The 10 Best Hotels in Panama City

A converted social club in the cobblestoned Casco Viejo neighborhood, this Sofitel Legend is a luxury hotel where staff in cream uniforms and Panama hats greet you under a colonial facade. Dark woods and vintage touches fill the interior, while an ocean-facing infinity pool and a full spa pull you back to the present. The terrace serves Mediterranean tapas against the Panama City skyline, which is the kind of detail that makes unpacking feel optional.

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A 36-story tower in Panama City's business district, the Waldorf Astoria is a luxury hotel with 130 rooms and suites, several dining options, and a spa. Ocean-view suites sit high above the city buzz, and the building is close enough to the airport that an early checkout doesn't require a pre-dawn alarm. The kind of place where the lobby does a lot of quiet signaling about what a night here costs.

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Local paintings cover nearly every wall of this boutique hotel in Panama City's banking district, giving the whole place a low-key gallery feel. The rooms are classically comfortable, the service attentive without hovering, and the two towers open up knockout views of the city. The B Bar's Negroni list and Mediterranean tapas attract suits and visitors alike, while the restaurant, Salsipuedes, pulls from six different culinary traditions.

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A Jack Nicklaus golf course sprawling across 500 acres sets the scale at this luxury resort inside a gated community on the edge of Panama City. The sandstone porte-cochère and hand-crafted furniture lean into Panamanian character rather than generic five-star beige, and the pool sits just beyond the lobby like a quiet argument for staying put. A full spa and three restaurants round things out for guests who packed their clubs and those who definitely did not.

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Sixty rooms tucked into the upper floors of a gleaming mixed-use skyscraper in Obarrio, which tells you something about how Panama City works. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the rapidly shifting skyline, and the front desk greets arrivals with champagne or cold water, a small gesture that lands well after a long connection. The location puts most of the city within walking distance or a short cab ride, which matters here, where plenty of guests are between somewhere else entirely.

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The top-floor suite has a foosball table, a sunken tub, and a built-in bar, which tells you most of what you need to know about the W Panama. This sleek business-district hotel sits roughly equidistant between Tocumen airport and Casco Viejo's colonial streets, making it convenient for people who like to have options. White-lacquer rooms, rainfall showers, a rooftop pool, and a cocktail bar that leans into local flavors fill out the rest.

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A boutique hotel built inside a restored department store in Casco Viejo, the American Trade invented a fictional centuries-old family property and then decorated accordingly: weathered wood, retro tilework, and antique furniture sitting alongside Frette linens and plasma screens. Fifty rooms keeps it intimate without feeling sleepy, and the rooftop pool deck handles the socializing while a jazz program from pianist Danilo Pérez takes shape downstairs.

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Three historic buildings, a Spanish Colonial wing, a French Colonial wing built by Jesuit priests, and an American-era addition, wrapped around a garden courtyard large enough to make Panama City feel like a rumor. This Casco Antiguo hotel has 88 rooms that manage to feel both antique and modern, with even the standard doubles running spacious. A rooftop pool, a spa, and two restaurants occupy the grandest original spaces, one of them a former chapel.

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Six suites carved from a lovingly rebuilt 1930s apartment block in Panama City's Casco Viejo, Las Clementinas is a boutique hotel where the floors are rich tropical hardwood and the balconies do all the decorating. Rooms run residential in scale, the kind of generous proportions a developer would have sliced in half. The ground-floor café and bar feeds everyone from hotel guests to locals who know better than to eat elsewhere in the neighborhood.

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A Jack Nicklaus golf course stretching past 7,000 yards with the Panama City skyline as its backdrop sets the tone for this sprawling luxury resort. The spa leans into local ritual, with coffee scrubs and a massage named for Panama's national flower. When the greens lose their appeal, the team arranges helicopter tours and coffee farm excursions. Three restaurants, a pool bar serving ceviche, and bathrooms built around rainfall showers and deep soaking tubs round things out.

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