How many Americans, Canadians and other expats live in the Panama City, Panama area of San Francisco?
Lourdes Townshend
Expats in San Francisco, in the city of Panamá
San Francisco (also known as San Francisco de la Caleta) is today, the most interesting place that Panamanians and foreigners seek to visit and live. And the reason? San Francisco has it all.
Being one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Panamá, San Francisco has experienced tremendous growth in the past several years. What was once a family-oriented place with nice...
Being one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Panamá, San Francisco has experienced tremendous growth in the past several years. What was once a family-oriented place with nice...
Expats in San Francisco, in the city of Panamá
San Francisco (also known as San Francisco de la Caleta) is today, the most interesting place that Panamanians and foreigners seek to visit and live. And the reason? San Francisco has it all.
Being one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Panamá, San Francisco has experienced tremendous growth in the past several years. What was once a family-oriented place with nice single-family homes on big lots with trees everywhere is now a modern cosmopolitan place where everyone wants to be.
San Francisco used to have the only fine golf club in the area, which was used every New Year to host the most elegant "Egg Nut" lunch party to entertain members and guests. During the military era that Panamá experienced from 1968 through 1989, this club, located in the upper class "Altos del Golf" ("Golf Club Heights", which is a continuation of San Francisco) was changed to a community park, which I believe is around 45+ acres or so, offering a public place where you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh fruit and vegetable frosties and juices made while you wait.
At the present time, in addition to housing the Center for San Francisco Senior Citizens Association, the park is the main place residents use for jogging, walking, swimming, yoga, exercise, and many walkathons and local and international events, some of them sponsored by the First Lady's Office. The park itself is run and administered by the First Lady's Office, and is kept in excellent condition.
Based on all these reasons, the San Francisco area of the city of Panamá attracts many people, with its hundreds of high-rise buildings, tens and tens of all kinds of restaurants and "cafés" (coffee shops), 5 modern supermarkets, 2 super modern malls (just few kilometers away...the Multi Plaza and Mullti Centro), schools (including a modern Jewish Institute), walk-in health clinics, pharmacies, shops, hardware stores, organic stores, 2 modern hospitals in the neighborhood: Hospital Panamá Pacífico (which is affiliated with John Hopkins), and San Fernando. Also, just a few minutes away is Hospital Paitilla, another fine hospital.
In addition, the San Francisco area of the city of Panamá offers things for all budgets, which is one of the reasons why expats really enjoy living in San Francisco. How many expats live here? It is very difficult to say, because there is no official census on this matter, but one thing is for sure.....they come by the thousands from all over the world and speaking many languages, experiencing each one of them the most pleasant life and culture, and interacting with locals. This is all in addition to San Francisco being a very particular place because you can visit the famous "Torre de Panamá la Vieja" (Old Panamá Tower), and the ruins of the city that was burned by the pirates in the 15th century, with an attractive visitor's center where you can get all kinds of Panamanian art & crafts.
Being one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Panamá, San Francisco has experienced tremendous growth in the past several years. What was once a family-oriented place with nice single-family homes on big lots with trees everywhere is now a modern cosmopolitan place where everyone wants to be.
San Francisco used to have the only fine golf club in the area, which was used every New Year to host the most elegant "Egg Nut" lunch party to entertain members and guests. During the military era that Panamá experienced from 1968 through 1989, this club, located in the upper class "Altos del Golf" ("Golf Club Heights", which is a continuation of San Francisco) was changed to a community park, which I believe is around 45+ acres or so, offering a public place where you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh fruit and vegetable frosties and juices made while you wait.
At the present time, in addition to housing the Center for San Francisco Senior Citizens Association, the park is the main place residents use for jogging, walking, swimming, yoga, exercise, and many walkathons and local and international events, some of them sponsored by the First Lady's Office. The park itself is run and administered by the First Lady's Office, and is kept in excellent condition.
Based on all these reasons, the San Francisco area of the city of Panamá attracts many people, with its hundreds of high-rise buildings, tens and tens of all kinds of restaurants and "cafés" (coffee shops), 5 modern supermarkets, 2 super modern malls (just few kilometers away...the Multi Plaza and Mullti Centro), schools (including a modern Jewish Institute), walk-in health clinics, pharmacies, shops, hardware stores, organic stores, 2 modern hospitals in the neighborhood: Hospital Panamá Pacífico (which is affiliated with John Hopkins), and San Fernando. Also, just a few minutes away is Hospital Paitilla, another fine hospital.
In addition, the San Francisco area of the city of Panamá offers things for all budgets, which is one of the reasons why expats really enjoy living in San Francisco. How many expats live here? It is very difficult to say, because there is no official census on this matter, but one thing is for sure.....they come by the thousands from all over the world and speaking many languages, experiencing each one of them the most pleasant life and culture, and interacting with locals. This is all in addition to San Francisco being a very particular place because you can visit the famous "Torre de Panamá la Vieja" (Old Panamá Tower), and the ruins of the city that was burned by the pirates in the 15th century, with an attractive visitor's center where you can get all kinds of Panamanian art & crafts.
You can get to San Francisco by taxi, metro bus, car, walking, or connecting by the Metro, as well as by the "Hop On - Hop Off" bus. But anyway you get here, it is worthwhile to go.
Posted May 17, 2014
David Bayliss - KW PACIFICA
The beautiful thing about having the Panama Canal here is the Panamanians are so used to seeing expats for over a hundred years. Panama City is populated with lots of people from lots of different parts of the world, so expats are not even noticed, which is not the case in other Latin countries where they love seeing expats because they haven’t seen expats.
In Panama, if you go to the grocery store and look at the hotdog section, it’s 30-feet long...
The beautiful thing about having the Panama Canal here is the Panamanians are so used to seeing expats for over a hundred years. Panama City is populated with lots of people from lots of different parts of the world, so expats are not even noticed, which is not the case in other Latin countries where they love seeing expats because they haven’t seen expats.
In Panama, if you go to the grocery store and look at the hotdog section, it’s 30-feet long sometimes. We’ve given the Panamanians the hotdog! If you go to the movie theater, you will find that half of the movies are in English because a lot of Panamanians love watching movies in English with Spanish subtitles. Every movie that would be on in the US is here.
The Paitilla area of San Francisco has the highest percentage of expats because of Trump Tower and all the other high-rise buildings there. San Francisco would have a smaller percentage of expats than Marbella but very similar. If you were an expat in Colon, you would stick out even though there have been millions of expats before but that is not the area that they settle in now. So it’s not like Panama is perfectly homogenous, it’s just that San Francisco, Marbella, and Panama City overall happens to be the places that are popular for expats.
(View of the Bay of Panama from Panama City, Panama, pictured.)
Posted May 22, 2016