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Curated by Our Guild Explorers · Updated August 2026
The largest island in the Caribbean, and the least like the rest of it. Havana’s peeling Spanish grandeur and its seven-mile sea wall; Trinidad’s cobbles and colour, unchanged since the sugar barons; the tobacco valley at Viñales under its limestone hills; the French colonnades of Cienfuegos; and, yes, the long white beach at Varadero. This is the Guild’s chapter on Cuba — written plainly, including the parts that are difficult.
If you are an American reader, United States law does not permit tourism to Cuba. Travel by a U.S. person has to fall inside one of the licence categories the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control administers — family visits, journalism, professional research, religious or humanitarian work, and the one most independent travellers use, Support for the Cuban People. That category is not a formality. It asks for a full-time schedule of activities that genuinely benefit ordinary Cubans, it expects you to stay in privately owned casas particulares rather than state hotels, and it expects you to keep your records for five years. Separately, the State Department publishes a Cuba Prohibited Accommodations List, and a U.S. person may not lodge at, pay for lodging at, or book a listed property — no matter which country the booking is made in. Several of the best-known hotels in Havana and Varadero are on it. Please confirm the current position with OFAC and the State Department before you commit money to anything.
If you are Canadian, British, European, Mexican or anywhere else, you may travel to Cuba freely — and most of the island’s visitors always have. But 2026 has been a hard year there, and you should go with your eyes open. Long daily power cuts are routine and the national grid has collapsed outright more than once this year. A severe fuel shortage has closed hotels in Varadero and the northern cays and thinned the flight schedules. In June and July 2026 Meliá, Iberostar and Barceló all wound up their Cuban operations, leaving the island without its last international hotel brands. And since 6 June 2026 Visa and Mastercard have not been processed anywhere in Cuba, for any cardholder of any nationality. Cuba is still one of the most rewarding places in the Caribbean. It is not, at this moment, an easy one.
You will not find booking buttons in this chapter, and we want to explain why. Our booking partner does not sell Cuba. We looked up every city in this guide through our own verification tool and Trip.com returned nothing Cuban at all — “Havana” came back as a town in Florida, “Varadero” as a beach in Panama, “Cienfuegos” as a hostel in Chile, “Viñales” as an apartment in Slovenia, and “Cuba” itself as a village in Portugal. We could have pointed buttons at those pages and earned a commission when somebody booked the wrong country. We would rather tell you the truth and earn nothing. Book Cuba through a casa particular directly, or through an agency that specialises in the island.
Guild guides to the places worth basing yourself in — and the best time to plan your trip. Every one of these chapters is about casas particulares first, because that is where you should be staying.
Habana Vieja, Centro, Vedado and Miramar compared — noise, stairs, walkability and quiet.
The village street, the valley farms or the ridge with the view — tobacco country, casa by casa.
Inside the cobbled UNESCO centre, or a quieter street just beyond it — and how far the beach really is.
The dry season month by month, the hurricane window, and when a blackout is most bearable.
There is no other city like it. Four hundred years of Spanish building, salt-eaten and half-restored, with 1950s Chevrolets on the street and a live band in every second doorway. Old Havana is a UNESCO World Heritage site and, unusually for one, it is still somebody’s neighbourhood.
Son, rumba, trova, danzón. Not laid on for visitors — a Cuban band plays because a Cuban band plays. An evening in a Trinidad courtyard or a Havana casa de la trova is worth the journey by itself.
Trinidad, Cienfuegos, Camagüey and Remedios were never redeveloped, and the result is a set of eighteenth and nineteenth-century towns of a completeness you will not find elsewhere in the Americas.
Cubans are, by a wide margin, the warmest hosts in the Caribbean, and staying in a family’s home rather than a resort is the difference between seeing Cuba and meeting it. Your money goes to that family directly.
Cuba is long — about 780 miles end to end, roughly Chicago to New Orleans. Most first trips stay in the western half. Where a Guild city guide is finished, it is linked below; where it is not, we say so plainly rather than send you to a page that does not exist.
The old city, the Malecón, Vedado’s faded mansions and the ferry across the harbour to Casablanca.
Tobacco country: red earth, ox-drawn ploughs and the limestone mogotes of the Viñales valley.
Trinidad and Cienfuegos, an easy two hours apart, and the finest colonial architecture on the island.
