We all have different goals and objectives when it comes to travel. Some of us go for the best foodie destinations, others solely travel for the best beach resorts, while others travel mostly to see more of the world and to learn about other cultures and countries. For most, I fall in the last category. Besides that, I have set myself the goal to visit every country in the world just like some of the great travellers on this forum have already achieved (or are close to). At 70 countries visited (before this trip) my travel life has been good to me so far. Yet all those countries visited are mainly in Europe and Asia, with especially Middle and South America as well as Africa being terra incognito for most having visited only Brazil, Cabo Verde and Senegal there.

Even though I know it's not all about the numbers (I rather visit a few dozen of Greek islands or Italian or Spanish regions before going to something like San Marino or Liechtenstein which exist solely for the purpose for tourists ticking off another country) – I felt the need to make a bit more progress visiting new countries in different parts of the world which I didn't manage to visit in prior years. For long I had my eyes set on either Colombia or Panama as both countries somehow intrigued me for different reasons. But as I felt that Colombia required more than a week to do it justice, I figured that Panama would do well for this purpose. When searching for flight I saw a few highly appealing and extremely well-priced routings on AF/KL. Direct flights from both AMS/CDG to PTY were expensive (900 EUR for OTP-CDG/AMS-PTY), but any routings with an extra stop in BOG, SJO or CCS put down the price to just 450 EUR. I was tempted at Caracas – even if just for one day – as Air France is AFAIK the only European airline except Turkish (in a bizarre IST-HAV-CCS-IST triangle route) to still operate flights to Venezuela, a massive difference from several decades back when even the Concorde flew to Caracas before the Chavistas ruined the place. Given the ongoing crisis I however kept my desire for adventure in check and opted for something safer.

After playing a bit more on the ITA Matrix with routings I managed to get an ideal trip: OTP-CDG-BOG;BOG-PTY;PTY-SJO;SJO-AMS-OTP. As additional benefits I would now be able to check off three instead of one countries as I managed to book full day stopovers in Bogota, Colombia and San Jose, Costa Rica. The flights in the Americas would be short hops on COPA, which would earn me some extra Star Alliance miles and give me lounge access being a Turkish Miles&Smiles elite. The trans-Atlantic flights would be operated by an Air France Boeing 787 and KLM 787, while also giving me the opportunity to check out the new KLM Crown Lounge at AMS.

On a map, the flights would thus look like this:



Highlights to look forward to in this trip report include:

- Exploring the bustling Colombian capital of Bogota
- Admiring the old and the new in Panama City
- A day on lovely Taboga island
- Joining a tour to the UNESCO world heritage sights of the Portobelo Forts & the tropical beach at Isla Mamay
- A head-to-head comparison between Air France and KLM on the Boeing 787