Unique Cultural Tours
Unique Cultural Tours
Are you ready to cruise Havana with the top down in a '55 Chevy Bel Air? This is a comprehensive trip with big cities and small towns, the best of Cuban architecture, food, music, bird watching, and UNESCO World Heritage sites! You’ll cover half the width of the island on this tour from Havana to Camaguey.
Cuba Classic Cars
Join this all-inclusive traveling experience with your peers at SVP Boulder County. On this 10-day exclusive trip, you will get to know your fellow SVP Partners better and grow in cross-cultural understanding. Proceeds support SVP Boulder County and the tour is limited to 15 people.
Register by May 31, 2024 to get the value price of $3,495 (market value $6,995) per person. Starting June 1, the Early Bird pricing ends and the tour cost is $3,695 per person. $500 single supplement for your own room.
Havana (UNESCO area)
'55 Chevy Bel Air driving tour of Havana
Fusterlandia and artists tour
Buena Vista Social Club, Hotel Nacional
Tour of Colonial Havana of the 1500s
Varadero
Stunning beaches
Historic DuPont Mansion
Topes de Collantes
Meet farmers deep in the mountains
Traditional homemade Cuban lunch and waterfall swimming
Trinidad & the Sugar Valley (UNESCO area)
Afro-Cuban folkloric dance show
Salsa dancing
Waterfall hike, beach, and shopping
Camaguey
Exclusive artists tours, sculptors, painters, ballet
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.
Experience the authentic Cuba.
You will get to know everyday Cubans, hearing from local experts in arts, music, culture, and entrepreneurship.
Bilingual Cuban Guide, plus join the Vive Mas Tour owners, Jenny & Stephen Desmond (SVP Partners).
Travel licenses, mandatory Cuban health insurance, and visas.
9 nights in Casas Particulares, Cuban Bed & Breakfasts, supporting the entrepreneurial economy.
ALL meals, almost always at paladares, privately-owned restaurants.
Private, air-conditioned ground transportation for the whole tour with our own driver.
Purified water is included and always available (bring your favorite water bottle for refills).
Curious About Cuba educational program (available on YouTube).
All activities mentioned in the itinerary
A night out at the famous Buena Vista Social Club in Havana!
Airfare (we will help you select)
Tips
Alcohol at meals
Trip insurance
A look at where this tour goes
The purpose of this itinerary is to give you an idea of the types of activities you will engage in during the tour, however, it may change based on factors such as availability, weather, and to take advantage of spontaneous activities and events.
Day 1: Welcome to Cuba!
Arrive in Havana.
Upon arrival in Havana, we will be greeted at the airport by our expert guide. He’ll take us to our B&B accommodations (casas particulares) in Centro Habana. We will get a layout of the city, as well as first impressions of the architecture and lifestyle of the city dwellers. For evening arrivals, you may choose to settle into your casa to rest or join the group and go out for dinner.
Day 2: Havana
Wear your walking shoes for this day! Today we’ll visit Fusterlandia, located in the fishing village of Jaimanitas and home to famous artist Jose Fuster. Fuster has turned his entire home, and much of the surrounding neighborhood, into an outdoor art gallery made entirely of mosaic tiles. Next, we’ll board 1950s-era classic cars for a driving tour to the forest of Havana, the famous Revolutionary Square, and through the gorgeous historic embassy neighborhoods.
The activities will be followed a walking tour of Old Havana City, with its gorgeous architecture and plazas. We’ll have lunch at Doña Eutimia’s, a cozy paladar, known for its delicious lamb "ropa vieja" dish. Don’t miss out on the quaint chocolate museum of Havana with its historical chocolate molds on display.
In the late afternoon we will return to our casa for free time before going out at night to see Havana under the stars and enjoy a traditional dinner.
Day 3: Havana
We will start the day off with a tour of the fascinating Colón Cemetery, established in the late 1870s and home to elaborately sculpted memorials and fascinating ghost stories.
