Dating from 1673—a couple of years after pirates destroyed the original city—Casco Viejo exudes a relaxed vibe yet can be sexy and thrilling. It has a Havana feel: Ramshackle 200-year-old properties with trees growing out of the rooftops sit beside restored architectural treasures. Scaffolding is everywhere, eventually thrown off to reveal a beautifully reconditioned Spanish Colonial-style apartment, a vacation retreat or a retail complex, complete with pastel colours, wrought-iron balconies that encircle entire floors and an absolute ton of windows.

And unlike the downtown concrete jungle where you could walk for blocks before finding a cold drink, Casco Viejo has an actual café society and is totally walkable: Everyone from all over town comes here to play. It truly is the perfect historical complement to what has become a very busy city.

Go luxe. While the brand-name lodging in Panama is plentiful, your best bet for real luxury is in one of Casco Viejo’s stylish smaller hotels. The American Trade Hotel & Hall, built in 1917 and restored in 2007, fits this bill. Serene and stunning, the 50-room hotel stays true to its roots, with vaulted ceilings, white walls, dark reclaimed wood, colonial-style furnishings and an original limestone staircase.

Syncopate. The American is also home to Danilo’s Jazz Club, its roster of international and local talent presided over by Grammy-winning Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Perez.

AFFORDABLE LUXURY: CENTRAL HOTEL

Sip at sunset. An elegant scene awaits at Casa Casco, a five-storey restored colonial building complex, featuring a rooftop lounge, a nightclub, and three concept restaurants that offer eclectic African-Caribbean, Asian fusion, and Panamanian cuisines. The roof bar is perfect for sunset cocktails.

Feel the fusion. At 16-seat Donde José, chef José O. Carles infuses Panamanian traditions and cooking techniques into his tasting menu. A mirror over the prep table allows guests to watch the proceedings. It’s like dinner theatre, with each dish telling a different story of Panama.

CRUISE: THE PANAMA COASTLINES

Dress it up. Tantalo Hotel & Kitchen has a mere 10 rooms, each with its own arty design concept. But the star of the property is the rooftop, where the local in-crowd, the ex-pats and the tourists meet to prop up the long bar.

Shake it. The rooftop Lazotea restaurant and bar at Hotel Casa Panama draws the nighttime revelers, who clamour for the frothy cocktails poolside—often with a live band lending the soundtrack.

Head up hill. Tie on your walking shoes and take a morning hike up Ancon Hill, a nature reserve in the middle of Panama. The walk takes about 90 minutes round trip, delivering Instagram-worthy, 360-degree views of the city once you reach the top, including that of the canal and Casco Viejo. If you want to see any of the park’s wildlife—39 species of birds and 15 different mammals, including sloths and monkeys—go either very early in the morning or later in the day.

Call on the Causeway. Ecotourists can head to the Frank Gehry-designed Biomuseo on the Amador Causeway, which features eight galleries that focus on Panama’s unique biodiversity and geological history. After your visit, rent a tandem four-wheeled bike nearby and carry on out to the end of the Causeway for a look around the three islands, and pop into the Punta Culebra Nature Center, an arm of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, to learn more about tropical biodiversity.

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The Central Hotel was built in 1874 and reopened in 2016 after a major renovation restored its 135 rooms to their former glory. Developers stuck close to the original French-influenced designs, preserving the hotel’s façade, vaulted ceilings, grand staircase, gabled rooftops and all.

Vibe: Everyone here is well-heeled and has a jacket or two in their suitcase. Expect special-occasion celebrants, families enjoying family time, and a business crowd that is in tune with the good value.

Rooms: The décor of the Central Hotel’s 135 rooms is elegant in its simplicity, naturally favouring a colonial-style, with white walls adorned with simple art, oatmeal rugs, crisp white linens and white padded headboard, all contrasted with dark wood flooring and wooden chairs. White double doors open up to mini balconies with metal railings. The modern bathroom is so shiny you may need sunglasses.

F&B: Guests tuck into a nice tapas lunch at Bistro Central, which spills out onto the sidewalk patio out front. For dinner, the elegant La Central will set you up with a nice, juicy steak. The rooftop Bar Lounge has one of the best views in the city.

Extras: The little swimming pool on the roof is quite darling and perfect for late-afternoon daydreaming, overlooking the neighbourhood’s ceramic-shingled roofs and out to the Panama City skyline. Very romantic.

CRUISE: THE PANAMA COASTLINES

Off-Site: The hotel sits on the east side of Plaza de la Independencia, opposite the Cathedral, in the very center of the cobblestoned Old City or Casco Viejo. This is where much of the city’s nightlife is situated and where most of the tourists anchor their stay, so the mix of local and visitor is both intriguing and welcome. This part of town is also one of the safest. The Central Hotel is walking distance from some of the best restaurants in town, as well as the Panama Canal Museum and the Panama Art Society.

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On a nine-day small-ship journey with UnCruise, an adventure travel outfit from Seattle, I toodle around the bays and islets off Panama’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts on Safari Voyager with 40 or so other intrepid travellers.

“We are the antithesis of the big ships,” says UnCruise owner Dan Blanchard. “Everything we do is not about the boat, it’s about what’s off the boat—the nature and wildlife. Essentially, the boat is a floating lodge we ‘hub and spoke off’ all day, the tool to get us to the places we can’t get to otherwise.”

Spot the boobies. I rarely get excited about boobies. But then I spot my first blue-footed boobie—and I’m mesmerized. On an inflatable skiff looking through binoculars, we see their cliffside bird colony on Little Pacheca Island in the Gulf of Panama. My boobies aren’t alone: I also see cormorants, pelicans and more, each commanding their own particular real estate around their wee island rookeries.

Find your tribe. Further down the Pacific coast, we spend an afternoon at an Indigenous village in the Darién province, communing with a tribe of welcoming Emberá villagers still living the same traditional jungle life that goes back centuries. After a formal welcome and a bit of ceremonial dancing, we buy crafts—beaded pendants, woven baskets, carved wooden dishware—and taste raw sugar cane.

WHERE TO STAY: IN PANAMA CITY

Kayak the mangroves. Existing before humans, the salt-tolerant coastal vegetation of the sub-tidal zones is its own ecosystem, filtering the salt out of the tree roots. Paddling through the mangroves yields an exquisite sense of peace and an arresting realization that I’m visiting a place few people ever get the chance to visit. We languish in the approaching sunset, drinking in the silence, watching the pelicans dive-bomb for fish in the estuary. No wonder these poor creatures go blind from this daily grind.

Traverse the Panama Canal. Tick.

Find a desert island. On the Atlantic side, we make for the Indigenous province of Guna Yala, a grouping of 360 picture-postcard islands, all white sand, palm trees and thatched roofs. We snorkel, paddleboard, kayak some more, eat, play volleyball and shop for molas, the colourful embroidered tapestries the locals have brought to our island-for-the-day.

THINGS TO DO: CASCO VIEJO

When you go. Uncruise Adventures offers seven- and 10-night trips around Colombia and Panama in October, December and January, and July and August. Pack the linen.

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