Varadero’s twelve-mile sandbar and the northern cays — the part of Cuba most affected by this year’s closures.
Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa and the Sierra Maestra — a long way from Havana, and a different country in feel.
Almost every trip begins in Havana, and it should. Give it three nights at least: Old Havana on foot, the Malecón at dusk, an afternoon in leafy Vedado, and one evening simply following music. Two and a half hours west, Viñales is farmland — tobacco drying in palm-thatch barns, limestone mogotes rising straight out of the fields, and a village of casas with rocking chairs on every porch. It is the gentlest, and one of the loveliest, places in Cuba.
Trinidad is a UNESCO town of cobbled streets and pastel houses that stopped still when the sugar money left, and the steps beside the Plaza Mayor fill with musicians after dark. Ninety minutes west, Cienfuegos is quite different — a nineteenth-century city founded by French settlers, with a long neoclassical boulevard and a bay you can sit beside.
Varadero has one of the great beaches of the Caribbean — twelve miles of it, shelving gently, warm all year. It also has the island’s largest concentration of state resorts, which is where the difficulty lies: many are on the Prohibited Accommodations List and so barred to American travellers, several have closed this year to save fuel, and the international chains that used to run them have gone. If you are set on a beach, the town end of Varadero still has casas, and a day trip from Havana is easy.
Santiago de Cuba, fifteen hours away by road, is the island’s second city and the home of son and of the Carnival — hotter, more Caribbean, more African. Baracoa, beyond it, is the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba and reached by a mountain road. Both are wonderful and both are, right now, harder to reach than they were: fly if you can, and build in slack.
The single most important practical page in this chapter. Read it before you pack.
Since 6 June 2026, Visa and Mastercard have not been processed in Cuba at all — not in hotels, not in restaurants, not at cash machines, and not for any cardholder of any nationality. Canadians and Europeans whose cards worked last year should not assume they will work now. United States cards have never worked.
Bring euros or Canadian dollars in clean, untorn notes; euros are usually the easiest to change and often attract the better rate. Bring more than your budget suggests, keep it in two places, and change small amounts at a time. A cash shortage a long way from Havana is a genuinely difficult situation, so plan for it before you leave.
A room in a good casa particular is typically a modest sum by Caribbean standards, breakfast usually extra and always worth taking. Dinner in a private paladar costs a fraction of an equivalent meal in Jamaica or the Bahamas. Where costs mount is transport: shared taxis between cities, a driver for the day, and internal flights when they run.
Tip in cash, and tip well. In an economy under this much strain, what you hand a musician, a guide or a casa owner matters more than it would elsewhere — and under the Support for the Cuban People rules, spending directly with Cubans is precisely the point.
The experiences worth building a trip around.
Start at the Plaza de Armas before the heat, and work through the four great squares. Go early: the light is better, the streets are quieter, and you will be sitting down with a coffee by the time the tour groups arrive.
Seven miles of sea wall, and half of Havana out on it by evening — fishermen, courting couples, someone with a guitar. It costs nothing and it is the single most Cuban hour you will spend.
A working finca, an ox in the field, and a grower explaining how a leaf becomes a cigar. Go on foot or on horseback in the early morning, and buy from the farmer.
The Casa de la Música’s stone steps beside the Plaza Mayor fill up after dark, and the band plays to the whole square. Arrive before nine to get a seat on the steps.
Yes, it is a cliché, and yes, it is still wonderful. Agree the fare before you get in, and consider hiring one with a driver for a half-day out to Cojímar or the Playas del Este.
The most underrated thing in Cuba. Fruit you have not tasted before, strong coffee, eggs, and an hour of conversation that will teach you more about the country than any museum.
December to April is the dry season and the comfortable one: warm days, cooler evenings, low humidity, little rain. It is also the busiest and dearest stretch, and Christmas and Easter book out furthest ahead.
May to October is hot, humid and wet, and the Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November, with the sharpest risk to Cuba from August through October. Given the state of the electricity supply, the cooler months are also the months in which a power cut is far easier to sit out. The quiet edges — late November, early December, the second half of April — are the value sweet spot. Our best time to visit Cuba page goes through it month by month.
José Martí International (HAV) in Havana is the main gateway, with Varadero (VRA), Santa Clara (SNU), Holguín (HOG) and Santiago (SCU) taking charters and regional flights. Schedules have been unsettled through 2026 by the fuel shortage — airlines have suspended routes, added refuelling stops or cut frequencies — so book flexible where you can and reconfirm before you fly.
