Top 10 Best Places to Visit in Cuba for Vacation | Vacation Bell

10 of the very best places to visit in Cuba

Travelers will find eclectic architecture, white-sand beaches and prime wildlife-watching spots across the country. Here are 10 places worth adding to your Cuba itinerary to truly experience the Caribbean’s biggest and most fascinating island.

1. Valle de Viña

Best for beautiful natural landscapes and tobacco

About 180km (100 miles) west of Havana, Viñales is one of the most beautiful places in Cuba. It was added to Unesco’s World Heritage list because of its dramatic landscapes of red soils and distinctive limestone outcrops called mogotes.

2. Havana

Best Cuban city for art and architecture

The Cuban capital of Havana is packed with vintage cars, embellished with old-world cobblestoned plazas and silhouetted on the north by a five-mile sea drive known as the Malecón. Make sure you visit Habana Vieja’s old squares for a glimpse of the colonial architecture that shaped the city in the 1700s and 1800s, and admire the palatial mansions that now operate as museums and hotels

3. Varadero

Best Cuban beach resort

Even if every tourist in Cuba decided to meet in Varadero, there’s still room for more. Varadero is Cuba’s best beach resort, with 20km (12 miles) of white, powdery sand and impossibly crystalline waters. You can stay in all types of accommodations, from top-end all-inclusive resorts to beautiful casas particulares (private homestays).

4. Santiago de Best for understanding Cuba’s revolutionary past

Considered the second capital of Cuba, Santiago de Cuba was the HQ of the revolutionary guerrillas in the 1950s, but there’s more to experience here. Caribbean rhythms, tropical flavors and frenzied festivals set the rhythm of this colorful city.

5. Trinidad Best place to

for crafts

6. Baracoa

Best for wildlife and nature

Located in the easternmost tip of Cuba, just getting to Baracoa is an experience in and of itself. The road from Guantánamo leads to La Farola, a sinuous 60km-long (37-mile) road considered the most scenic drive in Cuba. Expect a three-hour trip through lush mountains, interrupted only by vendors of cucuruchos de Baracoa, a cone-shaped mix of coconut flakes, honey, guava paste and a fruity flavor (such as pineapple and orange rinds) all wrapped up in a palm frond.

7. Camagüey Best city for strolling

Elegant and artistic, Camagüey oozes charm and youthful energy, but it’s the surprisingly intricate street pattern of the city center that usually strikes visitors most. With most of the grid formed by one way narrow streets, it’s almost impossible to sort it out if you’re behind the wheel. Instead, stroll around maze-like alleys to discover small but lovely plazas all within walking distance from one another.

8. Matanzas

Best for live performances

Touted as the Athens of Cuba, Matanzas is the homeland of some of the country’s most cherished performers, such as Miguel Failde, creator of the cheek-to-cheek danzón (ballroom dance). The city is also the birthplace of rumba, an Afro-Cuban dance that 70-year-old music group Muñequitos de Matanzas has promoted worldwide.

9. Cienfuegos

Best place for activities at sea

Known as the Pearl of the South, Cienfuegos is Cuba’s Frenchinspired city, founded in 1819 on a beautiful natural bay. Deep enough to welcome cruises and mega-yachts, the bay is best enjoyed from Punta Gorda and the nautical centers at Club Cienfuegos and Marlin Marina Cienfuegos.

10. Playa Girón Best for diving and birdwatching

South of Matanzas province, Playa Girón has one of the country’s best diving sites that isn’t far offshore no boat required! The clear Caribbean waters offer impressive clarity and a colorful variety of marine fauna.

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