Panamá

The Amador Causeway is a genuinely unusual piece of urban infrastructure — a road built from rock and soil excavated during the Panama Canal's construction, connecting the mainland to four small islands (Naos, Perico, Culebra and Flamenco) that would otherwise sit offshore. The causeway is now one of the city's most popular spots for walking, cycling and watching container ships queue at the Pacific entrance to the Canal, with restaurants and bars strung along its length. Its centrepiece is the Biomuseo, a vividly coloured building designed by the architect Frank Gehry — his only completed work in Latin America — housing exhibits on the biological consequences of the isthmus forming roughly three million years ago and connecting North and South America, allowing land species to cross between continents for the first time. The combination of engineering history underfoot and evolutionary history inside makes the causeway a genuinely distinct half-day from either the Canal locks or Casco Viejo.

Ancón Hill rises directly from the edge of downtown Panama City, a forested peak that functioned as the administrative heart of the former US-run Canal Zone and now sits as a protected green space within the capital itself — a paved road and trails climb through the forest to a summit cross with sweeping views over the city, the bay and the Canal's Pacific entrance. Troops of Geoffroy's tamarin monkeys and, with patience, sloths are genuinely possible sightings on a short walk here, an unusual proximity of wildlife to a capital's downtown core. A short distance away, the Metropolitan Natural Park protects a larger stretch of tropical forest with its own trail network, drawing serious birders after toucans, trogons and the country's famous density of bird species without leaving the city. Together, the two sites make Panama City one of the few capitals anywhere where a genuine rainforest walk is a same-morning option alongside downtown sightseeing.

Panama City's skyline is the most dramatic in Central America, a dense cluster of glass towers in the Punta Pacífica and Marbella districts built on the country's decades-long role as a regional banking and trade hub — a status the Canal's dollar-based, tax-friendly economy helped cement. The area is also the centre of the city's dining scene, drawing chefs and cuisines from across Latin America and beyond into a genuinely cosmopolitan restaurant landscape unusual for a city this size, alongside upscale shopping malls and rooftop bars with Canal and skyline views. The Cinta Costera, a long coastal park and cycling path built partly on reclaimed land, runs along the bay connecting these modern districts toward Casco Viejo, giving the city an easy waterfront route to walk or cycle between its colonial and contemporary halves.