¿How to get from Costa Rica to Panama by bus?

Costa Rica ha Costa Rica is well located, so when you are planning your vacations you can consider visiting more than one place at a time, and make the most of your money. For example, you may plan coming to Costa Rica, stay 8 days or so, and then visiting Nicaragua, Panama, San Andres (Colombia), or even a little farther as Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia (Cartagena) or Dominican Republic, etc.


A few days ago we talked about how to get from Costa Rica to Nicaragua by bus, we also talked about the possibility of going to South America by road (which is not possible yet because of the Tapon de Darien). Now we want to discuss how to get to Panama by bus from Costa Rica. In Panama, there are many places that are beautiful, some are very close to Costa Rica frontier. One of this place is Bocas del Toro, located on the Caribbean side, just 50 minutes from the frontier with Costa Rica.

From San Jose, you can take a Sixaola bus that gets you to the Frontier, and then complete the rest of the path with local taxis and boat taxis. Bocas del Toro is a archipielago, with many islands of all sizes. It is such a beautiful place, where nature is exhuberant and amazing. It is also a good place for surfers.

You can also try and visit Boquete and David, on the Pacific side, also located around one hour from the second frontier of Costa Rica "Paso Canoas". David is a medium side town where you can find cheap merchandise. Boquete on the other hand is full of beautiful gardens and a bunch of nice adventure activities. To go to David, you can take the bus to Paso Canoas, or just de Tica Bus that goes to Panama City but that makes a quick stop in David.

Check the itineraries of Tica Bus at their official site. Of course, if you want to flight more confortable, you can choose to pay for an airfare, which are not very expensive and are way faster. Going by bus to Panama City takes around 16 hours, getting to Paso Canoas from San Jose takes 7 hours, and going to Bocas del Toro from San Jose by bus takes 6 hours.