Costa Rica and Panama Itinerary: Two Weeks from the UK

Two weeks is the right length for Costa Rica and Panama together. Fly into San José, come home from Panama City, and in between cross the border once, by land down the Caribbean coast or on a flight of little more than an hour. You get volcano country, a rainforest coast, the Bocas del Toro islands and the canal on a single ticket, without doubling back.

This is the route we build most often for UK travellers who want both countries on one trip, with the reasoning behind each stop and a version for people who would rather fly than cross by road.

Why put Costa Rica and Panama on one trip?

Because they sit next to each other and are not the same place. Costa Rica is the wildlife country, a small one, where you can be in a cloud forest in the morning and on a beach in the afternoon. Panama is the canal, a capital with a 350 year old quarter and a glass skyline, and an archipelago on each coast that most British visitors have never heard of.

The flight from London is eleven hours either way, so a second week in the neighbouring country costs you a short hop rather than another long haul. And the two countries share a Caribbean coast, which means the border crossing can be part of the trip rather than a day lost to an airport.

Most people who come to us asking for Costa Rica have a week they cannot quite fill, or a fortnight they would rather not spend entirely in one country. Panama is the answer to both.

How do you get from Costa Rica to Panama?

There are three ways, and which one you pick shapes the whole itinerary.

• Fly. San José to Panama City takes about an hour and twenty minutes, and Copa and Avianca run it several times a day. Simplest, and the right answer if your Costa Rica days are on the Pacific side.

• Cross on the Caribbean coast at Sixaola. From Puerto Viejo de Talamanca it is about an hour to the border, then a short drive to Almirante and a half-hour boat to Bocas del Toro. This is the crossing that makes the trip feel like one journey, and the one this itinerary uses.

• Cross on the Pacific side at Paso Canoas. From Costa Rica's far south it puts you within reach of Boquete and the Chiriquí highlands. A good route if Corcovado is on your list, a long way round if it is not.

Two things to know about either land border. Your Costa Rican hire car cannot come with you, so the crossing needs a transfer on each side, which we arrange. And Panama looks more closely at people arriving by land from Costa Rica than at those who fly in: have your onward or return flight to hand, and proof of funds, which a credit card covers.

The two-week itinerary, night by night

Fourteen nights, flying into San José and home from Panama City. The numbers are the nights, not the days.

San José, 1 night

Land, sleep, and start fresh in the morning. The British Airways non-stop from London arrives in the afternoon, and nothing in Costa Rica is improved by a three hour drive straight off an eleven hour flight. A hotel near the airport or in the city, dinner, and an early start.

Arenal, 3 nights

Three hours north to La Fortuna and the volcano, which is the part of the country most people have in their head when they picture Costa Rica. Hanging bridges through the canopy, a morning on the national park trails with a guide who can find a sloth you would have walked past, and hot springs in the evening. If you have a spare day, Río Celeste is a long day trip and worth it for the colour of the water alone. This is the core of the volcanoes and cloud forests trip, compressed.

Puerto Viejo and the south Caribbean, 3 nights

The longest drive of the fortnight, around five hours east and south to the coast, with a lunch stop. It buys you a completely different Costa Rica: Afro-Caribbean, slower, rice and beans cooked in coconut milk. Cahuita National Park for sloths and howler monkeys on a trail that runs along the beach, the Jaguar Rescue Centre, and the beaches at Punta Uva and Manzanillo, where the rainforest comes down to the sand. It is also, conveniently, an hour from the border.

Bocas del Toro, 3 nights

Cross at Sixaola in the morning, and by lunchtime you are on a boat across the bay to Bocas Town. Bocas is a Caribbean archipelago of mangrove channels, reef and small islands, with a loose, unhurried feel that has nothing to do with the canal. Days go on boat trips: Red Frog Beach and the Zapatilla cays, snorkelling, dolphins in the bay, a bar built over the water. Stay on Isla Colón or Isla Bastimentos, or in one of the over-water lodges that have appeared in the quieter bays.

Bocas is also where the Caribbean has its own ideas about the weather, with a calendar that runs differently from the Pacific. We cover that in the best time to visit Costa Rica guide, and it applies here too.

Panama City, 4 nights

An hour's flight from Bocas to Albrook, the domestic airport in the city, and you have swapped a wooden jetty for a skyline. Four nights sounds like a lot for a city. It is not, because two of the days are not in the city at all.

