Getting around Panama: transport and apps

In the city

• The metro is clean, cheap, air-conditioned and busy. Two lines, a third being built, and it now reaches the airport.
• MetroBus covers what the metro does not, on the same card. The red articulated buses are the backbone.
• The "diablo rojo" painted buses are mostly gone from Panama City, replaced by MetroBus, and survive in the provinces.
• Walking Casco Viejo is the point of Casco Viejo, but the FCDO flags it as a spot where street crime happens - keep the phone in a pocket.

Between cities

• Albrook bus terminal is attached to a metro station and a shopping mall and serves the entire country. Buses are frequent, air-conditioned to the point of cold, and cheap.
• The road north to David and Boquete is good; the roads to the Caribbean side and into the highlands are not, and the FCDO warns about lighting and potholes.
• Air Panama and Copa fly domestically from Albrook and Tocumen. For Bocas del Toro and Guna Yala, flying is usually the sane choice.
• Roadblocks from protests are a recurring feature and can close the Pan-American Highway and the Costa Rica border at Paso Canoas for days. Check before a long overland leg.