Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. If you are budgeting a single canal stop, Miraflores is almost always the right one: closer, cheaper to reach, and easy to combine with the rest of a Panama City day. Agua Clara costs more in travel time but shows a scale Miraflores cannot, and a boat transit is the expensive option, worth it only if watching the locks from the water genuinely matters more to you than the price.