Cuba travel guide: Everything you need to know before you go

Dazzling sugar-soft seashores, twinkling turquoise seas, palm-tree studded mountain trails, muscular castles, and fairly cities brimming with good-looking villas, reside bands, salsa dancing, and artwork. Oh, and people classic, vibrant American vehicles… Cuba is an enigma, clinging to socialism whereas discovering its ft in a post-pandemic world. Come for vibrant Havana and its nightlife however take off into the wilds of this crocodile-shaped isle for journey, wild seashores, cultural quirks, cigars, diving, festivals and foodie spots, and the perfect factor of all – the nice and cozy and witty Cubans.

Present journey restrictions and entry necessities

There are not any Covid restrictions on entry or on the bottom. Travellers should get hold of a visa-like tourist card and fill out the net Viajeros form earlier than travelling.

Greatest time to go

Cuba is a good vacation spot yr spherical, however is insufferably scorching in July and August (although the town of Santiago de Cuba hosts two riotous, musical festivals in July which can be value catching). November to April is excessive season, when the climate is superb, and costs are increased. Dozens of festivals and occasions are held on this interval: music, dance, ballet, jazz, movie, and artwork. Hurricane season runs from June till November.

High areas and cities

Havana

The Spanish conquerors of Cuba grew wealthy on the again of the sugar and tobacco commerce and poured their wealth into one of many best cities within the Americas. Because of this, Havana is beautiful: richly labored with colonial villas, embellished church buildings, flower-filled patios, Artwork Deco towers, and 50s mansions. Discover its coronary heart within the streets of the Previous Metropolis, now vibrant with indie retailers, bars, and cafés. Stroll the ocean promenade, the Malecón, and hail a chrome-festooned classic motor to tour the castles on the bay and the leafy streets of villas and galleries of the Vedado neighbourhood. By night time, search out rooftop bars, artwork gallery openings, and boho nightlife spots throughout the town.

Viñales Valley

It’s inconceivable to not be seduced by this lush valley of mini mountains, royal palms, tobacco farms, horse-riding farmers, and cutesy B&Bs in rural Cuba. At daybreak a mist encircles the columns and porches of houses in Viñales city. Breakfast on eggs and mango because the solar burns via, then enterprise out on a horse, or by foot, to discover this Jurassic area of Cuba the place towering limestone humps, often known as mogotes, dot the valley ground, a results of hundreds of thousands of years of abrasion. At sunset sit on the porch of your B&B sipping a freshly made mojito. You’ll discover scrumptious farm-to-fork meals in Viñales, too.

Trinidad

On the southern coast of Cuba, the tiny, cobbled streets of Trinidad spill down the foothills of the Escambray Mountains in direction of the gorgeous blue Caribbean Sea. Trinidad is a photographer’s and salsa dancer’s dream. Enormous mansions, all cinnamon, avocado and ochre-hued and fitted with European marble and chandeliers, have been constructed by sugar barons who reaped monumental wealth from the slaves who labored their record-busting sugar plantations. In the present day these ornate buildings are galleries, museums, eating places, and personal houses. Discover a number of the most ridiculously fairly B&Bs within the nation right here. Dance the night time away to reside music and get better on the close by Caribbean seashore the next day.

Santa Clara

Che Guevara, the Argentine physician turned Cuban guerrilla, is buried in an elaborate mausoleum sculpture advanced on Santa Clara’s Revolution Plaza. Alongside his mortal stays are those who died with him in a failed guerrilla marketing campaign in Bolivia in 1967. Go to the neighbouring Che museum, too, earlier than heading off to the Café-Museo Revolución the place, alongside a robust cup of Cuban espresso you’ll be able to take in the café proprietor’s unimaginable Che memorabilia assortment. Nightlife pivots across the theatre and bars of the principle sq. however don’t miss the great El Mejunje alfresco membership well-known for reside music, cabaret, and LGBT nights.

Santiago de Cuba

With winding historic streets that climb from the large harbour as much as the town centre, you’ll get a way of the setting of the island’s second metropolis. It’s surrounded by monumental mountains, one in all them named after a well-known cocktail. And it was on this fabled place, that Señor Bacardí found the secrets and techniques of ageing rum 160 years in the past and launched the world’s most well-known rum. Discover the houses, museums, and music spots of this full of life metropolis – extra Caribbean in really feel than distant Havana and take in the reside African and Spanish rooted music on the town centre venues, daiquiris and mojitos in hand! Fidel Castro’s tomb is discovered on the metropolis’s spectacular marble cemetery.

Greatest under-the-radar locations

Baracoa

Baracoa is Cuba’s best-kept secret. 600 miles from Havana, it’s a trek to get there, however oh so value it. You’ll climb mountains, bathe in crystal-clear rivers, swing in hammocks, go to cacao farms, seek for aboriginal hideouts, and style a number of the greatest meals in Cuba – fish bathed in coconut, and a mashed coconut, honey, and nut dessert wrapped in a palm cone. Dance all of it off within the little bars and Casa de la Trova (a neighborhood assembly home or dance corridor) fringing the tiny major sq..

