# Going Out in Panama City You're standing on a rooftop 66 floors above the city at dusk, the Panama Canal glinting in the distance, the skyline rising around you in sharp silhouettes. The air is warm and still. Below, the streets are filling with people heading out for the evening. This is where your night in Panama City begins. ## The Rooftop View: Panaviera and the City Above Head to Panaviera bar at the JW Marriott Panama—locals call it the Trump tower. Take the elevator from the casino up to the 66th floor, where the rooftop opens onto sweeping views of Panama City at night. The bar runs daily from 17:00 to 02:00, so you can arrive as the light drains from the sky and watch the city lights ignite below you. This is the high point of an evening in Panama City, literally and figuratively: a place to orient yourself to the scale of the place and to start your night with intention. ## Calle Uruguay: Where the Evening Unfolds This is where the night deepens. Calle Uruguay is the neighborhood filled with bars and discos—the social center for both wealthy Panamanians and foreigners who come out after dark. It is not a single bar but an entire street devoted to drinking and dancing, venues opening into the evening and staying alive well past midnight. The character here is cosmopolitan and deliberate: people dress for the occasion, the music is loud and contemporary, and the night has a momentum to it. Within this quarter sits Taberna 21, a local hangout that offers a different register: cheap beer and Spanish tapas, the kind of place where you can eat and drink without ceremony, where the focus is on good food and honest prices rather than ambiance or views. This is where locals go when they want simplicity. ## What to Drink: Coffee and Beer Beyond the Night Before the evening proper, treat yourself to Panamanian and Cuban coffee—the sources of some of the best you will taste anywhere. This is not a late-night activity but a daytime ritual that shapes how you move through your days in the city. When it comes to beer, Taberna 21 serves it cheap and well. Beyond that, the bars of Calle Uruguay will have what you need, though the sources do not detail specific brands or styles. ## Walking Into Nature: A Day-Trip Counterpoint If your evening plans feel too concentrated on the rooftops and nightclubs, balance them with the Metropolitan Natural Park (Parque Natural Metropolitano), a nature reserve within walking distance of the city—about 20 minutes from the Albrook bus terminal. Register and pay $5 at the visitors center, where you will find toilets and drinking water fountains. One trail leads up a hill with views back over the Panama City skyline. This is a morning or afternoon venture, a way to see the city from a different vantage, from within the tropical forest that surrounds it rather than above it. ## A Deeper Immersion: The Canal on Water For a more intimate experience of Panama itself, consider joining a sailboat as a linehandler crossing the Panama Canal. The boat owners need five crew members by law to navigate the locks—the complex work of tying and untying the vessel to the walls and other boats. In exchange for two days of labor (sleeping aboard), you get food, drinks, and the rare experience of seeing the canal from the water. Finding a boat requires patience and persistence; local Facebook and WhatsApp groups are where these opportunities surface. The timing depends on the season and availability, but the experience is singular. --- The rhythm of an evening here moves from the heights—the view from Panaviera as the sun sets—down into the street-level social world of Calle Uruguay, where you will find yourself among people who know how to spend a night. Whether you spend it dancing in a disco, eating tapas at Taberna 21, or simply moving between bars, the evening has a clear geography and a clear timeline: things run late, the streets stay alive into the early morning hours, and there is always another drink, another conversation, another moment before dawn. Start planning your evening now—choose your rooftop, your street, your level of engagement—and you will find the city opens to you.