Panama, the Canal & Costa Rica by Cruise and Land

Panama City is a genuine surprise to most visitors. The skyline is Miami-esque — towers of glass rising from the Pacific — but 20 minutes away, Casco Viejo (Old Panama) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of crumbling churches, cobblestone streets and extraordinary restaurants. Three days of private touring covers the contrasts well: the old city and its history, Isla Monos (Monkey Island) on Gatun Lake by boat, and the full Panama Canal Adventure — sailing through the locks, watching the water level rise, and understanding in person what the scale of this engineering achievement actually means.

Boarding Rhapsody of the Seas at Flamenco Marina and sailing through the Canal is one of those experiences that reframes how you think about the world. Seven nights, multiple Costa Rican Pacific ports and the canal transit itself. From the deck, the scale of the engineering becomes viscerally real — container ships the size of city blocks rising through locks, the jungle pressing in on both sides, the thin strip of water connecting two oceans.

Disembarking into Costa Rica and driving up to Monteverde feels like the transition between two very different worlds. The cruise was about scale and spectacle; Monteverde is about detail — the tiny poison dart frog on the trail, the resplendent quetzal in the fig tree, the hummingbird at the lodge feeders that arrives with a noise like a small helicopter. The canopy zipline tour covers the cloud forest at speed; the guided cloud forest walk covers it in the opposite manner — slowly, with attention.

The final act: Manuel Antonio. Si Como No Resort, perched above the national park, has its own wildlife refuge and two pools with views over the jungle canopy to the Pacific. The guided park walk on the first morning is essential — your guide will find the three-toed sloth sleeping twenty feet above the trail that you'd have walked straight past. The beach is a short walk through the park. The Sloth Sanctuary tour the afternoon before departure brings you closer still to Costa Rica's most beloved animal. You leave wanting to return, which, for a holiday, is perhaps the finest measure of success.