Caletón

Down on the south coast of Cuba – with one street in and one street out – is the Bay of Pigs, notorious for the US tried invasion of the island in 1961. However it’s not only a website for historical past buffs: the water is essentially the most lovely in Cuba, aquamarine flecked with inky indigo blue, residence to vibrant fish, and the odd warfare wreck. Snorkel, dive, and bike to secret seashores alongside the jagged limestone coast right here, backed by swamp peppered with Cuban crocs and vibrant endemic birdlife.

Gibara

Distant Gibara is a fishing port of white homes and jumbled rooves crammed round a small harbour in northeast Cuba. It bursts into life for the annual worldwide cinema competition in August which attracts Cuban and worldwide stars. Come for the caves that may be explored with guides, the tasty regional fare rooted in fish and shellfish, and a spotlight – the prospect to dive in a sequence of lovely sinkholes scattered in pristine jungle settings round city.

Greatest issues to do

Keep in a Cuban B&B

Few locations on the earth supply fancy digs for particularly reasonable costs. In Cuba you’ll be able to mattress down in villas, mansions, fincas (farmhouse stays) and Artwork Nouveau flats for unthinkable costs. However, greater than that, the Cuban households who host worldwide friends would be the stars of your keep. The photographs of fabulous interiors will get a zillion likes on the ‘gram, however the reminiscences of your heat, loquacious hosts with 101 gripping tales to inform will linger longer.

Rent a automotive

Lonely mountain roads with epic surroundings, remoted Spanish colonial cities and rural villages, virgin white sand seashores with not one other soul in sight, and quirky sights discovered away from vacationer hotspots. All that is potential in a rent automotive, and extra. You’ll want to order, and gas prices are rising, however there’s no higher option to discover off the overwhelmed monitor particularly as the general public coach community is proscribed. Deliver your personal snorkel, and lunch!

Take a guided artwork tour

One of many extraordinary hallmarks of Cuba’s 1959 revolution was an enormous funding within the arts. You’ll discover world-class artwork in Cuba, Havana particularly, and a guided tour to the houses and studios of a number of the greatest artists at work on the island is an enchanting introduction to the fertile arts’ scene, and life in Cuba typically. Works from Cuba’s residing artists are present in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork and MoMa, and London’s Tate. Select your medium, or let the information select for you.

Getting round

Hiring a automotive isn’t low-cost. Use the general public coach firm Víazul (bookable online inside and out of doors the nation) which runs common buses from Viñales within the west to Baracoa within the east, with routes out to standard seashore resorts and cities. New air-conditioned prepare carriages launched in 2019 however the community is antiquated. Prepare tickets could be purchased at any Viajeros company workplace on the island (money buy). Licensed and unlicensed taxis can be utilized to get to distant spots.

Methods to get there

TUI is the one airline flying direct from the UK to Cuba (Varadero seashore resort) from Manchester. From London you’ll be able to fly with Air France, Iberia, and Air Europa by way of different European cities, or with a few finances airways together with Spain’s World2Fly and Iberojet.

Cash saving tip

Wifi is obtainable at public wifi hotspots and accessible by scratch playing cards purchased from phone (Etecsa) places of work or by resellers on the road. Purchase a Cuban SIM card (which could be purchased on-line earlier than you fly) and decide it up at Havana’s worldwide airport. A 30-day Turista SIM card prices US$25 and consists of 6GB of knowledge, 100 texts and 100 minutes of calls. High-ups can be bought online.

FAQs

What’s the climate like?

The climate is comfortably scorching and breezy from November via to April. Day by day tropical rains start in Could and run to October, however even these downpours evaporate in seconds. As talked about above, July-August can get too stiflingly scorching for a lot of.

What time zone is it in?

Cuba is 5 hours behind GMT.

What foreign money do I would like?

Cuba united its twin currencies in January 2021; the Cuban Peso (CUP) is now the only official foreign money, however the financial scenario in Cuba is presently sophisticated – with locals utilizing MLC (a foreign money which Cuban should add to their financial institution playing cards by shopping for foreign currency) for some purchases. This is an excellent overview.

For a vacation, deliver loads of Euros in money (greater than you assume you’ll want) to pay for lodging on the go, restaurant meals, and personal transport and companies. Deliver a debit or bank card (with no connections to america; name your financial institution to examine) to purchase necessities equivalent to bottled water, medicines, hygiene merchandise and a few meals at “MLC” (Moneda Libremente Convertible) shops, the place money will not be accepted. Financial institution playing cards are used to pay for automotive rent; the island’s solely coach service, Víazul; actions equivalent to diving, crusing journeys and cover strolling; and lodging and meals at government-owned lodges and eating places, in addition to to withdraw money in Cuban Pesos (CUP). The CUP is used to purchase road meals, restaurant meals, museum entrances, native transport, and prepare transport. Change a small quantity of Euros into CUP on arrival. Black market charges in your Euros will make your vacation less expensive.

What language is spoken?

Spanish is the official language.

Anything I ought to know?

Cuba is a communist, one-party state. Do learn up on the politics and economics earlier than you go to. Deliver all medicines you might want with you.