Small Bay of Panama island with a colonial village, green hills, and beaches near the capital.
Taboga is a small island in the Bay of Panama, about 20km off the Pacific entrance to the canal and reachable by ferry from Panama City in under an hour. Spanish settlers founded the village in 1524, and for a few decades it served as the staging post for Pizarro's conquest of Peru. Today it is a low-key escape from the capital — a single fishing village clinging to the seafront, a network of footpaths over the green hills, and a couple of beaches that fill with day-trippers on weekends and empty out by Monday morning.
The big sights are quickly told. The Church of San Pedro, founded in 1524, is one of the oldest churches in the Americas still in use. The path up to Cerro de la Cruz leads to a wooden cross with a view that takes in the Panama City skyline, the cargo ships queuing for the canal, and the smaller islands offshore. Playa Restinga, a sand spit that connects the island to the islet of El Morro at low tide, is the main swimming beach.
On the back side of the island lies the Taboga and Urabá Islands Wildlife Refuge, home to one of the largest brown pelican breeding colonies in the Pacific. Local boatmen will run you around the rookery on request; the nesting season is December to July.
Guide
Getting Around
There are almost no cars on Taboga. Distances are short and everything in the village is within five minutes' walk of the ferry pier. The footpaths to the beaches, the church, and Cerro de la Cruz are all paved or compacted dirt; comfortable shoes and a water bottle are enough.
A handful of locals offer rides on small electric carts or motorbikes for the climb to the cross or the trailheads on the far side of the island, useful if you are short on time or unwilling to walk uphill in the heat.
Guide
When to Go
The dry season, from mid-December to mid-April, is by some distance the best time. Sunny days, light winds, calm seas for the ferry crossing, and the brown pelican nesting season on the back side of the island is in full swing. This is also when day-trippers from Panama City arrive in greatest numbers — weekends can feel busy on Playa Restinga, weekdays much less so.
The wet season runs May to November. It rarely rains all day, but afternoon downpours are routine and the seas can be rough. The Virgen del Carmen festival in mid-July is the biggest event on the island calendar, with a boat procession and fireworks; worth timing a visit around if you can.
