This route comes from a rad traveller named Theo:
“First note: this trip takes 2 days
– Boat from Isla Colon to Almirante ($6, 3mins)
– Walk 1km to the bus station at the gas station (free, 15mins)
– Bus Almirante to David they come to the terminal every 30 minutes (3.5 hours, $7)
– Bus David to Santiago, direct bus is located across the road from the main entrance to bus station, locals will know it, not sure of regularity of this bus seemed frequent (3 hours, $9)
– Bus Santiago to Chitre, amazing station at Santiago so just look for the bus that says Chitre (1.5 hours, $3)
– Bus Chitre to Las Tablas, they leave every 15 minutes, last bus 7pm (1 hour, $1.50)
– Las tables bus to Playa Venao leaves at 1.30pm, leaves from a stop near the church however stops at the main Praga stop directly after it leaves the initial stop. Please note, this bus says Cañas on the window as this is the final stop, you will have to ask the driver to stop when passing Playa Venoa.
– ALTERNATIVELY to last step, catch a regular bus to Pedasi that leave every half an hour from Praga supermarket and there are buses to Cañas (playa venao) I believe at 8am,12pm or 2.30pm though these times read differently on different blogs hence why we caught the 1.30pm one from las tablas as it was confirmed from a local driver.
This trip definitely takes two days due to the awkward times of the last buses to Cañas. Enjoy.”
For more Bocas del Toro information check out this page Bocas del Toro.
If you have done this trip leave us a comment below on how it went and if you have any updates or additions to Theo’s great advice.
Update Feb 2023:
We did the whole trip in one day.
We took the first boat from Bocas to Almirante (6$) at 6 am, walked straight to the bus station and took the bus to David (8,5$) then the bus to Santiago (9$) then to Las Tablas (1,5$) then the last bus to Pedasi at 5pm (2,5$).
From Pedasi we shared a Taxi for 20$ to go to Playa Venao and arrived at 6:45 pm.
But we got pretty lucky as we didn‘t have to wait a single minute until we missed the bus to Pedasi by 15 min as we arrived at 4:30 pm.
And we did not take a break to eat in between which was tough. But just for fellow travellers to know: it‘s possible to do it all in one day for 37,5$ per person;
I’m going to attempt this from David to Venao. I guess I should leave really early!!
Hi Joy! How did your trip go? Can you give us a summary here so others can learn from your experience?
Would love to hear how your trip went as plan to do Santa Catalina to Venao in a week or so
Hi Aimee, we didn’t get any details. Maybe you would like to write a short post about your trip when you’re done and post it here? Or email it to us and we can make it a route!