When I first moved to Panama, I did what many might in an effort to lay down roots. I went to expat meetups on restaurant terraces, where I made small talk with other foreigners on warm, tropical nights. I joined pub crawls and rubbed shoulders with friendly strangers at networking events. I met nice people, but as far as meaningful connections go, nothing quite clicked. My three years of high school Spanish were enough to help me get by—but I wanted closer ties and a sense of community that it couldn't provide.
Then, I began to dance.
It all began with a message sent in a Whatsapp group called Fast Friending. I discovered the group through a Facebook page designed to help new arrivals make friends in Panama City. Someone else had solicited salsa lessons, and I watched the messages fly back and forth, slightly skeptical but mostly curious—enough so that I signed up for the dance class being advertised.
It was two months into my new life in Panama. On the day of the first lesson, I bumped into a fellow student, a French man in his late 30s, on the busy road en route to class. As we walked along the Avenida Central, his words of uncertainty cut through the noise of rumbling cars and buses. He admitted that he didn’t have much dance experience. I tried to ease our uncertainties with a refrain: dance is universal, right?
Panama has a strong dance tradition—for writer Kiersten Marie Brown, embracing the ease with which locals move meant packing away her own inhibitions.
The class took place on the rooftop of an old apartment building, where a gentle breeze tickled the shirts drying on a clothing line. A field of rooftops surrounded us, with the Pacific Ocean peeking out in the distance. As soon as the music began blaring from a small speaker, our disheveled instructor gave us little time to overthink what came next. Before I knew it, I had a hand on my lower back and was face to face and holding hands with the tall French guy. We began to dance.
We weren’t great, moving in an awkward synchronicity that caused us to laugh between steps. But after that day, our bi-weekly class grew from just three students to a larger collection of a dozen dancers. The lesson was relocated from the rooftop to a more spacious, open-air recreation space along the bay, known as the Cinta Costera. I felt self-conscious about dancing in such a public setting. Were passersby judging me? Did I look out of place? I was confronted these distinctly American thoughts—the idea that I had to be a skillful dancer with perfect technique to be on display—and took a cue from the people around me. I chose to shake and groove my inhibitions away.
As I got used to stumbling through each lesson, my classmates became my good friends. After salsa,
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The breadth of Panama is so slender you can cross it in about an hour by car, but that doesn't mean this Central American gem isn't packed full of attractions. It’s one of the most biologically diverse places on earth, yet small enough to fit inside the state of South Carolina.
Although it has been years since I’ve traveled in mesmerizing Tokyo, my memories are as vivid as though they had been sparked yesterday—pleasures aswirl in unique flavors and noises, creativity and ingenuity. So when luxury publisher Assouline released the new book Tokyo Chic, I dove into its 312 lush-paper-stock pages, with more than 200 photographs and illustrations, which are bound in an outsize (10-by-13-inches, 6.4-pound) format—a hefty hardcover wrapped in silk. The brainchild of Andrea Fazzari, whose deft imagery and words are love letters to the inimitable capital, Tokyo Chic showcases a massively enthralling—yet strikingly intimate—city. Currently based in Tokyo, Fazzari is a James Beard Award-winning photographer, author and restaurant maven with notable backgrounds in fashion and film. Born in New York City, she has lived in France, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain and Thailand—and speaks four languages. What a sophisticated guide to have at your armchair traveler’s fingertips! Indeed, this coffee table tome would make a treasured holiday gift for those who have already vacationed in Japan or simply dream of doing so.
If you're looking for idyllic islands, rolling surf, untamed nature and showstopping wildlife, Panama is an ideal destination. It sits at the crossroads of the Americas, connecting two oceans, and beyond its cosmopolitan capital and legendary canal, Panama is a biodiversity hotspot. Did you also know it produces some of the world's finest – and most expensive – coffee?
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