Unique Cultural Tours
Unique Cultural Tours
February 21-March 5, 2025
This exclusive itinerary starts in Havana and ends in Camagüey. We will provide flight recommendations to make it a no-hassle experience for you.
Cost: $4,245 per person (market value $7,345). $500 is due upon registration to secure your spot. Single rooms are available for an additional $500.
(For those who registered before 7/22/24, your total package price increases $850 for the additional days.)
Bilingual Cuban Guide
Travel licenses, mandatory Cuban health insurance and visas
9 nights in Casas Particulares, Cuban Bed & Breakfasts. We have discovered the most comfortable lodging in Cuba is in these Casas, versus hotels which are government-owned and lacking in many amenities.
24 meals, almost always at paladares. The paladares of Cuba are unique in that they are privately-owned restaurants where the staff takes great pride in their delicious meals and hospitality.
Private, air-conditioned ground transportation for the whole tour with our own driver
Purified water included and always available (bring your favorite water bottle for refills)
All group activities mentioned on this itinerary
Please note: We have an amazing team in Cuba; therefore Jenny & Steve do not attend every tour
Airfare to/from the US
Trip Insurance
9 meals
Scuba or snorkel costs
Tips
Alcohol
Extra hiking, coastal time, and the arts are built into this custom itinerary. Experience rich Cuban culture through music, arts, and dance. Classic cars, UNESCO World Heritage sites, snorkeling and Cuban friends are built into this specially curated tour! Most tourists never get to experience the colonial city of Camagüey- join us and uncover the mysteries of Cuba.
55 Chevy Bel Air driving tour of Havana
Fusterlandia and Artists Tour
Buena Vista Social Club, Hotel Nacional
Colonial Havana of the 1500s Sightseeing
Hemmingway’s mountaintop home and surrounding inspiration
Visit the Apothecary Museum of Matanzas
Stunning beaches
Historic DuPont Mansion
Al Capone’s famous hideaway
Snorkeling/beach/cave swimming. Option to take a scuba excursion.
Ornithologist visit-Bee Hummingbird
Korimikao School for the Arts
Snorkeling/swimming
Bay of Pigs Invasion museum
City tour
Afro-Cuban folkloric dance show
Salsa dancing
Waterfall hike and birdwatching
Beach time and shopping opportunities
Snorkeling, additional hike, live music
Exclusive artists tours: sculptors, potters & painters
Ballet behind the scenes at the University of Dance
Farewell Farm-to-Table Dinner
Accessibility: Please note that in Cuba, the sidewalks are often cracked and uneven, tour members must be able to handle walking on uneven terrain. You must be able to walk up to 3 miles in a day to participate in the tour.
Day 1: Welcome to Cuba!
Arrive in Havana.
We will be greeted at the airport by Roger, our Cuban guide. He’ll take us to our B&B accommodations (casa particular) in Centro Habana. We will get a layout of the city along with first impressions of the architecture and lifestyle of the city dwellers. Evening arrivals may choose to settle into your casa to rest or join the group and go out for dinner. That’s the flexibility of small group tours.
Meals: Dinner
Day 2: Havana
Wear your walking shoes for this day! We start with a visit to Fusterlandia in the fishing village of Jaimanitas and the home of the famous artist Jose Fuster. Fuster has made his entire home, and much of the surrounding neighborhood, into an outdoor art gallery using tiles in mosaic forms. A Havana driving tour in classic cars will take you to the forest of Havana, the famous Revolutionary Square and through the gorgeous historic embassy neighborhoods.
The activities will be followed by a walking tour of Old Havana City, with its gorgeous architecture and plazas. We’ll have lunch at Doña Eutimia, a cozy paladar, renowned for it’s mojito smoothies (rum optional). In the late afternoon, we will return to our casa particular for free time before returning to the old city at night for dinner and a great night view of El Morro fortress.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Day 3: Havana
We will start the day off with a drive to Cojimar, the quiet fishing village where Hemingway docked his boat and the inspiration for the town in The Old Man and the Sea. Following that, we will drive up to Hemingway’s mountaintop home, seeing his personal library, his elevated writing den where he and his cats would spend days on end, and more around his home. It is an excellent example of how many well-to-do Americans lived in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s before the Revolution.
We will return to Havana for lunch at a paladar, followed by a tour of the Museum of the Revolution and the National Fine Arts Museum. Enjoy late afternoon free time before heading to the paladar of your choice for dinner. Havana is home to extraordinary Italian and Spanish cuisine, due to many from abroad who have married Cubans and settled in this area.
Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
Day 4: Varadero via Matanzas
Enjoy a walking tour of the splendid colonial architecture in Matanzas and visit an apothecary museum unlike anything you’d expect to see on the island. A visit to El Saturno cave is a refreshing cave swimming opportunity for those who desire and a cool photo opp.
Arriving in Varadero you’ll have time to freshen up at your casa before a sandy sunset view followed by dinner. There is a lot of touristy nightlife in this town, including a well-known Beatles Bar and cover band.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Day 5: Varadero
If you are an early riser, you will see a gorgeous sunrise over the blue Caribbean water on the powdery white beaches. We will take a tour of the Mansión Xanadú (historic Du Pont home), overlooking the ocean and Veradero’s 18-hole golf course, and learn about mahogany that used to be abundant on the island. We will visit Parque Josone, built in 1940, with a special story of a father’s love for his wheelchair-bound daughter, now it is home to rowboats and a variety of tree species.