Most visitors need a tourist card bought before travel, and everybody must complete the online D’Viajeros arrival form within 72 hours of arriving and carry its QR code; airlines check it at the gate. Passports should have six months’ validity and you may be asked for proof of onward travel. On the island, the comfortable way between cities is a private driver or a shared colectivo taxi arranged through your casa; hire cars are scarce, expensive and dependent on fuel. Requirements change — confirm the current rules with the relevant official authority before you travel.
Not as tourists. United States law does not permit tourism to Cuba. Travel by a U.S. person must fall within one of the general licence categories administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — family visits, journalism, professional research, religious or humanitarian work, and the widely used Support for the Cuban People category. That last one requires a full-time schedule of activities that benefit ordinary Cubans, staying in privately owned casas particulares rather than state hotels, and keeping your records for five years. Separately, the State Department publishes a Cuba Prohibited Accommodations List, and U.S. persons may not lodge, pay for lodging, or make a reservation at any property on it, wherever in the world the booking is made. Confirm the current rules with OFAC and the State Department before you commit to anything.
Because our booking partner does not sell Cuba. We checked every city in this chapter through our own lookup tool and Trip.com returned no Cuban inventory at all — searches for Havana, Varadero, Cienfuegos, Viñales and Santiago de Cuba came back as places in Florida, Panama, Chile, Slovenia and Colombia respectively. Rather than point a booking button at a page for the wrong country, we have left this chapter without them and told you why. We would rather earn nothing here than send you somewhere wrong.
Difficult, and it is the thing most likely to shape your trip. Cuba has suffered repeated nationwide grid collapses, including several in 2026, and long daily blackouts are routine across much of the island. An acute fuel shortage has led the government to consolidate tourist facilities — closing hotels in Varadero and the northern cays and moving guests elsewhere — and has caused airlines to cut, suspend or add refuelling stops to Cuba flights. Havana and the main tourist areas get priority, and better casas and hotels run generators, but expect outages, lifts that stop, air conditioning that fails and hot water that is not always hot. Travel with a torch, a power bank and patience.
Take cash, and take more than you think. Since 6 June 2026 Visa and Mastercard have not been processed in Cuba at all, for any cardholder of any nationality, so cards that worked for Canadians and Europeans last year no longer do. U.S.-issued cards have never worked. Bring euros or Canadian dollars in clean, undamaged notes — euros are generally easiest to change — and change only what you need at a time. The Cuban peso now runs on a floating official rate alongside an informal one; in mid-August 2026 the two stood at roughly 628 and 665 pesos to the US dollar, much closer together than in past years, but both move constantly. Never change money in the street.
In a casa particular — a licensed room or apartment in a private Cuban home. For American travellers under Support for the Cuban People, a casa is effectively required rather than optional. For everyone else it is simply the better stay: your money goes to a Cuban family, the breakfasts are excellent, and your hosts will solve problems no front desk can. The state hotel sector has had a hard year — Meliá, Iberostar and Barceló all wound up their Cuban operations in June and July 2026, leaving the island without its last international hotel brands, and some resorts have closed to save fuel.
December to April is the dry season and the pleasant one — warm days, cooler nights, low humidity and least rain — and also the busiest and dearest. May to October is hot, humid and wet, and the Atlantic hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, with the greatest risk to Cuba from August through October. Late November and early December, and the second half of April, are the quiet edges of the good season. Given the current power situation, the cooler months are also the more comfortable ones in which to sit out a blackout.
Most visitors need a tourist card, sometimes called a tourist visa, bought before travel from a Cuban consulate, an authorised agent, an airline or the official eVisa platform. Everyone must also complete the D’Viajeros online arrival form within 72 hours of arriving and carry the QR code it produces; airlines check it at the gate. Your passport should be valid at least six months beyond arrival, and you may be asked for proof of onward travel. Americans additionally need to be travelling under one of the OFAC categories above. Requirements change, so confirm them with the relevant official authority before you book.
The Guild is a library of the whole world, not of the easy parts of it. Cuba earns us nothing — there is nothing here we can sell you — and we have written it anyway, as carefully as we know how, because a library with a hole where Cuba should be is not a library. If you find something here that has changed, please tell us.