For the last decade, many people said to me about Cuba “Go now before it changes forever”, so in February 2019 with my partner and other six friends we decided to finally tick off Cuba from our bucket list.
The best time to travel to Cuba is typically between December and May. However, you can almost always expect sunny weather due to the close location to the equator, even if you travel to Cuba during the rainy season between May and October.
Cuba is an amazing country that is on most travellers dream list, and it is for a number of very good reasons. It is one of those places that grows on you and once you come back, you completely understand why, is the home of salsa, Cuban cigars and picturesque Caribbean beaches, is a wonderful destination for great experiences. Since the 1959 Revolution stopped the clocks and turned everything upside down, when you travel to Cuba you’ll see vintage radios, refrigerators, buses, and bars. There are traditional barbers and iconic classic American cars that you can drive along the famous oceanfront Malecón, Havana’s main promenade.
Once you land, you will immediately feel how warm and friendly Cuban people are, they will talk to you about everything, they spend the majority of their days in company of others. Walking down the street in Cuba, you’ll see people sitting outside their homes talking to neighbours or dancing in the middle of the street at any hour of the day, it is a very special atmosphere and cool thing to see.
If you’re staying in a casa particular (I really recommend to do so as much as possible), you’ll have more opportunities to interact with Cubans. The families rent out rooms in their own home at very cheap prices (you can spend less than 5$ per person per night and sometimes with breakfast included), most of the families are super friendly and interested in the lives of their guests. When you’re having breakfast, they will sit down with you and tell you about what it’s like to live in Cuba, this is a fantastic experience to have for travellers.
Before arriving to Cuba you need to be aware about the lack of technology that you will find – such as connection and wi-fi, are not easy to find and you won’t have it everywhere, there are dedicated wi-fi areas and local cards that you will need to buy and you can use them only in those areas.

We travelled around Cuba for 15 days, being a group of  eight people it hasn’t been an easy trip to organise (to be honest one of the hardest I ever done), transportation around the island are not the best and are slow, though there is a reliable, good-value long distance bus service for travelling around Cuba called Viazul that will stop just in the main cities. But the best way to go around the island in my opinion is by private taxi (depending on how many people you will travel with), although in our case we wanted to hire a van, I was in contact for few months with some local people before our arrival, so they helped us to hire a private minivan with driver for few days.
Once landed in Havana International Airport, we drove all the way to Trinidad, a good 4 hours journey, Trinidad is one of the top and beautiful towns to visit in Cuba, a fantastic colonial town where you can walk around and get lost in the tiny little streets, you can get on the top of the bell tower of a church (now museum) and look at the beautiful and colourful streets from above, the architectures are special. It has many souvenir shops, but they are in the original colonial buildings, so the look of the town is not spoiled in any way, photographers will definitely love this town.

We spent 2 nights in Trinidad in a beautiful casa particular right in the centre of the town (Casa Villa-Martinez), the family was fantastic, I really recommend it. On our way back to Havana, we stopped to explore the El Nicho waterfall, just 1 hour from Trinidad, located inside the forest of the Gran Parque Natural Topes de Collantes. At the bottom of the main waterfall there is a big natural pool where you can swim and splash around. There are several other smaller waterfalls as well, the water is refreshing, especially on a hot day.

Before arriving to Havana we did a quick stop in Cienfuegos to eat something and to have a walk in this town that has authentic and large houses with fantastic views of the sea and where you can enjoy an incredible sunset.
In Havana we spent 4 nights, we didn’t have a fantastic experience once we arrived as the accommodation that we had booked basically didn’t let us in, we booked the all flat for 8 people and they were saying that they had space just for four of us, but as I said previously Cubans are very welcoming and helpful people and our driver thankfully knew other places in the area (was 10pm not the best time to find a place for eight people), he found us an Airbnb in a casa particular in the next street, still in the centre of Havana – Booking.com few days later refunded us the full amount.

Havana is a vibrant mix of old and new buildings, history, music and passion. You can start your day from Plaza de Armas and take a stroll down the Calle Obispo, Old Havana’s most important street, and you can see here some of the city’s oldest homes. Visit the Capitolio, a replica of the US Capitol building in Washington, then go to the back of the building to visit the Partagas Tobacco Factory. Other main sites to visit are Plaza de la Catedral, Plaza Vieja, and Plaza de la Revolución and of course you can’t miss a mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio and a daiquiri at El Floridita.

There’s much more in Cuba than just Havana, after few days in the Capital we had four relaxing days in Cayo Largo del Sur, where you will have one of the best crystal clear waters of the island. For those days we didn’t have much choice about flight or hotels (you need to book everything by local agents that will offer you a full package with transportation, flight and resort all-inclusive). Playa Paraiso and Playa Sirena are the best beaches of the island, while in Playa Sirena we did a private boat tour for 10$ per person and they took us to see start fish and iguanas, best 10$ I ever spent.

We flew back in Havana and from there we went with a private taxi to the countryside, experiencing the authentic rural farming life of the Valle de Viñales in the Pinor del Rio. If you love nature’s beautiful landscapes, this place won’t disappoint you! This was by far one of the highlight of our trip. We stayed for 2 nights in a casa particular just outside the town, the owner arranged for us a 4 hours horseback ride through the valley and tobacco plantations for $20 CUC ($20 US).We had the most fun, interesting and breathtaking time and absolutely loved learning about the rural Cuban way of life. We visited a tobacco farm, rolled our own cigars, visited a coffee plantation, drank rum, ride horses and explored the beautiful tobacco valley. It was incredible value for money as well, highly recommend for anyone visiting Viñales.

The owner of the casa particular (fantastic lady), arranged for us a private taxi for the next 4 days, for the last few days of our trip we wanted to relax in some of the best beaches in all Cuba, we spent the first two days in Cayo Jutias (a little paradise), there are no hotel or casa particular in the area so you will need sleep in Santa Lucia that is just one hour from the beach. We had a full house for us where the owner was cooking for us lobster or chicken every night as we came back from the beach for only 8$ each. Cuba is the best place in the world to have lobster, everywhere you go you will not pay more than 12$ for an all lobster!
The last two days we stay in another little paradise, Cayo Levisa, this island has only one resort with 40 rooms and there are only two ferries a day from Palma Rubia (a 20 min journey), you can go to the island even if you don’t sleep there, but the best thing is that the last ferry is at 5pm, so later on only who will sleep in the resort will be in the island, really cool.

Our trip in this amazing island was done at this point, everything was perfect, the landscapes, the food, the weather but the warmth and kindness of the people is what got us the most.
If you have more days you can visit even the southern part of the island, you can get there by plane arriving to Holguin or Santiago di Cuba.