Cuba is certainly not the least expensive country we have travelled to, whilst some things there cost next to nothing, others are a little overpriced for what you get & can add up.
That being said it is still a budget travel destination & with some careful planning you can certainly manage backpacking in Cuba with little cash.
Here’s exactly what we got up to whilst we were there along with exactly what we spent.
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Our Costs Backpacking In Cuba – The First 30 Days
What we did : Stayed in Habana Vieja for the first 4 nights, moved to an apartment in Miramar for 3 weeks & attended Spanish school Monday through to Friday for 4 hours a day, then spent 4 days in Viñales.
What we spent : Our average daily spend was 63 CUC
How we spent it : We mostly cooked in the apartment that we rented, we went out for some meals but also ate a lot at local places to keep costs down. As we were going to Spanish school & our days were pretty busy we did not really do any extra activities, the above costs are really only for accommodation, food, alcohol occasionally & any transport costs including to & from Viñales.
Extras : Our 20 hours per week of intensive Spanish classes with Sprachcaffe cost 360 GBP | 437 USD | 414 EUR per person.
The Last 18 Days
What we did : We cycled almost 400 km from Havana all the way down to Trinidad.
What we spent : Our average daily spend was 55 CUC for 2 of us.
How we spent it : As we were cycling we had hardly any transportation costs as we got everywhere on our own steam! Most of our days were taken up with cycling as the activity so again we did not really pay for any extra activities, the costs again are really only for accommodation, food & alcohol occasionally.
Backpacking in Cuba – Our Spending Breakdown
Currency = Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) or Cuban Peso (CUP)
Days in Cuba = 48
Total amount spent = 2,736.47 CUC
Average daily spend = 59 CUC for 2 people
Most expensive day = 103 CUC
Cheapest day = 42 CUC
Total amounts including % spent in each area
Eating Out = 585.05 CUC – 21.4%
Transport (Public) = 95 CUC – 3.5%
Water / Drinks = 117.25 CUC – 4.3%
Alcohol = 195.30 CUC – 7.1%
Sights / Museums = 20 CUC – 0.7%
Street Food = 52.15 CUC – 1.9%
We really hope you find this Cuba Backpacking cost guide useful, if you have any questions please get in touch with us as we’ll be more than happy to answer them 🙂
For more on how to budget whilst travelling in Cuba you can also check out Kelly’s Top 5 Tips For Cuba Budget Travel
Check out all of our blog posts on Cuba right here.
Happy Travels!
Adam & Kelly x
Absolutely love the way you broke down all of the expenses in this post! What part would you say was your favorite part of Cuba accommodation wise? We just recently started to enjoy breathing and doing the long stays at places.
Thanks guys! The best part was probably while we were cycling, turning up in Villages and Cities not knowing where we were going to stay and finding the odd gem of Casa Particular to stay at! It was great because it was an adventure and broke away from what we would usually do by booking before we go!
Great post guys, and very useful! We are also thinking of doing the Spanish lessons when we eventually end up in South America, given how widely it’s spoken. Also interesting to see how the budget breaks down – you managed to spend very little on sightseeing overall which is impressive for perpetual travellers 🙂 We use TrailWallet now to keep track of our budget – very easy to input expenses and see the overview. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Sarah, ah awesome we will check TrailWallet out! We use Money Wise which is great and also good to set your budgets out on. Yes we would definitely recommend Spanish school it has helped us out so much and we are continuing to learn new words and vocab all the time, so glad we decided to do it!