Offbeaters will get first access to our adventures drops, exclusive discounts and travel inspiration.
Trading London for Panama City
The Offbeater
My Slow-Burn Crush on a Country With a Reputation.
Let’s get this out of the way first. I now live in the same country as the Panama Papers, one of the biggest banking scandals in recent history. For those who know me, you’ll already understand the irony. For everyone else, here it is.
I used to deliver security presentations where I was using the incident as a case study, back when it was a hot topic. Eleven and a half million leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm, exposing exactly how easily money could move through offshore accounts undetected. What followed was a global tightening of anti-money laundering rules, and for Panama specifically, a spot on the international watchlist for countries not doing enough to fight it. One it would take years to shake. And reputational damage that still hasn’t fully gone. It’s not lost on me, the irony of now sitting in banks here myself, jumping through the very hurdles introduced because of it.
I never once imagined I’d end up living in the country of the scandal. I will deny this if quoted, but with a compliance background, I’ve secretly been enjoying the personal admin it’s landed me. It’s my idea of fun. Maybe I was quietly falling for the bad boy of banking scandals years before I ever set foot here, a very slow-burn crush. In my defence, he does have excellent weather and his own canal.
“Why Panama City?” I’ve been asked this more than any other question this year, and for months I gave the tidy version. Better weather. A different pace of life. More outdoor living. Being tired of endless long-haul flights for Offbeat Horizons. UK politics, and the particular flavour of misery that comes with it.
All true. None of it the real answer.
The Question Underneath the Question
The real question isn’t why Panama. Offbeat Horizons could technically run from anywhere with decent wi-fi. But Panama is a smart base for a company built around Latin America, closer to the destinations we run trips to, better positioned across time zones, a hub rather than an outpost. I’d already incorporated the business here the summer before I personally decided to move, which tells you where my head was, if not yet my address.
Except it wasn’t just strategic. I found that out by accident, going through old photos, where I stumbled on an Instagram post from January 2019. A picture of Panama City, captioned “Panama City feels more like home.” Written after a whirlwind through several countries, with zero plans to move anywhere, let alone incorporate a company here. I had completely forgotten I’d said it. Some part of me had worked out the ending years before the business plan did.
I don’t have children. No school runs, no exams, no weddings, no next generation to organise a life around. A friend once put it quite well, most people get the next few decades mapped out for them by exactly those milestones. We don’t. Which means nobody’s coming to tell us where to go next. We have to work that out ourselves. Once I’d decided, I didn’t sit on it. My mentor was more excited than I’d heard him in the entire time he’d been mentoring me. I’m not a spiritual person, but even I raised an eyebrow at how much had apparently already been arranged without my permission.
No Recce
No recce. No rental booked before landing. A one-way flight, for the first time in my life. Most people would call that reckless. I’d call it knowing exactly what I was doing. Arrogant, maybe. Correct, also maybe.
The recce was the only thing I skipped. Everything else was planned in meticulous detail, the kind of planning that only looks spontaneous from the outside. Years in Latin America meant I already knew how the region moved, so while people were curious about my reasoning, I was mostly just asking Cristina which floor, and which aspect, would get me the best light.
Cristina had a scouting trip planned before I’d even landed – coastal, valley, all across Panama City, with more care than the job technically required. I’ve noticed that’s a very Panama thing. Professional relationships can turn into friendships here almost on contact. Someone close to her once summed her up as having three jobs; real estate advisor, lawyer and triathlete. And that tells you everything you need to know about Cristina.
Six Months In, and I’m Not Sorry About Any of It
My favourite part of most days is opening the curtains and making a Panamanian coffee, Geisha beans, grown mostly around Boquete, and some of the most sought-after in the world. I understand the price tag now in a way I never did before I moved here. I’m in an ocean-front apartment on the 31st floor, ships queuing for the Canal being the main event, Casco Viejo on the other, and a few islands thrown in for good measure. It’s roughly twice the size of my London flat. Apparently, 31 floors isn’t even considered high here. Six months in, as of publishing this. I love it, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of sounding humble.
Those ships queuing aren’t just scenery, either. The Canal’s had a busy, profitable year. War in the Middle East effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, and tankers that would never normally come near Panama started queuing here instead, so many that operators have been paying millions of dollars just to jump the line. I watch it happen from my window some mornings, ships stacking up while I drink my coffee, which feels like a strange kind of front-row seat to global trade.
