READ THIS before booking an AirBnB in Cuba in 2022
AirBnB in Cuba
This post was updated November 17, 2022
AirBnB allows users to search hundreds of listings across Cuba, including everything from $10/night rooms in Guantanamo to $1,000/night boutique hotels in Havana. You see pictures, read reviews, and pay in advance using a credit, which is convenient since your credit cards won’t work on the island. AirBnB can be a good option in Cuba and new users can take advantage of my $40 discount code.
That said, there’s a LOT of problems with AirBnB in Cuba that simply don’t exist in other countries. Since I lead group tours to Cuba and help travelers plan their own solo trips to Cuba to Cuba, I’ve been following the AirBnB trend closely since it launched in Cuba in 2016. Read on to learn the pros and cons of using AirBnB in Cuba and what to watch out for before and during your next trip.
NOTE - I used to recommend specific AirBnBs on here but AirBnB changed the algorithm and made all those links dead. I’m caring for a disabled parent and I do not have the time to go in and add all new links, particularly because that task would take a lot of my time but wouldn’t earn me any money. I hope the information in this article is useful but please do not write me and ask me to recommend AirBnBs for your trp. My focus is on caring for my mother and I can’t spend what little free time I have planning other people’s vacations. I hope you have a great trip! - Cassandra
Travel Visa for Cuba
Remember that all visitors to Cuba (whether you’ll be staying in an AirBnB or not) require a travel visa. The visa is typically good for 30 days and can be renewed several times, depending on your country of origin. You can pre-purchase your Cuban travel visa online - just make sure you buy the correct visa. If you are traveling from a US airport, you must purchase the Pink Tourist Card. If you’re traveling to Cuba from any other country, you will purchase a Green Tourist Card. You can also pay your airline for the visa at the airport (and it’s a few dollars cheaper), but this option allows you to pay with a credit card up to 180 days in advance. This option also ships the visa within a few days and offers real-time tracking so you have a bit more security.
Cuban AirBnBs: Too Good to be True?
I travel to Cuba several times per year and need to stay up to date on everything from whether it’s Legal to Travel to Cuba and What to Pack for Cuba to where to stay, including AirBnBs. Though some of the casas particulares (private guesthouses) I work with also advertise on AirBnB, many do not. I’ve stayed at dozens of AirBnBs in nearly every province in Cuba and while many of these experiences were great, some were not. If you're curious, I've stayed in AirBnBs in Vinales (Pinar del Rio), Havana, Matanzas, Varadero, Trinidad, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Bayamo, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, and Baracoa. Scroll to the bottom to get links to some of the best AirBnBs in Cuba.
A casa I work with in Baracoa
Springtime in Guantanamo
Breakfast at a one-of-a-kind "casa in a garden"
On two occasions, the casa particular owner had double booked the room and moved me to a different home. In one case, I discovered the casa owner had the same home displayed in two separate listings, at two different prices. If both listings were booked, the guest would be moved to another home and simply told that either “AirBnB made a mistake” or that the person who manages the AirBnB account made a mistake.
One desperate traveler I met brought virtually no money with her to Cuba because she had pre-booked her vacation rental on AirBnB. When she arrived at the casa particular in Havana, the owner said that the home did not rent rooms and he didn't know why travelers kept showing up claiming to have a reservation. She wound up staying at an awful casa very far from the city center since she spoke no Spanish, couldn't find a WiFi hotspot, and didn't have an international phone to call AirBnB. She didn't know what to do other than stay where her taxi driver dropped her off.
Sunset at a casa I work with in Vinales
An AirBnb in Cienfuegos Cuba
The AirBnB app doesn’t work properly in Cuba
What Can Go Wrong with Cuban AirBnBs
As of this writing, several significant challenges exist with the AirBnB platform in Cuba that travelers should be aware of.
