On a recent research trip to Panama, a local described it to me as the 1000 island country, something I hadn’t previously imagined. Nicaragua is the land of volcanoes, Guatemala the land of the Maya…  I’d been used to thinking of Panama primarily as the jungle-rich country surrounding the canal. But islands? Running down its […]

I’ve just returned from an archipelago off the coast of Panama where a massive, privately-funded conservation endeavour is now being shared with the outside world via a top-tier hospitality project. And I can’t say enough good things about it. Genuine hospitality can be the perfect vehicle for the expression and transmission of culture. However, resort […]

Remote jungle lodge… check. Modern design hotel… check. It takes a certain craziness to mix these two things, and a certain genius to do it as well as they have here at El Otro Lado (meaning the “The Other Side”), a superbly curated space in the Portobelo National Park on Panama’s Caribbean Coastline. At just 90 minutes […]

We’re all about island paradises here at Trufflepig; there is nothing more satisfying than leaving all the work and world behind and retreating to a remote, azure-water-surrounded island. You can feel the city’s slickness slipping away from you. You can feel those hunched shoulders drifting down and your breath becoming slower as you take in […]

Sleep doesn’t come easily when you’re mulling over newly gained and sensitive information. This might be your situation for the first few nights you spend in Panama’s semi-secret Santa Catalina. I say ‘semi-secret’ because although the word is out on its opulent surf, the little village can be accessed only by the long, bumpy, dead-end […]