Lonely Planet Cuba - Lonely Planet

...have an easy time. The Lonely planet was our only source of information (since there is very little access to the internet in many places). It was a disappointment to find ourselves arriving in a city in the evening, looking for the "casas"(you stay in family homes rather than hotels)to find the map was completely wrong, and the casas listed didn't even exist anymore. As a last resort we attempted to find the only hotel listed in the book(which ...
...budget) only to find it had closed down 5 years ago! It was not an enjoyable experience. I think it is time for them to update the book.

Although the guide gives you a good overall insight to life in Cuba, it does not prepare you for the most important problems that you constantly face day to day. At no point did it warn us about the money situation. We arrived to find that nowhere cashed travelers cheques (the book actually recommends ... more

In 2006 I spent some time traveling around Cuba, it was always a dream destination of mine. I was accompanied by my sister and as two girls alone it soon became clear we were not going to have an easy time. The Lonely planet was our only source of information (since there is very little access to the internet in many places). It was a disappointment to find ourselves arriving in a city in the evening, looking for the "casas"(you stay in family homes rather than hotels)to find the map was completely wrong, and the casas listed didn't even exist anymore. As a last resort we attempted to find the only hotel listed in the book(which would have used a weeks worth of money from our budget) only to find it had closed down 5 years ago! It was not an enjoyable experience. I think it is time for them to update the book.

Although the guide gives you a good overall insight to life in Cuba, it does not prepare you for the most important problems that you constantly face day to day. At no point did it warn us about the money situation. We arrived to find that nowhere cashed travelers cheques (the book actually recommends it is the safest way of carrying cash because of the many different money scams) and also failed to mention that most of our cash cards were not accepted, as did our own banks.

We tried to seek out many restaurants that they recommended and once again we were walking around in circles trying to make sense of the books map. It failed to tell us that there was no public transport in an area that we decided to visit. We needed to go North but instead had to back-track and then hitch some of the distance so we did not completely mess up our travel plans.

Overall the book has excellent information regarding the history, culture, environment and health issues but these are things that you can learn about and enjoy once you get there. People rely on the guide for accommodation listings, areas of interest, food, entertainment and accurate directions, all of which need updating in this book asap. After 3 weeks we gave up on it and decided to rely on word of mouth from locals and other travelers and gave the book to a nice man we stayed with who was interested in what the guide had to say about his own country! At least it came in handy for something. 

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