1. The AirBnB App Doesn’t Work Properly in Cuba
Though you can make reservations and pay with your credit card from your home country using the app, you cannot make new reservations on the app once you’re in Cuba. Many users don’t realize until that they could have booked through the AirBnB website on their phone’s browser until their trip is over. When this happened to me, AirBnB's customer service department told me to delete the app and download it again to fix the problem. This was terrible advice because Cuba doesn't allow you to download the app. I went two months without the app on my phone, making it more difficult to access previous reservations or make new ones. Fortunately, I work with casa owners across Cuba for my group tours so most of my stays were at homes I've worked with for years. Most travelers to Cuba don’t arrive with a back-up list of accommodations.
2. Slow technology results in double bookings
Many casa owners list their homes on multiple websites (AirBnB, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and several Cuban-specific rental sites) and Cuba’s slow technology makes it difficult to impossible to update multiple listings in real time. This sometimes results in an AirBnB listing being double booked. Casa owners can typically find the guest another home but the home may not be as nice or well-located.
3. Cuba’s long-standing reservation system
Cuban casa owners have operated their own reservation and referral system that’s been around long before AirBnB was conceived. Traditionally, a traveler in Havana would call a casa in Trinidad, Cuba (usually through their host) to make a reservation. The traveler has never been to Trinidad and knows nothing about the house, they just know that they will have a place to stay when they arrive. If the casa particular in Trinidad receives an offer from travelers who will stay for a longer period (a more lucrative booking), the traveler in Havana will simply be moved to another house when he/she arrives to the casa. No harm has been done since the Havana traveler had no expectations for the casa in Trinidad.
This actually happened to me twice on the same reservation. I booked a reservation at a casa particular in Trinidad, Cuba that had a garden and roof access and when I arrived, I was told the previous guests wanted to stay longer and the casa owner told me she secured a reservation for me at another home. When I got to the second home, I was told that they had accepted another traveler that arrived before me so I was moved again to a third home. I got bug bites all over my body at this third home (with no garden and no rooftop deck!), making the experience even worse.
Cuban casa owners have operated like this for over a decade, moving guests reservations around (typically without problems) so some still move AirBnB bookings to other casas, not out of maliciousness or greed, but simply because that is how casa reservations have always worked. Unfortunately, an AirBnB user may book a vacation rental because they want that specific home so it can be annoying (and perhaps insulting) to be told that you will actually be staying in a home other than the one you reserved online.
Typical casas particulares in Vinales
One of my favorite casas in Vinales
Classic cars on the beach in Vinales
4. Amenities aren't guaranteed
Cuban AirBnBs list amenities provided, as do listings elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, these amenities are often not guaranteed or are defined a bit differently than they would be in more developed countries.
"Laptop-friendly" is an amenity that many Cuban AirBnBs list but it doesn't really mean anything. Very few AirBnBs in Cuba have WiFi and most that do provide an Internet connection have a slow, unreliable signal. "Laptop-friendly" often simply means there is a table or desk that you can put your laptop on. Good luck trying to connect it! Side note: check out my list of Cuban casas particulares with WiFi in my post on Internet access in Cuba.
Modern clothing dryers just aren't a thing in Cuba. Literally, nobody has them. Even well-to-do homes hang-dry clothing outside after it's washed in a small, simple electric washing machine (many of which work only if water is manually poured into the machine). The few homes that list "dryer" as an amenity are referring to a no-heat "spin dryer" that spins more water out of the clothing than the washer does but the clothing still needs to be hung outside to dry. This shouldn't be a deal breaker, just don't book a home specifically because you're expecting to wash and dry clothing in two hours. This will not happen. Also, don't count on the washer or "dryer" to be working at all. I've stayed at more casas than I can count where the machines were broken or busy, resulting in me hand washing my clothing every few days for months on end.
Families with small children that I've met in Cuba have told me that despite filtering for AirBnBs in Cuba that listed a crib as an amenity, most homes didn't actually have a crib, proving quite inconvenient for a couples with newborn babies. Cuban families make do without cribs, play pens, bouncy chairs, mobiles, and pretty much everything that is standard in American nurseries so be prepared to go without it or bring anything you feel you can't live without during the trip.
I was astounded to find an AirBnB in Cuba that advertised having a hot tub. AirBnB even highlighted the listing, pointing out that very few homes in the area had a hot tub. In fact, I booked the home 90% specifically because it had a hot tub. Guess what was broken indefinitely when I arrived. The hot tub, of course.