The apartment itself took some getting used to. I told Cristina, more than once, that I wasn’t interested in amenities, I don’t use them. Reader, I use them. Somewhere along the way the pool and jacuzzi became a pre-bedtime ritual I never asked for and now can’t imagine living without. During viewings, I’d noticed the local developers aren’t really competing on price, they’re trying to out-luxury each other, Olympic pools, whisky lounges, private cinemas, more square footage than any reasonable person needs. Turns out that was personally very convenient.
Beyond the apartment, the real education has been the city itself. The best surprise wasn’t the coastline or the Canal, it was going out in search of a decent biryani and stumbling into a community that I had absolutely no idea existed here. At least I can rest easy knowing my mother can make some fast friends when she visits. Panama City might be the most diverse city in Latin America, and it shows up on plates more than anywhere else I’ve been. The biryani isn’t too bad either.
I’m a city girl through and through, high-rises make me feel settled, not trapped, so all this suits me more than I expected. The wildlife, however, is the part that still catches me off-guard, not because it’s there, but because it’s ten minutes from a financial district. I still remember a walk through Epping Forest, not long before the move, catching myself already sulking, not because the forest wasn’t nice, but because I already knew, with total certainty, I wasn’t going to spot a toucan. These days I’m ten minutes from Metropolitan Park, where a weekly walk gets me sloths, agoutis, coatis, tamarins, howler monkeys, the occasional deeply shy armadillo, and more toucans in a single outing than that entire London life ever managed.
Seven Minutes
I’m considerably less uptight about the small stuff, which is quite an achievement for someone who used to colour-code her wardrobe.
A few weeks ago, I turned up seven minutes late to a bank appointment. On purpose. I didn’t want to rush the last of my coffee, and for once in my life, I didn’t. Will I do it again? Unlikely. But for someone who’s spent her whole life arriving at least fifteen minutes early to everything, including things that didn’t require it, those seven minutes were a small personal revolution.
Want more stories like this one? We send occasional dispatches from the road, the people we meet and the places most guidebooks skip. Sign up to The Offbeater and we’ll send the next one your way.
The Unfiltered Version
Panama is small, and despite a genuinely wide range of produce on offer, not much is produced here. A lot of the gap gets filled with American products, and as someone fairly militant about what she eats, that unsettles me more than I expected it to. Clothing’s the same story; local brands are thin on the ground. Cristina tells me plenty of people here just go to Colombia on shopping trips. Apparently, that’s normal. I’m still adjusting to weekend shopping trips to Colombia being normal.
I’m a keen birdwatcher, quietly one of the real reasons Panama pulled at me long before I admitted it. This country has over a thousand recorded bird species. Which is exactly why the lack of infrastructure bothers me more than it might bother most people. Panama City recycles roughly 2% of its waste. The UK, by comparison, manages something closer to 45%. That gap disappoints me, not in a superior, wagging-finger way, I live here now and love it, but because somewhere with this much natural beauty deserves better infrastructure to protect it. There are no water fountains, no bird baths, nowhere for the sheer number of birds here to drink from in the heat. For a country this proud of its biodiversity, that’s an odd thing to have missed.
Back in 2019, on the same trip as that Instagram post, I visited the Plastic Bottle Village in Bocas del Toro, a small, slightly mad, genuinely effective project turning discarded bottles into buildings. I remember standing there thinking how strange it was that something this scrappy was doing more than most official infrastructure I’d seen. I’ve carried a Water-to-Go bottle for years since, partly out of habit, partly because I hate contributing to single-use plastic. It doesn’t fix the bigger picture. But it’s one small thing I get to control.
My mother’s solution has been posting me an alarming quantity of tea. I once asked colleagues at the British Embassy in Bogotá, back in 2004, what they missed most about home. Tea and cheese, without missing a beat. Twenty years and a different country later, nothing’s changed. It’s the British way.And I miss my family more than the tidy version of this story would admit. A two-week trip home earlier this year gave me more real, undistracted time with them than an entire year in the UK probably would have. But it doesn’t cancel out missing one of my nephews’ sports days for the first time in my life. That one doesn’t come with a silver lining attached. I’m not going to manufacture one just to close the paragraph nicely.
So, Why Panama City?
