Being a Digital Nomad in Panama, and Surviving and Thriving

Last Updated on August 16, 2025 by Retire in Panama

The term Digital Nomad has been trending for a while now, even in Panama politics. A new Visa was announced last month, Short Stay Visa for Remote Workers, nicknamed the Digital Nomad Visa.

Digital nomads or remote workers do a lot of different things in Panama. From online counseling, writing, content creation, managing other companies’ social media, building websites, graphic artists, running online stores, drop shipping and affiliate marketing, trade stocks and crypto, and much more. Suppose you can do your job at home, with a computer and internet connection. In that case, you could be a digital nomad and can do your job anywhere in the world.

Now people may ask, why would I want to leave my country and move to Panama to work? There are many reasons, from financial (cost of living), perfect year-round weather, better tax situation, or time for a change in your life. Ten years ago, it was all those things when I came here. I had a successful online business in Canada and worked from home, so it was a no-brainer to move somewhere where the cost of living was ½ of where I was. The weather was perfect, fewer taxes, so I packed my bags. You can read my story HERE.

When I decided to move here, I did some research. I realized the infrastructure in Panama in regards to power and the internet was still in a developing stage. I knew I needed reliable power and the internet, so I had to figure out how to solve that problem. My solution to power and internet outages has evolved over the last ten years. I am sure it will grow even more. But there are some things you have to consider if you are considering doing this, and if you are already here and having some struggles, I hope I can help you out. 

Panama has also evolved over the last ten years, the power grid is improving in most places, and fiber internet is run across the country, reaching most populated areas.  You can get 500 Mbps for under $50 a month and get up to 1000 Mbps in many areas. Below I will list advice and solutions that people already here can use, and those coming here can expect and plan for.

Finding a Home and Selecting an Internet Company

First, you will need a place to live when you get here. Panama has recently rolled out fiber optic internet to most populated areas nationwide. But that does not mean you will find 500 meg internet in your thatched hut on the beach or your log cabin in the mountains. Well, that will be changing soon. Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet project, should be available in Panama sometime in 2023, providing 100 – 300 Mbps internet for $52 a month in the middle of nowhere. (Update: Starlink launched their residential service on May 17. 2023 in Panama)

Every digital nomad in Panama has a different internet speed requirement. You need fast internet with low latency if you do video conferencing, VOIP calls, and upload large files. Still, less would work if you run an online store or write and create content. If you stay in the major cities, you will have a couple of options for fiber, and in the smaller towns, most that are off the main highways are all now wired for fiber internet. You can still get internet if you get out of the main areas. Still, it may only be from radio tower companies offering slower speeds, higher latency, and higher costs.

When you are looking for a place to live, I suggest getting here first, staying in a hotel, and physically visiting the rentals to check the internet. When I rented my first long-term place in Panama, in the Boquete district, I did not listen to the landlord or the neighbors about the internet. I had someone take me to the internet company, with the house’s location, and asked what internet speed they could offer me there. You can ask the landlords here, “does it have high-speed internet?” To many Panamanians, 10 Mbps is considered high-speed internet, which may need to be improved for you.

Your next concern is the reliability of the internet. That depends on many factors, and it changes neighborhood by neighborhood. If you can find another digital nomad in the area you want to rent, contact their experience to help decide on what internet company to go with. In Panama, you will get more internet outages than in North America. Still, even more so, you will get frequent power outages. It would be best if you prepared, so now I will talk to you about backup options.

Internet Backup Options

If you are virtually any digital nomad, you will need a backup plan for the internet. And I am not talking about driving to the nearest Starbucks to use their internet. You have several options depending on your budget. In Panama, all cell phone companies allow you to use your hotspot. Still, they limit it to a few gigs a month, so if you had a more extended outage or your business is a heavy bandwidth business, there are other options for you.

