I slept in a freaking treehouse in the jungle.

And now you can too, if your heart so desires. Because I'm gonna give you every single, little detail (that I remember, because who truly documents every moment of each vacation???) to make your trip to Bocas Del Toro, Panama, a success.

For starters, let's just say that I've been plotting to visit this amazing place for at least two years now, and I was NOT going to let another year pass me by before I visited at least once!

JUST LOOK AT IT!

But why Bocas, Nas'tassia?

Well, besides that the entire place is a literal DREAM, Bocas has a lot of history...a lot more than I knew I was getting into.

The indigenous people of Bocas were Wounaan Indians, who probably lived peacefully until Christopher Columbus rolled on up one (warm) October in 1502. More came after him in the 1900's, including the "Knapp" brothers with their slaves from Jamaica, and the "Shepherd" family, an Englishman along with his slaves. A few years later, a couple Scottish and English families moved to Bocas with their slaves, in the event of trying to evade tax payments. Eventually, the slaves were freed, everyone made babies, and gave us a wild mash-up of several different cultures, including one of which I was very familiar with, the Jamaican culture. The people of the island speak a mix of Spanish, English, and Wari Wari, a Caribbean dialect....which sounds a little like Patois to me.

I felt like I was home the entire visit.

Okay, so Nas'tassia...how does one plan a trip to Bocas Del Toro???

First, scour the web.

I did a lot of beforehand research on Bocas and how other people got there before deciding how I would get there. Bocas is only accessible by boat or air since it's an archipelago off the coast of Panama. This made the trip a little bit more...extensive.

I had a 7-day trip and about $600-$700 to spend. Total. Let's do this.

A direct flight to Bocas doesn't exist, so I'd have to fly into a nearby airport, and from there, hop on a smaller local airline (called NatureAir) to get to Isla Colon, which is the main island of Bocas Del Toro. The other option was to find a bus company that would take us there. At this point, all options are considered, so I looked into both. I usually use www.skyscanner.com or google.com/flights to find the best of the best when it comes to price. They both have this cool feature where you could view the entire map of the world and the prices it cost to get to each place. For this trip though, I knew I would have to fly into either San Jose, Costa Rica, or Panama City since those were the closest airports to my final destination.

San Jose to Bocas Del Toro is about a 9-hour trip total.

Panama City to Bocas del Toro is about a 12-hour trip total.

The flight from FLL to San Jose, Costa Rica was around $250 roundtrip. To Panama City, it cost around $370...$100+ more. Looking into the connecting flight to Bocas, I found Nature Air which offers flights from both cities to Bocas for $100 one way. If I added that into the initial flight to either city, I'd be looking to spend between $450-600 on flights alone. San Jose was the more reasonable and cost-efficient choice.

Tip: Check flight fares at least two to three months ahead of your departure date. It's good to know the high/low seasons of each place you visit. Then you'll be able to determine how high or how low you'll be spending on a ticket. Also, playing around with the departure airports near you may work in your favor, as you'll find small (or significant) price variations depending on the airport.

So we've found our flight. Now what?

Sleeping accommodations.

Depending on your flight time, you'll either have an almost full day to work with, or you'll get there mid-day/afternoon and have to depart for Bocas the following day. I would recommend heading to Bocas after a good 8-hour overnight sleep in a nice, comfy Air BnB!

My lover & I stayed in an Air BnB about 8 minutes away from the airport. We rented a room overnight for about $17 since our priority was to save as much money as possible. If you're a little flexible and would like to pamper yourself, you could find a really nice, really cheap Air BnB all to yourself for about $60. A whole 3 bedroom apartment. Affordable as hell.

You'll also need another Airbnb in Bocas. At this point, you can choose what island you want to stay on. Most people will stay on Isla Colon, which is the main island of the province. I'm not most people. Nas'tassia wanted to stay in a jungle, and Nas'tassia gets what she wants. So we stayed on Bastimentos island, much less touristy than the main island. Perfect.

The Airbnbs on Bocas goes for around $70-80 a night in the summer months. I just recently checked on the place that I stayed, and it's currently going for $50 a night! We stayed here for 5 nights at $70 a night, which took us to about $350 total.

This is the Airbnb we chose:

We had one more night to cover, and since our flight back home was at 6 AM in the morning, we decided to spend another night in Costa Rica near the airport so it would be easier to get to our flight on time. We chose the same Air Bnb that we stayed at the first night since we knew we'd be familiar with the place beforehand. I decided in my head that I would change the reservation if we discovered the place was actually terrible after the first time we were to stay.

Total, we spent just about $430 on our accommodations (there is a mishap here, I know the math doesn't add up...I'll explain later). We split sleeping accommodations down the middle, so per person, around $215 for an entire week overseas! Not bad at all if I do say so myself.

Tip: If you can, travel with someone! Especially when trying to be cost-efficient. It cuts costs and saves you (and your bank account) from overspending on your supposed-to-be-cheap vacation. With the extra money, you could do more things in the place you decide to visit. It does help to really like who you're traveling with though.

Flight: booked.

Accommodations: booked.

What else???

Find some things to do while you're there! Booking things is usually half the battle. The other half comes when you step off the plane and realize you don't speak the native language and you still need to get around.

MAJOR TIP: Try to learn the basic local language of the country you're visiting. It will help....ALOT. You can also travel with a small pocket dictionary. You won't be able to have a full conversation with a fella but you will be able to look up words you hear around you or said to you.

This part is a free for all. I deeeeeeply encourage anyone reading this to figure out their purpose for visiting this place before actually visiting. The biggest and most exciting part of this trip for me was the journey there due to all the roadblocks I had a feeling we'd face. Just imagine, a young woman & man with knowledge of very few Spanish words traveling cross country, crossing borders by way of a public bus...the thrill of it all.

But I'll have to tell you later. It's really a story for another day.

Until next time!

Much love,

Nas'tassia

Pre-quel to Bocas: Planning the Trip.