Cuba highlights and beach holiday
Description of Cuba highlights and beach holiday
A trip that captures all of Cuba’s highlights with plenty of beach holiday moments thrown into the magical mix. As this is a tailor made holiday, we can tweak it to suit your interests, budget and time frame, but the carefully crafted itinerary below ensures that you have several days in all our recommended regions, so that you have time to enjoy the country’s inimitable culture and bewitching natural beauty.
Starting in Havana, this is a city that needs little introduction, the old town living up to all expectations with its crumbling colonialism, fascinating backstreets, shady plazas and famous classic car filled Malecón, all contributing to the city’s UNESCO World Heritage status.
In total contrast, your next few days are spent inland at La Terazzas, a fascinating eco-community that was set up during the 1960’s as a communist project. In a stunning location, you will meet the community that sustains the farm and artisans’ studios and enjoy time around its lake. The tobacco growing region around Viñales is next, where you can go horseriding through the valleys and mountains, bedecked with farms and plantations, limestone caves and lakes.
More cultural delights await in coastal Cienfuegos, otherwise known as the "Pearl of the South" and another Cuban UNESCO World Heritage site for its French colonial buildings and palaces. As with several other places along your way, you stay in a traditional casa particular, or homestay, where the now familiar great Cuban welcome is par for the course.
Coastal and Caribbean culture will take you all the way back to Havana, with a couple of days in both the colourful, historical town of Trinidad, considered the musical capital by many, and some serious chill out time on the island of Cayo Santa Maria.
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6 Reviews of Cuba highlights and beach holiday
Reviewed on 12 Feb 2023 by Lorraine Jarvie-Smith
Wonderful experience...We did a great day hiking through the Forrest near Trinidad and swimming in a natural pool Read full reviewReviewed on 26 Jan 2020 by Daisy Taylor
Loved it, already thinking about planning a return trip. Read full reviewReviewed on 05 Apr 2019 by Bo Hamilton-cody
Each destination was memorable in its own way: Havana - like stepping back in time...Cayo Levisa - paradise! Soo relaxing...Vinales - loved this place...Trinidad - loved the Bici-tour, with our guide - Trinidad - casa Del Musica of course. Read full reviewReviewed on 09 May 2018 by Julian Philpott
The tours were excellent, much better than we expected. Excellent, it was a fantastic trip and we all had a great time. Read full reviewReviewed on 24 Apr 2018 by Judy Corbett
For me, the highlight was riding through the tobacco lands with the red earth, hot sun and beautiful scenery, or perhaps it was the horse-drawn cart trip to the waterfall and then swimming in the cool, clear water with the birds swooping in and out of their little cave nests. Read full reviewResponsible Travel
Planet
You’ll find Cuba has some beautiful landscapes, from the unspoiled tranquil beaches of Maria la Gorda to the lush vegetation of the Humboldt National Park – and we want to keep it that way! This itinerary includes a trip to Las Terrazas, Cuba’s pioneering eco-village, where you’ll stay in an unusual eco-resort with an airy atrium built around a giant lime tree. The proceeds from tourism go back into preserving the area’s unique biosphere, its ruins of 18th century coffee plantations and upkeep of the ecological research centre.On the tour we will travel as lightly as possible, for example walking to hidden waterfalls, and exploring the landscape on horseback in Viñales.
Throughout our trips we prioritise small-scale, low impact accommodation, such as locally-owned Casa particilares and we visit local farmers and businesses who are balancing crop growing with protecting the landscape.
Meanwhile at our offices in Brighton, we’re dedicated recyclers and work hard to reduce the amount of energy we consume. Our local partners do the same; keeping energy use to a minimum and using energy-saving light bulbs. We even advise our customers on keeping energy use down in their travel documentation.
People
We firmly believe in the concept of meaningful travel; having experiences which benefit you and the destination you’re visiting. We advise all our customers on local customs and cultures in their travel documentation.You will be visiting local businesses, such as coffee growers and cigar makers and meeting the local guajiros in Viñales. We’ve included a few casa particulars in this itinerary – a private room in a local home. By staying with a family instead of in a hotel, you’ll put money directly into the pockets of the local people and catch a glimpse of how Cubans really live.
We’re really proud that our local partners care as much about meaningful travel as we do. They work together with several artists, dancers, and intellectuals in Cuba and stimulate cultural tourism by organizing workshops, tours and courses to promote the Cuban culture.
We also support a local project in Cuba; the Music Fund for Cuba. They support the education and development of music and performing arts in Cuba. The Music Fund for Cuba provides much needed support and equipment for children and young Cuban musicians, dancers and artists throughout the island.
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