I have been using a battery-operated, rechargeable WiFi hotspot router with a special plan from the cell company. The unit costs me $50, and the plan is $50 a month for 20 gigs of full LTE speeds of data, billed over that by the gig. I have consistently tested this at between 30 and 40 Mbps speed, so good for most things. In fact, it got a real test in June. If you were on our monthly Zoom Q & A, you would have seen a short 5-second freeze, where the Fiber Internet went down, and the computer connected to the WIFI Hotspot which completed the Zoom. In our business, we could not imagine inviting 100 people to an event because we were not prepared to have the conference end ½ way through or have to cancel it because of lack of internet.

Again, the internet infrastructure in Panama has really advanced in the past ten years, especially in the last three, where there has been new competition in the fiber market, no longer just one company offering it. Where I live, I have only about one monthly outage, usually only for a short time.  The problem is that all the power and internet are above ground in Panama, running pole to pole. Hence, you deal with traffic accidents and trees falling, so you get more outages than if the cable is buried.

Other solutions I have used in the past with my fiber internet, as the primary internet, and a secondary radio internet service, with an antenna on my roof, both modems plugged into a dual-wan router. I switched to the WIFI hotspot router to be more transportable. Sometimes we do our Live Zoom at my place and sometimes at Oscar and Megan’s, and I can bring the backup internet with me. This is a solid but more expensive solution.

Power Backup Options

Now let’s talk about power backup solutions. The power will go out in Panama, between twice a month, to 3 times a week, depending on where you live in the country. An outage can be a couple of minutes to a couple of hours to 12 hours in some rare cases. Where I live in Boquete, Chiriqui, I get two to four power outages a month, so really pretty decent. Is a generator a solution? Not really for digital nomads without some modifications.

A typical generator works when it detects the power is out, fires up, and then restores the power. This usually takes a minute, but by then, your modem and router all have to restart, which can take 5 minutes or more, so you have lost your zoom, your file upload has been canceled, the trade you were waiting to jump in on has ended, and you’re not happy. If you have a generator backup, you can solve this problem with a large battery backup, powering your internet equipment. Solar and battery banks could power all your internet-related things, computers, and monitors.

I created my own solution, which I will explain here. It comprises two six-volt, deep-cycle golf cart-type batteries, a 1500-watt inverter, and a deep-cycle battery charger. The following equipment is plugged directly into this system. Modem, router, computer, and monitors, and I even connected my TV to it. If I am watching Netflix in the evening, and the power goes out, the movie continues. When the power goes out, the internet is only off because your modem and router have no power. If it remains powered, you will find that the internet still works most of the time. Suppose your backup system is the WiFi hotspot router, a radio internet supplier, or in the future, Starlink. In that case, you will still have internet, as they are running off batteries.

I also have an office and living room light plugged directly into the battery backup, so I don’t lose light. I can get 12 hours of power for the internet, laptop, monitors, and lights with two batteries. If you want more power, you can add more batteries. The system is pictured below, and the cost to put this together is around $600, so affordable for any serious digital nomad living in Panama.

Six Volt Eveready Batteries at PriceMart, $139.  A suitable 1500-watt inverter is $150, an excellent deep cycle charger for $100, and Cabinet is $50.  The Eveready batteries last me 4-5 years, and the inverter and charger I have now are going on five years. Sorry, I have not dusted in there for a while :)

I am even more prepared for a more extended outage, and I purchased a 1000-watt gas generator for $100, that I could fire up for a couple of hours to charge the batteries back up. I have only had to use this once, as the power went off at 8 in the morning. It was 5 in the afternoon, and still not on, and we had a Q & A that night, so I charged up the batteries in 2 hours. The power came back on, and we did not need it, but we were prepared to run our business without electricity.

As an online marketer for 20 years and living in Panama for the last 11, I feel really sad when I see posts on social media of digital nomads in Panama giving up. They feel the internet and power outages prevent them from doing business here. Last month, I saw a post from someone who gave up her long-time online coaching business because she would lose power or the internet and the call.

If you already are or are seriously considering becoming a digital nomad or remote worker in Panama, use the above advice to make this happen so that your business or job will succeed.

If you have yet to go to Panama, our relocation tours to Panama are not just for retirees; we have had many guests of younger ages that work online and are considering moving to Panama.

 

Rod Larrivee

Retire in Panama Tours
It’s more than a tour . . it’s an experience.