Because London made me, and Panama, apparently, had been quietly rearranging my life behind my back for the better part of a decade. Rude, but effective. Ships and toucans included.
Also, ask me again in six months. I reserve the right to have a completely different answer.
Travel notes
5 ways to travel better
Practical ideas for creating richer, and more authentic journeys.
Explore article →
Destinations
The places that stay with you
A collection of destinations chosen for their character and soul.
Explore article →
Inspiration
Why offbeat travel matters
Travel slower, look closer and leave room for the unexpected.
Explore article →Argentina: Coffee with Legs
The Offbeater
Not all of Argentina’s controversies happen on the football pitch.
Featured story
Argentina: Coffee with Legs
A Look Inside A Controversial Cafe Scene.
I’ve always noticed the customs that surround coffee, though never quite as closely as I’ve noticed the coffee itself. In Argentina, it arrives with a glass of sparkling water on the side, every single time. The first time it turned up, I assumed the waiter had misheard my order. He hadn’t. It’s simply what you get. Wherever I am, I’m now the sort of coffee snob who feels genuinely short-changed when a coffee turns up without it.
My First Encounter
Not every cafe in Latin America is about quiet appreciation, though. There’s a darker side to the culture too, one I stumbled into on a trip to Buenos Aires in 2014, on a friend’s recommendation that a particular cafe was worth checking out. Quirky, they said. I had no idea what I was actually walking into.
I expected a local spot to enjoy a coffee and watch the world go by outside. Stepping in, I quickly understood the design worked the other way entirely. The windows were heavily tinted, and I’d later learn that’s no accident: the darker the glass, the more there is to hide from the street, and the more the room itself becomes the entertainment. This wasn’t a cafe built for watching the world outside. It was built to keep your eyes on the world inside.
What Is Café con Piernas? Inside “Coffee with Legs”
Businessmen sat at small tables mid-meeting, papers spread between coffee cups, while waitresses in deliberately revealing outfits moved between them, serving coffee, and the inevitable sparkling water, with rather more theatre than either drink required. The one who served me was lovely, and there was a genuine warmth in how she treated me, a small kinship between two women in a room otherwise entirely business and men. This, I realised, was café con piernas: coffee with legs. Not eccentric cafe culture. Something else entirely, dressed up as a coffee order.
After that, I noticed the tint on every cafe window I passed in Buenos Aires, and found myself wondering what was likely going on behind each one. From that point on, I stuck to the cafes with clear glass.
Chile’s 1980s Cafe Trend
The concept didn’t start in Argentina. It traces back to 1980s Chile, where chains like Cafe Haiti helped kick off what became a widely debated trend, born out of a period of real political and social tension in the country.
By the 1990s it had evolved further. Chains like Baron Rojo introduced the “minuto feliz,” a happy minute in which waitresses would briefly reveal more skin, and the cafes became fixtures of Chile’s capital, Santiago’s streets. Patrons stopped pretending they were there for the coffee. Some called it a harmless curiosity. Others called it exactly what it looked like, a symbol of how easily a tradition could be repackaged as entertainment.
Argentina’s version was always more muted by comparison, less brash than what took hold in Santiago, but the premise travelled far enough. The cafe I found myself in was proof of that.
The Women Who Work Here
The women working in these cafes had their own reasons for being there. Economic necessity, short-term income, sometimes a stepping stone to something else entirely. Whatever brought each of them in, the job put them at the centre of a debate, the objectification of women in public spaces, and work where the spectacle mattered more than the service.
What This Cafe Taught Me
I remember this experience clearly, because I’d had no idea about these cafes before visiting Argentina. I’d only gone in looking for a quirky local spot. What I found instead was a reminder that culture doesn’t arrive pre-approved. Some of it sits uneasily, and pretending otherwise isn’t really travelling. It’s sightseeing with the uncomfortable parts edited out.
It’s exactly why I always try to keep a free day built into our trips, no itinerary, no agenda, just room for our Offbeaters to find something on their own terms. Not everything you find will sit comfortably with you afterwards, but that’s part of it too, and it has a way of making you look twice at your own life once you’re back in it.
Travel notes
5 ways to travel better
Practical ideas for creating richer, and more authentic journeys.
Destinations
The places that stay with you
A collection of destinations chosen for their character and soul.
Inspiration
Why offbeat travel matters
Travel slower, look closer and leave room for the unexpected.