Staying connected in Cuba

Limited access to Wifi, internet cards, back to old school, offline apps, guide books and efficiency

Okay, this is actually something you should prepare for before you leave for Cuba. If you don't have an international roaming package from your provider you will have very limited access to internet which in today's time makes it harder to find out stuff. Yeah, we forgot a lot of things because we basically are connected at the tip of our fingers. 📱

As a tourist, you can buy internet cards from official "Etecsa" stores. There are cards for different amount of hours where one hour usually costs 1 CUC. Sometimes locals also sell them in the streets but you need to count on paying more if you buy from them (usually 2 CUC for 1 hour).

These cards can be used at almost every public park, some bigger squares and sometimes in casas. In very selected bars and restaurants you can even get access to free WiFi. However, always make sure you log out and turn off your data on your mobile or laptop when you don't use it anymore otherwise the hours will be used up next time you want to use it.

Having limited access to internet also means that we had to go old school. At least to some extent.

We installed Maps.me on our phones before we left home and downloaded the map for Cuba so we'd be able to use it offline. Maps.me is widely used in Cuba and even shows you ratings for different restaurants and casas. Plus points go to the ability to save places and mark them as your favourites so you'll always find them again. Oh and you can see all the "Etecsa" spots where you get Wifi! 😉

Having a travel guide book with us came in very handy sometimes too. Yes, very old school but definitely fits into the whole Cuban vibe. 📚

As our plan was to travel around and not just stay in one place the whole time, we needed to find a place to stay every so often. People in Cuba usually have contacts everywhere. So either you ask your hosts if they can recommend a casa for your next place, or you use Airbnb, I go into more depth as to why we preferred casas over hotels in an other post.

We actually got quite efficient when looking for a new place because internet was always limited. We knew what we wanted and needed - which usually wasn't much - watched the reviews and booked right away. ✓

What we learned was that if you travel in Cuba with several people, you either do everything together or you set up a meeting point and time because well, WhatsApp doesn't work without internet. 🤷🏼‍♀️