Tour Guide: Lonely Planet, Cuba

I miss my tour guide. Sadly I left it on the counter in the hubbub of changing hotels at the beginning of the second part of of my stay in Cuba, my tour outside of Havana. Fortunately, by then I had already read it and for the most part it had already done its job. I have the overview and background I needed and I now have a living tour guide, Odalys.


Lonely Planet is a very good guide. As the cover will tell you, it has 105 maps and about 300 pages of all kinds of information; practical, historical, cultural and just plain fun. In fact it was so good that I found myself carrying it with me almost everywhere I went. Normally that would not be an issue, but in Havana there were at least two reasons to leave it at home. First it's a big book and I had no pocket to put it in. It was too hot to drag a coat or backpack so I had to carry it. And that was the second problem carrying a guidebook pretty much screams tourist and puts a huge target on you - and believe me, people zero in on that target.

Something to watch for...

Even so, the book was worth carrying. Its maps were far superior to the map I bought two CUCs from the tourist bureau. That map only had the things they wanted you to find (places to spend money) and street names were often obscured by symbols used to identify the highlights. Lonely Planet would show you the corner of the park where locals gathered to argue about baseball - a fascinating scene - they really do discuss passionately.

The book has a great and balanced overview of recent Cuban history and explanations of how things actually work in Cuba, something that is not always entirely clear without some explanation. It does well the thing which is probably a guides greatest utility it helps you avoid missing the little things you might otherwise not notice.