most architecturally coherent colonial quarters in Latin America. Walk it without a guide on the first pass. Walk it with the right guide on the second.
DESIGN A PANAMA CITY PROGRAM
BOQUETE · CHIRIQUÍ
MAY 2026
The Geisha auction and what it tells you
about the highlands
For fifteen consecutive years, Geisha coffee from Boquete has set international auction records. The price per pound consistently exceeds anything produced anywhere else in the world. The question worth asking is not how, the altitude, the rainfall, the volcanic soil, the long fermentation at lower temperatures, but why here specifically.
The answer is a story about a single coffee variety found growing at an Ethiopian research station, brought to Panama in the 1960s, nearly forgotten, and then rediscovered by a producer in Boquete who realized that the specific microclimatic conditions of the Chiriquí highlands produced a cup that had no precedent. The highlands reward that kind of attention. They always have.
JOURNEYS TO THE HIGHLANDS
GUNA YALA
APRIL 2026
What it means that
Guna Yala governs itself
The Guna people have retained autonomous governance of their territory since 1925, following a revolution, the Guna Revolution, that is one of the few successful indigenous uprisings of the twentieth century. The Panamanian government recognized Guna authority over the archipelago. That autonomy is not incidental to the experience of visiting. It is the experience.
When you arrive in Guna Yala, you are not arriving in Panama in the way that Panama City is Panama. You are arriving in a political entity that controls its own entry, its own tourism, and its own relationship with the outside world. Understanding that changes what you see, the handmade clothing, the management of tourist arrivals, the clarity about what is permitted and what is not. It is not restriction. It is sovereignty.
INQUIRE ABOUT A GUNA YALA PROGRAM
CANAL DE PANAMÁ
MARCH 2026
The Canal by private aviation,
and why it changes the experience
The Miraflores Locks visitor center is the standard option. It is well-organized. It is educational. It handles thousands of visitors per day efficiently. It is also a fundamentally different experience from seeing the Canal from the air.
At altitude, the engineering becomes legible in a way it cannot from a fixed viewing platform. You see the full cut, the Gaillard Cut, where French engineers and then American ones moved more earth than any project before it. You see the watershed, the lakes that were created to supply the locks with fresh water, the relationship between the Canal and the Canal Zone, the way the waterway bends through the isthmus. The ninety minutes of helicopter transit is not a luxury upgrade. It is a different way of understanding the same thing. For certain clients, it is the right way.
HOW WE DESIGN CANAL PROGRAMS
