Guidebooks to Panama |

Lonely Planet Panama is a guidebook well worth its weight, beginning with unparalleled photographs of tropical flora and fauna in some of Panama’s sixteen national parks and offering solid travel advice for Panamanian visitors throughout.

Travelers who value planning will find historic highlights, health bulletins, guides for travel with children, where to find internet access, and guides to planning wide variety of trips through Panama. Adventurers, who plan for moments rather than days, will find phone and fax numbers for last minute reservations on flights to the shore of the Caribbean for a weekend’s scuba diving or a mountain trip to kayak in class-five rapids.
Even more important as you actually venture into a foreign venue, are Lonely Planet’s well constructed maps and solid recommendations for clean hotels and good food, in Panama’s renowned destinations. The editors offer their favorites in both lodging and meals for each region, giving insights that can be very significant in a country in which food-borne and mosquito-borne illnesses do exist.

The amount of relevant data included by Lonely Planet Panama’s well-traveled team is extensive. The travel guide chooses regional destinations in each of the provinces, and then discusses local lodging and restaurant alternatives that are offered. The options for each area are categorized as: budget, mid-range and top end; which simplifies deciding where you want to go, by highlighting the differences in amenities that your dollar buys.

One chapter of the Lonely Planet Panamanian travel guide is advice by a physician, on vaccinations recommended before traveling in Panama. The doctor included a variety of health care information, even a contents checklist for a good tropical first aid kit.

Surprisingly, the cultural diversity that Panama offers has had few proponents in travel literature. The Lonely Planet editors have provided the latest information about trips to see the celebrated 940 bird species and 125 animal species found nowhere else in the world and have offered special destinations for ornithologists and biologists.

The Lonely Planet policy of accepting and incorporating helpful hints, useful advice and meaningful anecdotes from fellow travelers, have enriched and grounded this edition, whether it’s stories of how to swim in a riptide, or hints about where the horseback riding is really good.

You can hike through cloud forests and swim in two oceans, climb mountains, or even be a delighted conservationist and delight in the four species of sea turtle nesting on this country’s unmatched seashore, and Lonely Planet Panama will help you travel wisely. Check it out.