Learn about the history of the mafia in Cuba with a visit to Al Capone’s historic beach home, enjoy the music and feeding the pelicans. There will be free time in the afternoon to enjoy the beach, swim in the ocean, or explore the town on your own.
Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
**Day 6: Varadero
This is your day to explore the underwater sea life of Cuba! If you would like to scuba dive, we recommend you make the reservation to dive at Coral Beach with Scuba Libre, https://www.scubalibrevaradero.com/dives/, $80 for two dives.
If you want to snorkel, our guide and driver will take you to Coral Beach and Saturn Cave at no extra charge. Just make sure you pack your snorkel gear! If you are not a water person, you’ll still enjoy the day seeing the beach and magnificent cave.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
**Day 7: Bay of Pigs/ Cienfuegos
We’ll depart the north coast of Cuba for the south coast and the Bay of Pigs region.
We’ll have lunch in the very small (but special) town of Palpite. Our ornithologist friend will show you the famous for the Bee Hummingbirds that frequent his backyard. Take pictures of the birds and learn the habits of the world’s smallest bird, which resides only in Cuba! We will also meet young Cuban dancers, artists, and musicians at the Korimikao School for the Arts.
Our next stop is a roadside spot popular for swimming/snorkeling and birds. Take a dip in a sinkhole which resembles a huge natural tropical fish tank. Be sure to have your swimsuit and water socks (rough coastal area) handy in your backpack. This a popular area for Scuba Libre and similar companies to bring their snorkelers to. You don’t have to swim far from shore to see spectacular wildlife!
From there we will drive on the Playa Girón, home of the Bay of Pigs Museum. Learn about the conflict that happened right here between the U.S.-supported Cubans and locals in 1961, from the perspective of the Cuban government.
The last hour on the trip takes us into Cienfuegos, a city of 400,000 people, known for it’s French architecture. We will freshen up at our casa particulares before enjoying a delicious dinner together.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
**Day 8: Cienfuegos/Trinidad
If the group wants to get up early, you can head out to the lagoon where the flamingos fill the trees nearby and take off in magnificent clouds of pink, while riding on a rowboat.
Otherwise, enjoy a relaxing breakfast before taking a tour of the city, noting the French architecture and exploring the Moorish Palacio del Valle mansion.
A quick 45-minute drive will land us in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Trinidad, which is a strong contrast to Cienfuegos. Trinidad is a cozy, bustling town of Cubans and tourists, with stories of the slave trade and wealth in the heart of sugar cane farming in Cuba. Trinidad’s cobblestones can be brutal on your feet, so be sure to have thick-soled walking shoes.
After lunch, you’ll get a walking introduction to the town, so you can better explore at night.
Stay up late tonight! Nightlife in Trinidad is probably the most accessible and intense in all of Cuba, with numerous live music venues and free dance performances in the town square. You will have the chance to see Afro-Cuban folkloric dances performed in one of the many plazas.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Day 9: Trinidad
We will start early with a hike at “El Cubano” through the hills to a gorgeous waterfall where you can dive in and swim a bit. With any luck, we will see a tocororo, the national bird of Cuba, along with many other birds in the area. This is a moderate-level hike, about 3 miles round trip.
After the hike, enjoy lunch on your own. A favorite place is San Jose, which is known for its huge hamburgers and sizeable gourmet coffee drinks.
In the late afternoon, we will head out for salsa dance lessons. Don’t worry if you have two left feet–our vibrant Cuban instructors will have you smiling and laughing on the dance floor in no time!
This is a great night to go salsa dancing or listen to live music at a nearby venue, everything is walkable.
Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
**Day 10: Trinidad
Spend the morning at the beach, Playa Ancón, where there are umbrellas, lounge chairs, and lovely soft sand. Sometimes you can hire a boat to take you snorkeling.
After lunch, you will go on an artist tour of galleries and talk with artists. One of our favorites is the reverse wood sculptor, Lázaro Niebla (https://www.lazaroniebla.com/). He has rescued historic shutters around Trinidad and carved the faces of elderly locals into the shutters. This delicate handwork will be demonstrated for you.
If you are up for a late night, there is a cave bar you can walk to, and the party starts at midnight. Yep, STARTS at midnight. Have fun!
Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
Day 11: Camagüey
This day we say goodbye to the lovely Trinidad and head towards the heart of cattle country in Cuba, Camagüey. One of Cuba’s largest cities, it is the home to many kinds of artists.
In the afternoon we will do Part I of our artist tour, including private meetings with artists in their galleries and workshops. A signature symbol of Camagüey are the tinajones, or earthenware jars that are often displayed on their side. We will meet the Casanova family of artists. The father is a pottery maker, one son is a painter who specializes in landscapes, and the other son is a ceramist.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Day 12: Camagüey
After breakfast, we’ll go to the University of Dance to watch talented ballerinas in their rehearsals. Cuba is known for having some of the world’s finest ballerinas, so be prepared to see amazing talent in this exclusive behind-the-scenes experience.
For Part II of our artist tour, we’ll visit the galleries of Oscar Lasseria, José “Pepe” Gutiérrez, Joel Jover, and Ileana Sánchez. We’ll take a lunch break during the day. The artist tour ends at the gallery of Martha Jiménez, a world-renown sculptress, potter, painter and engraver. Be sure you visit the bronze statues in the nearby plaza.
A special dinner event will happen this evening for our farewell.
Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
Day 13: Departure
Head to the Camagüey airport 2 hours before your flight to Florida. Say goodbye to Roger and our driver as you head back to the U.S. We hope you will return soon!
Meals: Breakfast
