Green Acres Chocolate Farm

When you are in Bocas, making the trip to Dolphin Bay and onto Green Acres Chocolate Farm, is an excursion worthy to pursue. You will be rewarded for having made the trip not only in seeing how chocolate is made but you will be energetically entertained by the engaging and humorous owner, Gary. He has passion and when someone has passion to share, you feel connected and share in that excitement. In the interactive tour along the trail, you will learn about the Great Green Macaw Restoration Project and the importance of the ecology of its dependence on the mountain almendro tree. Oh, at the end of the tour, there are treats. Yummy treats! Make the effort to get to Green Acres Chocolate Farm.

Quite educative and entertaining trip. Gary is enthusiastic but not an overwhelming host. Together with Stan, they share good knowledge and really make a difference for the local community and environment. The place itself is also very picturesque.

Gary is a character with the kind of passion you witness once in a lifetime. He toured us through his favourite (rare, endangered) trees, the volunteer centre, the cacao roastery & small batch processing facility on-site. His property will have you immersed in the world of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory as you’ll hike up through the trails and he takes his time to point out several uniquely nutritious plants native to Panama, explaining their health benefits & answering all of our questions in his particular humorous way.

We saw more poisonous dart frogs than we could count, along with sloths, hummingbirds & nests filled with tiny speckled eggs that had us all, including Gary in all of his childlike wonder of the natural world, giggling and stopping to really soak in the magic of. You cannot help but feel like a special person when you visit because he subtly curates the tour to visitors’ individual personalities and interests, remembering you by name as a small example of this. The award winning cacao product tastings at the end of the tour are literally *just* the cherry on top.

An absolute must visit to support this non-profit’s work if you’re anywhere in Bocas’ archipelago.

A really educational tour of a beautiful property. The chocolate was delicious. Definitely recommend to people visiting the Bocas del Toro area.

Loved Gary, the bluefrogs, the trees (specially the "married almedroeras"), the birds (all and each one of then), his dogs, and most of all his cocoa and the magic they do to turn it to the best chocolate ever. Dont miss it chocolate lovers!

We arranged a tour of this farm from Tranquilo Bay Eco resort. Other guests were ranting about it. They saw several of the green tree frogs, which I really wanted to see, so we booked a tour. I wasn’t expecting much out of the tour and really did the tour to see frogs.
We did see frogs! But that goal was not as gratifying as learning from Gary and hearing his goals for the environment in Panama. It was a very interesting, informative and inspirational tour which was also a lot of fun.
Both me and my wife loved this tour and would highly recommend it. It would be appropriate for children maybe over 10 or over in my opinion. One of our fellow guests at Tranquilo called the experience “life changing”. Very cool indeed.

So, from Bocas Town, you take a water taxi for about 25 minutes and you arrive at this small, thatched-roof dock in the middle of nowhere. You get off your boat, and you're greeted by the owner, Gary, who is a life-long environmental activist. Gary owns 30 acres of jungle on the mainland of Bocas del Toro province and uses it for a bunch of stuff, which includes growing chocolate commercially but also a lot of other things. This tour is Gary walking you around his property for about 3 hours (don't believe the listed time of 2 hours) showing you the various plants and animals that live there and telling you about his various projects. One of those projects is making chocolate, and you do get to see and taste cacao fruits and see how chocolate is made, but his other projects include raising endangered Almendro trees for reforestation projects and working with local native tribes to encourage the growing of native plants for food. We saw so much wildlife on the tour: at least four sloths, wild poison dart frogs, a bullet ant, and several birds. One group of people on our tour brought big binoculars with them and saw a bunch of exotic birds.

Gary gives a great tour. We saw a lot of various plants and trees while learning about the ecology of Panama and some history and challenges from large scale fruit production.

Along the way we also saw a few sloths and black and green poison dart frogs. We could hear howler monkeys but never saw them.

We also learned about cacao and chocolate production and got to sample raw cacao seeds and pure chocolate, along with some chocolate drinks.

Would highly recommend!

Great tour! Adults and kids (ages 8 to 14) in our group loved it! Super friendly tour guides. Fun and informative tour about jungle plants, animals, and chocolate making. Yummy chocolate tasting. If we ever come back to Panama, we'll do it again!

Gary is such a nice man and a champion of nature and the jungle.

We really enjoyed our tour and learned so much about the farm and making of chocolate.

Amazing half day tour, the view is out of the world and this place is so beautiful and peaceful. The tour was amazing and I learned so much about flowers, trees, animals and chocolate. We really recommend the tour.

Gary provides a great tour of the farm! Super fun and informative. Really knowledgeable and keeps guests involved.

Thank you for responding to my 4am email! This was truly the ONLY THING I wanted to do while in Panama! It exceeded my expectations and more. The work you are doing with local tribes and too preserve our planet is truly admirable. Please keep me in mind when your research huts up and ready. Again I truly appreciate you accommodating my two person tour, it meant EVERYTHING!

Great tour. The gardens are spectacular. Loved seeing the passion these guys have. Learning about the choc was fun too

Really fun toar learned alot about the native plants you should check it out

The best chocolate and jungle tour in the Bocas area if not in Panama.. Gary ( the owner) makes the tour very special and his knowledge of the jungle, plants, cacao and animals is vast! Highly recommend! Not to mention the delicious chocolate you get to taste and buy at the end!

What a beautiful slice of heaven! Gary gave an amazing tour and keeps the group very much engaged. Not only does he know a lot about the plants, animals and vegetation in the area, is he extremely passionate about reforestation and in turn, providing safe habitats for endangered species. On top of all that, we learned how chocolate was made from the cocoa trees in his back yard! The chocolate was incredible but the experience was unmatched! Thanks for everything Gary!

Amazing experience and a very good cause. Will definitely recommend

Great tour. Excellent chocolate tasting!

Very informative tour. Great Panamanian Cacao samples.