Villa Clara Province
Another page from the utilitarian school of Cuban architecture that blemished many a beauty spot in the 1970s, the 125-room Hanabanilla has attempted…
Must-see hotels in Cuba
Havana
This giant Miramar apart-hotel opened in 2005 with the promise of being something a little different. However, with its overbearing concrete stairways and…
Artemisa & Mayabeque Provinces
The newest and nicest of Cubamar’s 80 or more campismos (cheap, rustic accommodations), Los Cocos has facilities to match a midrange hotel and a beachside…
Villa Clara Province
Situated north of Corralillo, the isolated Elguea has 139 little-utilized rooms and numerous spa treatments, such as mud therapy, hydrotherapy and…
Artemisa & Mayabeque Provinces
You can’t knock the setting of this place, nestled in a narrow valley amid stately trees and verdant hills, though you might wonder about the…
Sancti Spíritus Province
Once popular with vacationing Americans, this novel spa is just outside Mayajigua. The tiny rooms are set in a variety of two-story villas, nestled beside…
Club Amigo Atlántico – Guardalavaca
Holguín Province
As cheap getaways go, this is Guardalavaca's bargain resort offering, but it's not for particular guests. Cleanliness is not always paramount in this 600…
Varadero
This new-ish Starfish hotel is different from other 21st-century Varadero accommodations. It's not an all-inclusive, it's not a casa particular (private…
Trinidad
Trinidad goes rustic with the out-of-town Finca Ma Dolores, 1.5km west on the road to Cienfuegos and Topes de Collantes. It's equipped with hotel-style…
Habana del Este
Villa Tarará is part of a planned resort town conceived and built in the 1940s that has gone through various incarnations since (Che Guevara once lived…
Santiago de Cuba Province
This large building behind the basilica has a pleasant sitting room and 15 monk-standard rooms with one to three beds with bath. It's charged in moneda…
Artemisa & Mayabeque Provinces
A hotel of untapped potential, Las Yagrumas, 3km north of San Antonio de los Baños, overlooks the picturesque but polluted Río Ariguanabo. Its 120 rooms…
Holguín Province
This rustic key resort, on a 42-sq-km island at the entrance to Bahía de Nipe, is small, remote and more upmarket than the price suggests. The 12 rooms…
Matanzas Province
Perched above the Río Canímar 8km east of Matanzas, the Canimao has 160 rooms with little balconies that look like they were last updated during the Cold…
Club Amigo Carisol – Los Corales
Santiago de Cuba Province
There's the swim-up bar, umbrellas in the piña coladas, and the government-sponsored band knocking out 'Guantanamera' as you tuck into your lukewarm…
Varadero
The Delfines is unusual for Varadero in that it's a cheap all-inclusive that inhabits the town itself rather than the spread-out hotel zone to the east…
Havana
Named for famous Hemingway novel The Old Man and the Sea, this concrete jungle sits at scruffy Marina Hemingway and has recently been refurbished after a…
Habana del Este
On the Vía Blanca, 18km east of Havana, this is the closest beach resort to the capital. There's a long, sandy (if rubbish-ridden) shore between the…
Varadero
The turreted Pullman still stands defiantly in Varadero town, competing, not altogether successfully, with the surrounding casas particulares (rooms in…
Cuba
A strong contender for Cuba's 'ugliest hotel,' the Pasacaballo looks like it got catapulted over from a Moscow housing estate in the mid-1970s. Worn-out…
Matanzas Province
A sleepy motel with 12 rooms in thatched blue-and-white double units with ceiling fans, crackling TVs and patios – and a random frog or two in the…
Sancti Spíritus Province
Never 100% at home in its verdant natural surroundings, this clumsy chocolate-box building with wicker furnishings and holiday-camp-style villas still…
Vedado
Hotel Vedado is ever popular with the tour-bus crowd. Despite regular refurbishments it never quite breaks the three-star barrier, though it has an OK…
Pinar del Río Province
A campisimo (cheap rustic accommodations) 8km north of town on the Carretera a Viñales (off Rafael Morales). The 50 bungalows with hot showers sleep two …
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago's quiet suburban Vista Alegre district is either an oasis of calm – or a ghost town. Odd duck Villa Gaviota has a number of attractive clustered…
Las Tunas Province
Let's be clear. There is little else to do here than dig your feet into the white sand and watch the lapping surf. For some, that will be enough. This…
Guantánamo Province
This remote desert outpost is as quiet as the resident goats want to keep it. Right next to the Faro de Maisí lighthouse and steps from the beach, these…
Sancti Spíritus
Perched above expansive Embalse Zaza, 5km east of Sancti Spíritus, this scruffy rural retreat looks more like a utilitarian apartment block transplanted…
Santiago de Cuba Province
On a remote pebble beach 12km east of the Pico Turquino trailhead, La Mula has 50 small cabins popular with holidaying Cubans, hikers destined for…
Four Points by Sheraton Havana
Havana
One of the few Havana hotels that Americans can legally stay at, the Sheraton is a bizarre amalgamation of US-owned Marriott and Cuba’s state-run Gaviota …
Ciego de Ávila Province
A budget hotel, aimed as much at Cubans as foreigners, is an unusual occurrence in these parts. The Gregorio, named for Hemingway's old fishing partner,…
Santiago de Cuba
The tremendous setting next to El Morro fort is counterbalanced by the usual humdrum Islazul hotel-chain foibles: flowery curtains, ancient mattresses and…
Varadero
A venerable old 1930s hacienda-style building, the sprawling Kawama was the first of the 60-plus hotels to inhabit this once-deserted peninsula more than…
Havana
Despite its perfect location on the Malecón, this dowager is just that. A former Mafia gambling den, the Deauville doesn't offer much these days apart…
Habana del Este
Los Pinos is a collection of little two- to four-bedroom houses with kitchens and TVs that were holiday homes before the revolution. Some of them have…
Baracoa
This welcoming home from 1840 exudes character with patios, porches and flowering begonias, though cleanliness could score a little higher. There are two…
Playa Ancón
Built during Cuba's 30-year flirtation with Soviet architectonics, the Ancón wouldn't win any beauty contests. Indeed, this steamship-shaped seven-story…
Granma Province
One kilometer south of Bartolomé Masó and 16km north of Santo Domingo, this simple hotel is nestled in the mountain foothills somewhat far for easy park…
Vedado
First things first: Paseo Habana is not actually on Paseo: it’s one block east, at the corner of Calle A. As state-run places go, it's a bit of a bargain…
'Los Richards' – Ricardo Rodríguez
Sancti Spíritus
A dark stairway off the main square gives way to a clean 2nd-floor apartment with soaring ceilings, vintage tiled floors and airy if aged colonial grace…
