Panama Canal Travel Guide

A 51-mile stretch slicing across the isthmus, the Panama Canal is one of humanity's most astonishing engineering feats.

After decades of failure, the route was finally completed in 1914, linking the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and reshaping global trade in the process. A private Panama Canal tour with Extraordinary Journeys means experiencing the marvel as it deserves. Not from the Miraflores Visitor Center, not even from on board a boat cruising around Gatun Lake, but up close inside a lock with an expert guide who brings history to vivid account. Better yet: view the Canal in aerial widescreen on a private helicopter tour, the only way to fully appreciate its scale.

Arched bridge spanning a turquoise bay surrounded by mountains and palm trees

Aerial view of a cargo ship transiting the Panama Canal through rainforest

Tall-masted sailing cruise ship navigating the Panama Canal near the rainforest coastline

Why visit the Panama Canal?

Essential context for your trip. Understand the Canal’s complex past through the insight of an expert guide who animates stories of struggle, endurance, and Panamanian pride.

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Essential context for your trip. Understand the Canal’s complex past through the insight of an expert guide who animates stories of struggle, endurance, and Panamanian pride.
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With your neck craned back, watch container ships inching through the Miraflores Locks. Then gain a whole new perspective, taking to the skies on a private Panama Canal helicopter tour.
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The Canal spans multitudes: world history, geography, engineering, economics, and geopolitics. Whatever your interests, there’s something fascinating to learn.

Panama Canal tour itineraries

Use these itineraries as a starting point, or as inspiration to create your own journey.

Keel-billed toucan perched on a branch in the Panamanian rainforest

Itinerary

Wild Panama family trip

Wildlife, coasts, and rainforests packed into one itinerary

Aerial view of a sailing catamaran anchored beside a palm-covered island in Guna Yala, Panama

Itinerary

Romantic Panama trip

Canal, crater, cloud forest and Pacific Islands

Itinerary

Wild Panama family trip

Wildlife, coasts, and rainforests packed into one itinerary

Itinerary

Romantic Panama trip

Canal, crater, cloud forest and Pacific Islands

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Other areas to explore

A visit to the Panama Canal puts you within easy reach of many other beautiful and fascinating parts of Panama.

Panama City

Our Panama City tours invite you into a city at the crossroads of the world on a journey designed entirely around your tastes, shaped by experts who call it home.

Hikers crossing a suspension bridge above a waterfall on the Sendero Chorro El Macho trail in Valle de Antón, Panama

El Valle de Antón

Valle de Anton is among Panama’s most enchanting areas: a town nestled within the crater of an extinct volcano.

Hanging bridge crossing through the cloud forest canopy in Boquete, Panama

Boquete (Cloud Forest)

From the coasts to the Canal, much attention is lavished on Panama's waterways, but the highlands of Boquete are another world entirely.

Bocas del Toro

Overwater bungalows, jungle-backed beaches, Caribbean island-hopping. Extraordinary Journeys designs bespoke luxury escapes to Panama's Bocas del Toro.