(CNN) — The Panama Canal is no stranger to global attention.
President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to “demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question,” possibly with military force, has prompted the latest round of international obsession with this feat of human engineering.
But since construction first began in the 19th century, the canal has captivated the world, pushing the boundaries of what is possible, overcoming international political tension and revolutionizing transport.
Perhaps the most famous critical infrastructure in modern times, the canal has become a major bucket-list item for travelers, with tourism to the waterway surging in recent years as Panama has expanded efforts to encourage visitors.
Many looking for a quick and fun boating experience through the jungle or a peek at immense metal machinery instead find themselves educated on a checkered, dramatic history that is inextricable from the history of the Americas.
“It was a megaproject of engineering that changed the world with the help and the hands and the sweat and the blood of thousands of people of 97 nationalities that came together on this very small isthmus,” said Ana Elizabeth González, executive director and chief curator of the Panama Canal Museum, highlighting the diverse group of workers who flooded into Panama to help with construction.
“We’re the bridge of the world but also the heart of the universe, being such a small, central place and a place of international connection.”
Around 820,000 visitors came to Miraflores, the canal’s main visitor center, to see maritime trade happen in front of their eyes in 2024, according to González, with thousands more taking tours along the water or to other spots along the canal route. That number is set to rise, according to the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), with Americans making up the largest chunk of visitors.
For the curious traveler contemplating a trip to Panama — also home to rainforests, deserts, volcanoes and more than 1,600 islands — here’s CNN Travel’s guide to how to visit the canal. Plus, you’ll get a look at the historical and current context you should know before heading to the main attraction in the only country in the world where it’s possible to see the sun rise over the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.
Why is it so important?
Roughly 5% of all global trade flows through the canal’s 50-mile (80-kilometer) stretch each year, with the largest chunk being cargo heading between the East Coast of the United States and Asia. About 40% of all US containers go through it, and more than 70% of the canal’s cargo is headed either to or from America.
Run by the ACP, an autonomous government entity, the aquatic highway connects 170 countries via 1,920 ports.
Before its opening in 1914, boats looking to cross between the Atlantic and Pacific had to sail below South America, heading around Cape Horn at the tip of Chilean Patagonia in an extremely dangerous and time-consuming journey. That passage killed an estimated 10,000 seamen from the time Dutch sailors first navigated it in 1616 up to the opening of the Panamanian route.
And then came the canal.
“The Land Divided, The World United” was the slogan once appearing on the seal of the waterway. The canal’s ocean-bridging mechanism has served over 815,000 vessels since its opening and reduced ship travel time by a whopping five months and distance by 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers).
The canal you see today is an upgraded version of the original, as the waterway underwent a multibillion-dollar expansion finished in 2016 to accommodate NeoPanamax vessels, the supersized container ships and bulk carriers unheard of in the early 1900s but now increasingly common on the high seas.
A lock system helps all ships cross between the oceans, from a small ship to a major cargo vessel. To ensure smooth sailing through the complex system, captains are required to surrender control to one of the ACP’s pilots for the journey of eight to 10 hours.
The passage has become nearly synonymous with Panama and is the nation’s economic crown jewel. In 2024, the canal’s revenue stood around $5 billion, contributing nearly 8% of the total annual GDP, according to a study from IDB Invest.
“The canal basically is our gold,” said Luis Pinto Rios, a tour guide for Panama Canal Tours.
How to visit
If you want to see this manmade wonder of the world for yourself, there are three approaches to visiting: by land, by water and by air.
On foot, tourists can stop by Miraflores or Agua Clara Visitor Center, located at the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal, respectively. Both have morning and afternoon transit schedules, giving visitors specific blocks of time to watch ships traverse the waterway.
The Miraflores Visitor Center, just a 15-minute drive from Panama City’s skyscrapers and the most popular option for tourists, offers the added excitement of a Morgan Freeman-voiced IMAX film that takes you through the history of Panama and the canal itself through reenactments, detailing the 2016 expansion and explaining the complex way a boat ventures from ocean to ocean.
Miraflores also features stadium-like seating for guests to witness massive cargo ships and traveler-stuffed cruises make their way through a double set of locks, tugged along by trains on either side with smiling canal workers waving from the windows.
Agua Clara gives views of both Gatún Lake, a key part of ships’ journey down the canal, and parts of the expansion efforts.
Visitors are able to head to the visitor centers independently or join a guided tour run by numerous independent tour companies.
For the more outdoorsy traveler looking to avoid the crowds, Soberania, Camino de Cruces and Chagres national parks all offer hiking trails along the basin of the canal. Visitors can take a taxi or drive themselves to trail heads.
And then there’s the option of boarding a boat and getting onto the canal yourself.
There are two main options for boat tours, with one offering trips down the canal’s path that depart from Panama City on the Pacific side or Colon on the Atlantic, and the other visiting Gatún Lake, which makes up a large chunk of the canal and sits roughly in the middle of its 50-mile path.
Gatún Lake boat tours depart mainly from Gamboa Marina. Gamboa is a vibrant green jungle town less than an hour’s drive from Panama City into the middle of the canal’s route teeming with capybaras, sloths, monkeys and crocodiles and sitting directly on the lake.