5. Miscommunication
Many of the AirBnB accounts for Cuban homes are managed by people who do not live in Cuba. As internet access and electronic banking is not yet common in Cuba, many AirBnB accounts are run by friends, family, or semi-strangers in other countries who take a (sometimes very significant) cut of the earnings in exchange for maintaining the account. This has two negative consequences. First, the person maintaining the account doesn’t live in the home and may have never even visited the city so they may not be able to describe it accurately. Second, the person maintaining the account likely speaks far better English than the person who runs the casa. Many Cuban AirBnB accounts are listed in English and guests communicate with the profile administrator in English and it is not until the guest arrives at the home that they realize the host only speaks Spanish.
Most casa particulares are run by Cubans who speak little to no English and most are very accustomed to communicating with non-Spanish-speaking guests. However, many Cuban AirBnB listings written in English lead guests to believe they will be able to communicate in English, resulting in disappointment and miscommunication.
Having a good experience at an AirBnB in Cuba is absolutely possible if you take a few precautions. If you want to completely cover your bases, however, contact me to help plan your trip to Cuba, including determining what cities to go to, what to do there, how to get around, how to avoid scams, and securing a reservation with trusted, verified casa owners.
The view from a casa I work with in Trinidad, Cuba
Typical street scene in Trinidad, Cuba
A casa particular in Trinidad, Cuba
How to Book the Best AirBnB in Cuba
If you want help planning a unique and unforgettable trip to Cuba, contact me. If you just want to go the AirBnB route and do your own thing, here are a few tips to help minimize your risk of booking a shady place that will cancel your reservation or shove you off to another house.
1. Always read the comments
This may seem like a no-brainer but you'd be surprised how many people book a reservation just off the house description or pictures. Reading the comments may show that the "Best AirBnB in Havana" may actually not look like the pictures, may not be well-located, may be extremely noisy, or have other problems. The walls are paper thin in Old Havana so that beautiful 2BR with a balcony with views of the ocean might also be loud AF.
2. Look at the dates of the comments
Just because an AirBnB in Havana has good reviews doesn't mean that the reviews are still accurate. If the most recent review was 6 months ago, there may be a problem. It's very unusual for a casa to not rent a room in a given month so if a casa hasn't had reservations in a while, it could be because there was a problem with the house, including: the house lost it's license, switched ownership, or is dealing with construction or pest control problems. Given how Coronavirus has dramatically decreased travel to Cuba, give a bit less weight to this tip until travel returns to normal.
3. Confirm Amenities that are Important to You
If a crib, washing machine, or any other amenity listed is a deal breaker for you, triple check with the casa owner (or account administrator!) in writing to confirm they actually have one. It's still possible it won't be there when you arrive but NEVER assume a home has all the amenities listed in the profile.
4. Always Bring Extra Cash
Don't be like the girl above who brought virtually no cash to Cuba because she had pre-booked her casa on AirBnB, only to find out the casa didn't exist. ALWAYS bring extra cash with you. Very few hotels accept credit cards - no casas accept credit cards - and American credit cards and ATM cards don't work in Cuba anyway.
If you're still eager to book an AirBnB, Cuba, use my promo code to save $40 on your first booking. For help planning your trip to Cuba (with or without AirBnB!), contact me!
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is SO important while traveling and covers everything from unexpected injuries, trip cancellations, flight changes, lost baggage, or having to cut your trip short due to an emergency back home. I’ve bought World Nomads travel insurance for EVERY trip I’ve taken in the past four years and highly recommend them. I’ve also had some clients have to make claims with them for Cuba travel so I highly recommend booking a package with them.
Related Articles about Cuba
See my previous blog posts to get a feel for the day-to-day life that few tourists encounter, what to pack, what to expect, and what to know.
The ULTIMATE Cuba Travel Guide: Everything you need to know
Tips for Solo Female Travelers in Cuba
Cuba’s Local Food Scene Isn’t What You’d Expect
Is it Still Legal to Visit Cuba?
Cuba's Zero-Waste Recycling Like You've Never Seen it Before
Spaghetti with Mustard: Not What You Expected from Cuban Food