One day for the canal: Miraflores or, better, a partial transit on a small boat through the locks themselves. We have written up what is worth doing on the canal from the land side in our Panama Canal guide. One day in Casco Viejo, the old quarter, which is compact enough to do on foot with a long lunch in the middle. One day out at Gamboa and Soberanía National Park, forty minutes away and one of the best birding roads in the Americas, with howler monkeys as the soundtrack. And one day spare, for the fish market, Panamá Viejo, or doing nothing at a rooftop pool before the flight home.

If the skyline makes you wonder about the city itself, we have set out how the city feels day to day, and where the sensible caution lies, in is Panama safe.

Home from Panama City

There is no direct flight to the UK. The sensible routes connect through Madrid, Amsterdam or Paris. Connecting through the United States works but needs an ESTA, even for a couple of hours in the terminal. Your ticket out of the UK will have been booked into San José and home from Panama City, what the airlines call an open-jaw, which is what stops you having to go back the way you came.

Would you rather fly than cross by land?

Then swap the middle of the trip. Keep San José and Arenal, then go west into the cloud forest at Monteverde for two nights and down to the Pacific at Manuel Antonio for three, which is the classic Costa Rica week and the shape of our 10-day Costa Rica itinerary. Fly San José to Panama City, spend your Panama days between the capital and either the Chiriquí highlands around Boquete, coffee farms and cloud forest a short flight west, or the San Blas islands on the Caribbean. You lose the Sixaola crossing and Bocas, and gain a cloud forest and a better beach.

There is no right version. The land route makes the better story, the flying route the better Costa Rica.

Costa Rica first or Panama first?

Costa Rica first, in almost every case. The non-stop from London lands in San José, not Panama City, so starting there saves a connection on the way out, when you are tired, and leaves the connection for the way home, when it matters less. The direction of travel also runs downhill in the right sense: from wildlife and early starts towards islands and a city, with the hammock in the middle.

The exception is the cruise passenger. If your ship begins or ends in Panama, build the trip from that date and do Costa Rica afterwards, with the short flight in reverse.

The practical differences between the two countries

These are the details that catch people out, because the countries look similar and are not.

• Costa Rica uses the colón, Panama uses the US dollar. Dollars are taken almost everywhere in Costa Rica too. Carry some small notes for the Bocas boats and the border.

• Panama is an hour ahead of Costa Rica. Change your watch when you cross, or you will be early for the Bocas flight, which is the better way round.

• Neither country needs a visa for a British passport. Costa Rica allows up to 180 days and wants your passport valid for at least a day beyond your departure. Panama allows up to three months and wants six months' validity, proof of around 1,000 US dollars or a credit card, and an onward ticket, which you will have. Panama charges a 40 dollar departure tax, normally built into your fare. Both countries' rules are on the FCDO pages for Costa Rica and Panama.

• A Costa Rican hire car stays in Costa Rica. We use a private transfer on each side of the border, so this never becomes your problem.

• Tap water is fine in most of Costa Rica and in Panama City. In Bocas del Toro and on the Caribbean coast, drink bottled.

• Both countries use the flat two-pin American socket at 110 volts. One adapter does the whole trip.

• Drone rules differ, and both countries have restricted areas, including the canal. We have separate guides for Costa Rica and Panama.

When should you go?

December to April is the dry season for most of both countries, and the easy answer. The Caribbean coast, which is where this route spends its middle week, runs to its own rhythm, and the usual advice is that September and October are surprisingly good there while the Pacific is at its wettest. If you want turtles at Tortuguero or whales off the Pacific, time it with our Costa Rica wildlife calendar. If the canal and the city are the draw, any month works.

Putting it together

Fourteen nights, two countries, one border crossing and one internal flight. We book the flights from the UK into San José and home from Panama City, the hotels and lodges, the transfers on both sides of the border, the Bocas flight and the guides, all under one ATOL-protected booking. The route above is a starting point rather than a fixed product: some people want Tortuguero instead of Arenal, some want the highlands instead of Bocas, and some want three weeks. Our Costa Rica Coast to Coast journey and our tailor-made Panama holidays show what each half looks like on its own.

Tell us what you have in mind and we will build the version that fits.