You have 3 options to travel from Colombia to Panama : by boat ,by flight,or overland (the cheapest option) San Blas

Sailboats are regulary transporting tourists from Cartagena to San Blas - Panamá and back.(have a look on the Map) The more demand that exists the more often they go. The boats leave, as soon as they have enough passengers, from one of cartagena`s yate clubs.It takes them about two days to arrive at the San Blas Islands where you spend around 3 days on the boat until you reach the island "Porvenir", the main island of San Blas, from where you can take a flight to Panama City for arround 39US$, or speedboats for arround 8US$ to "Miramar",from here for another 5US$ by bus to Panama City. By sailboat, it takes 1 more day to reach Panama / Portobelo ,where you get by bus within 2 hours to Panama City. Boats normaly never go to Colon verry rare that they go up to "Miramar"(mainland).On their way back, the boats take passengers to Cartagena/Colombia

The boats that we recommend are, as far as we know, in safe condition, their captains are profesional sailers - Because of the bad experience many tourists reported after traveling on cargo-boats this is a safer and more beautiful way to go by sea from Colombia to Panamá or vice versa. The price for a one-way passage is depending the boat between 350 - 400 US$,-- per person, including food .The yachts have a kitchen , where you cook together lunch and dinner, tee & coffee.

If you are (verry)lucky, you might even find a free lift to San Blas - Colombia or to some other destination -

To get information about the departure time of boats just have a look on this page or get in contact with us. Captains let us know normaly a week before their depurter.

Boats are not leaving every Monday at 8 a.m.......sometimes it takes weeks to get one- sometimes you get it within one day.....Once boats are leaving from Cartagena we will know, when about the boats will be ready to pick up people for their way back to Colombia - The schedule might vary some days, depending on winds etc. hostel cartagena hostal colombia hostel cartagena hostal colombia hostel cartagena hostal colombia

Please do not forget: You are traveling to the most difficult part of this continent: If anything does not work out perfectly with boats we recommend, please don´t put the blame on us. Our only interest is to inform everybody who gets in contact with us - about all kind of options (good and bad once)

Casa Viena is the only hostel in Cartagena which does not charge any commission of captains - We want to maintain our independence, a fact  some captains obviously do not like ....If somebody gets recommendations from Casa Viena  - definitely not because of some money some captain offers us to pay -

We just want to do our best to find you a beautiful, safe and reliable way to travel between Colombia & Panama -

In case if you find some boat without our help you are wellcome to contact us!- we might be able to tell you if its a recommendable boat or not ..

In Casa Viena you will find some good and bad recommendations of diferent boats, written by travelers who did this trip - Please pass by to have a look..

Please dont think, thats a easy way for smuggeling drugs - DONT DO IT! - US or colombian coast guard do search sailingboats. You put in risk yourselfe & everybody else on the boat . 10-20 years Jail are waiting for drugsmuglers..