Hey TA Becky! Sorry for taking so long to reply, my fiance actually typed out a reply for you. Here you go! Driving to Almirante in the province of Bocas del Toro from Panama City is an interesting drive. I would recommend that if you can afford it, take the plane from Panama City to Bocas Town in Isla Colon (Columbus Island). That way you save time and effort and spend the most time enjoying your vacation. If you are driving then this is what to expect. It is not complicated. You just take the Panamerican highway and keep on driving. Then turn right at the single road that goes through the mountains (there are signs) and drive to Almirante. Take the 30-min boat to Bocas town and that's it. The drive on the Panamerican highway is the longest part. Make sure you fill up before you leave the city and then again in Penonome or Santiago. The highway is double lane for the most part. The part that is single-lane is after Santiago, I believe, unless they expanded by now. We went there in Feb of 2009. If you arrive in David, then you missed your exit. The signs on the exit you will take should say something like Almirante, Changinola or Bocas del Toro. This drive takes about 4 to 5 hours depending on whether you get stuck behind a dump truck in the single-lane section and don't want to pass him. The drive is not boring. There are lots of twists and turns and hills. The drive through the mountains could be scary. You are cutting through mountains that go as high as 11000 ft. so you are literally in the clouds. That's what the fog is. There was some really bad flooding back in 2008 that took parts of the road down (lanes were missing) or even the whole road. When we drove, there where little signs (yes, little) in Spanish that said "road missing ahead). This should all be fixed by now, I would assume, since it has been almost 2 years since we went. The road is driveable. We did it in a little Toyota Yaris. No 4x4 required. This part took very long for us because my fiance wouldn't let me drive faster than 40 km/h. There were parts that I didn't even want to drive faster than 30 km/h because of the thick fog (clouds). At that speed, this little stretch took us 3 to 4 hours. Overall, we took like 9 hours when we drove back from Bocas to Panama city, but keep in mind that we were driving really slow through the mountains, we stopped to get gas and eat a couple of times, and we were at 100 km/h tops on the highway. We were in no rush. We spent a whole morning driving there and a whole afternoon driving back. We took a car instead of lying because we stopped on a few places along the way: El Valle, Punta Chame, Boquete and Coronado. When you get to Almirante, you will see people with signs that will show you to a gated parking lot where you can keep your car for like $3/day and then they haul your luggage (for a tip) to the place where you take the boat, which is about $4/person each way, if I recall correctly. There are many places that take you back and forth between the island and mainland and the prices are pretty much the same, except for one that runs later than all others. After a certain time at night, you are stuck on the island pretty much lol. But you can find restaurants and entertainment easily. I think the boats run every 30 or 60 minutes. Whatever hotel you are staying at should be able to point you in the right direction for boat shuttles to mainland and for boat rides to tour attractions to Starfish Beach, Red Frog Beach, etc. If anyone wants to charge you more than $50 per whole day per person for a tour, it better be a damn good tour or all inclusive, like with food and maybe even booze. The hotel where we stayed (Olas de la Madrugada) had half-day tours for $20 per person. We had problems with that hotel though. They fumigated the main floor they day before we arrived, so it forced all the bugs and roaches to the second floor where we were staying... not a good experience. We had 2 roaches in our room that found their way into our luggage. But that hotel was very cheap like $45/night. There are better, higher quality ones for less than $100 and they are right on the beach. Enough of my rant. Have a great trip! And make sure you get unlimited miles on your car. We put 1500 km on our Yaris in just 1 week.