After lunch we’ll drive out of the city to Hemingway’s mountaintop home, where we’ll see his personal library and the treetop writing den where he and his polydactyl cats would spend days on end. It is an excellent example of how many well-to-do Americans lived in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s before the Revolution. On the way back to Havana, we’ll stop in Cojimar, the quiet fishing village where Hemingway docked his boat and that inspired the town in The Old Man and the Sea.
Enjoy late afternoon free time before heading to the paladar of your choice for dinner. Our guide will give you recommendations, and you can join others in the group or pick the place of your choice for dinner on your own. Havana is home to extraordinary Italian and Spanish cuisine, due to the many European immigrants who have married Cubans and settled in the area.
Day 4: Havana to Varadero
As you head east, you’ll stop at the overlook of the stunning Bacunayagua Bridge, the tallest in all of Cuba.
Entering the city of Matanzas, enjoy a walking tour of the splendid colonial architecture and visit an apothecary museum, unlike anything you’d expect to see on the island. Following this, you’ll head to El Saturno Cave for a refreshing swim in the spring-fed river.
In the late afternoon you’ll arrive in Varadero in 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, Dinner
Day 5: Varadero and Topes de Collantes
If you are an early riser, you will see a gorgeous sunrise over the turquoise Caribbean waters on amazing soft sand white beaches. There is a reason that Varadero is the most popular Caribbean vacation destination for Europeans and Canadians.
We’ll see a couple special spots in town, including the Mansión Xanadú (historic DuPont home), overlooking the ocean and the 18-hole golf course (which seems so out of place in a country like Cuba). We’ll visit Parque Josone, built in 1940 for private use, now the home to rowboats and a variety of tree species.
Departing town, we’ll head south into the rural mountains to see stunning views and have a delicious Cuban lunch hosted by a family. They live near a little-known gorgeous waterfall, so this is a great place for a quick swim after lunch. We’ll arrive late in the afternoon at our luxury casa in Trinidad.
Day 6: Trinidad
This is the heart of sugar cane farming in Cuba. Trinidad is a cozy, bustling town of Cubans and tourists, with French- and Spanish-inspired architecture, stories of slave trade and wealth in the south of Cuba. Our guide will lead us on a walking tour to get our bearings, learn the stories, meet artists, and enjoy lunch together. Trinidad’s cobblestones can be hard on your feet, so be sure to have thick-soled walking shoes.
After a little free time, 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 the night to stay up late! Nightlife in Trinidad is energetic and welcoming, with numerous live music venues and free musical performances in the town square. You will have the chance to see Afro-Cuban folkloric dances performed in one of the many plazas.
Day 7: 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, a beautiful bird found only in Cuba–no wonder it’s the national bird! This is a moderate-level hike, about 3 miles round-trip.
After the hike, enjoy lunch on your own and explore more of the town or join the group at the nearby Ancon beach with its crystal-clear waters and lounge chairs for relaxing. Dinner and activities are on your own tonight, or you may want to rally the group to go out together.
Day 8: Camaguey
We depart right after breakfast and along the way we will stop at Paylet’s Handicraft workshop, known for making beautiful jewelry and sculptures out of cutlery. Paylet’s treasures are a favorite find, all while supporting talented artists.
Camaguey a very important city in Cuba, both for its artists and unique architecture. Few tourists go to Camaguey because of its distance from Havana. The third largest city in Cuba (population 300,000), it was built in circuitous fashion by the Spaniards to prevent pirates and buccaneers like Henry Morgan from stealing their wealth. Morgan even burned the city down in 1671 while his men plundered the city.
To help you get oriented, we’ll take a short walking tour, and then jump into the beautifully painted bicitaxis to see more of the town.
Day 9: Camaguey-Exclusive Artists Tour
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.
Next, we will have private meetings with artists in their galleries and workshops. A signature symbol of Camaguey 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.
We’ll also 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. Explore a Cuban farm and enjoy a traditional Caribbean pig roast exclusively for us!
Day 10: Departure Day from Camaguey
After breakfast we head to the airport 2 hours prior to our flight to Florida. Say good-bye to our guide and our driver as we head back to the U.S. We hope you will return soon!