Created by damming Panama’s Chagres River, Gatún was the largest man-made lake on Earth when created in the early 1900s. Gatún tours travel out onto the canal’s lake artery to let tourists sightsee, sail, fish and spot wildlife. From the vantage point of these diminutive boats, the cargo ships gliding by seem larger than life.
Hundreds of cruise ships also sail through the canal each year.
You can even take a personal sailboat, speedboat or yacht yourself, although it can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to pass through the canal for even a small boat.
“It’s a neutral canal, so any ship in the world can use it. Every country pays the same no matter where they’re from,” said Jerin Tate, owner of tour company Panama Day Trips.
Tour companies also offer helicopter and airplane options, giving visitors the chance to get a bird’s-eye view of interoceanic trade.
If you are desperate to see the canal in action but can’t make it to Panama, the ACP livestreams activity at five sets of locks, and the canal runs 24 hours a day.
To do a deeper dive into the waterway’s history and role in the world, tourists can also head to The Canal Museum in Casco Viejo, Panama City’s old town. Famous for the museum, coffee shops and buzzy rooftop bars, a trip to Casco Viejo is a must-do for anyone visiting the country’s capital.
The lengthy history of the canal
Hopes of cutting through Central America to connect the world’s oceans date back to the early 16th century, when Spanish explorers surveyed routes along the Chagres River and deemed any path impossible.
US interest arose at the start of the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s, as eager Americans looked for better, faster ways to head to California. It was French engineers, led by the developers of the Suez Canal, who ultimately made the first moves to construct a canal, breaking ground in 1881.
Plans included locks built by Gustave Eiffel, famed builder of the Eiffel Tower. Despite big dreams and massive effort, French attempts ultimately fell apart because of the deaths of over 22,000 people from disease and construction accidents, financial woes and internal corruption.
The United States purchased the rights off the French at the start of the 1900s. The territory was at the time controlled by the Republic of Colombia, but a US-supported revolt led to the separation of Panama and Colombia and the formation of the Republic of Panama in 1903.
American assistance with Panamanian independence led to the two countries signing the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty in 1903 that, in exchange, gave the United States control over a 50-mile-long, 10-mile-wide strip of land to build the canal in perpetuity. This strip came to be known as the Canal Zone.
The project came at a hefty human and financial cost: around 5,600 people were estimated to have died during US construction, many of whom were construction workers from the West Indies, and America spent around $375 million, the single most expensive construction project in the country’s history at the time.
Completed in 1914, the canal’s planned grand opening ceremony was canceled because of the outbreak of World War I, with the first vessel passage being a muted affair. The passageway was underutilized throughout the war, though it later served as a critical passageway for Allied efforts during World War II.
The United States also used land in Panama for a variety of military activities, from training astronauts (Neil Armstrong trained in jungle survival at an Air Force base in the Canal Zone) to testing chemical weapons throughout the mid-1900s as part of the San Jose Project.
“Our 20th century was filled with tension over very different interpretations of the same 1903 treaty. There were a lot of incidents,” said González, with one major point of contention being sovereignty in the Canal Zone, a strip largely treated like a US colony.
The relationship between the United States and Panama slowly disintegrated because of disagreements — that sometimes erupted in violence — about control of the canal and inequality in the treatment of Panamanians and other nationalities compared with American workers. There were also questions about whether the US and/or Panamanian flags should be flown in the Canal Zone. At one point, Panama even broke diplomatic relations with the United States.
It was President Jimmy Carter in 1977 who brokered terms for the eventual transferring of the waterway to Panamanian control on New Year’s Eve 1999.
The canal today
Despite global concern that Panama would be unable to adequately manage the canal after the 1999 handover, the waterway flourished under domestic control. Just five years after taking over, the canal reported doubling its income, lowering its accident rate and taking on its ambitious expansion project.
Though once defined by foreign workers and management, around 92% of the work force today is Panamanian, and the canal touches industries across the country.
“Obviously the Americans built the canal, but the Panamanians have taken it to the next level. They’ve expanded it,” said Tate.
Yet Trump says it is his to take — an idea immediately rejected by the government of Panama.
“As President, I want to express precisely that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belong to PANAMA, and will continue to be,” President José Raúl Mulino said in a statement in December.
“The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable,” he added.
Trump’s threat to take back the canal is not the only risk the Panamanian route faces.
Severe drought has plagued the waterway in recent times, with 2023 being the third-driest year in the canal’s history. The lack of water greatly reduced the number of vessels that could head through, and countries around the world are concerned about the possible impact on global trade should the canal’s water levels get too low.
However, hope is not lost.
The Panamanian government has been taking steps to address the issue since 2007 when expansion efforts began, working on a new lake to help supply canal water as well as Panama’s drinking water and channeling funds into water recycling efforts. When necessary, daily transits are restricted, and the schedule is set to maximize water usage.
“The search continues for a set of long-term, concrete solutions,” the ACP wrote in a November 2023 release. “There is no simple answer or project that can immediately solve the challenge of water. However, Panama will rise to the occasion to safeguard the Panama Canal for years to come.”
However, Panamanians are hopeful.
“Definitely the Panama Canal and the government have moved in their chess game in order to have the best move, to keep the canal up and running,” said Rios. “We as Panamanians, we are trying to do our best, not for the pocket, not for our benefit, for the world.”
And for Panamanians, there is no greater pride than the canal, a national symbol with international reach. The country’s coat of arms says it all: pro mundi beneficio — “for the benefit of the world.”
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