Things to do in Varadero
And where to stay, the best time to visit, what a day costs, and the traps to skip.
Best time to visit Varadero
• a note or something on ✦ an occasion worth the trip
Dry season brings the best weather, calmest sea, fullest resorts and highest prices.
The hinge month, hotter and greener with the first heavy rains and falling prices.
Hot, humid and storm prone in the afternoons, with early hurricane season risk.
Peak hurricane risk from August to October, with the worst heat, sargassum and mosquito season.
What's on
- Jazz Plaza Havana late January
Havana's jazz festival, worth an overnight in the capital if the trip allows.
- Festival Varadero Josone Rumba, Jazz & Son August, dates vary
Rumba, jazz and son festival in Parque Josone, confirmed late each year.
- Varadero Gourmet September, dates vary
Food and drink festival at Plaza América, mainly an industry event with tastings.
Best things to do in Varadero
Playa Varadero
Twenty kilometres of white sand and shallow warm water, liveliest in town and calmest toward Punta Hicacos.
Parque Josone
A walled park of lakes, boats and shade in the middle of town, and the best non beach hour in Varadero.
Museo Municipal de Varadero
A small museum in a 1920s beach house that explains the peninsula before the resorts arrived.
Mansión Xanadú
The 1930 Dupont mansion over the sea, with a wine cellar, formal restaurant and the best sunset terrace on the strip.
Varadero Street Market
The biggest craft market on Avenida 1ra, where good carvers and painters sell directly to visitors for cash.
Delfinario Varadero
A seawater lagoon with dolphin shows and paid swim sessions, a family highlight with a hard photo upsell.
Cueva de Ambrosio
A small cave with pre Columbian pictographs and bat colonies, the best cheap sight at the eastern end.
Reserva Ecológica Varahicacos
Protected dry forest, caves and a burial site showing what the peninsula looked like before the hotels.
Where to stay in Varadero
Punta Hicacos and the far east strip
resort-first holidays, families and couples
The newest resorts sit toward the tip, with the calmest sand and the longest trip to town life.
Mid-strip golf belt
golfers and repeat visitors
Resorts cluster around the golf course and Xanadu, a balance of facilities and connection to the peninsula.
Varadero town
paladares, public beach and nightlife on foot
The town grid holds the budget resorts and the best casas, walkable to Calle 62 and the markets.
Santa Marta
independent travellers and longer stays
The real Cuban town across the bridge, with peso prices, family casas and the beach a short ride away.
Best restaurants in Varadero
Varadero 60
Varadero's most celebrated paladar, a serious seafood and Cuban kitchen in a retro house at Calle 60.
Salsa Suárez Restaurant-Bar
The most polished small paladar in town, sleek and small, from tapas and tuna to pasta and Cuban mains.
La Gruta El Vino
A cave like restaurant in Josone Park known for steaks, very large lobsters and live music.
Waco's Club
A beloved family house restaurant for lobster to beef, with a firm warning to confirm prices and conversion first.
Paladar Nonna Tina
Varadero's Italian institution, famous for enormous thin pizzas and a seafood pasta, with portions made to share.
Don Alex
A well established town restaurant mixing Italian and Caribbean cooking, the strong third option when famous names fill.
Restaurante Amelia del Mar
A small, inexpensive Matanzas paladar cooking Cuban staples for a mostly Cuban clientele in the Playa district.
Best bars in Varadero
Snack Bar Calle 62
The open air corner of Calle 62, cheap drinks, simple food, live bands and dancing in the street.
Beatles Bar
A rock bar by Josone Park with Beatles memorabilia and live cover bands every night on the terrace.
Best coffee in Varadero
Cafeccino Varadero
The town's best reviewed small café, for real coffee, desserts and a quiet air conditioned pause.
Outdoor things to do in Varadero
Varadero Golf Club
Cuba's only 18 hole championship course, a coastal layout whose clubhouse is the Xanadu mansion.
Playa Coral
The best road accessible snorkelling near Varadero, a guided swim through coral heads in shallow water.
Cayo Piedra
The offshore boat dive for certified divers, with clearer water and bigger marine life than the shore sites.
Cayo Blanco
A catamaran day with a snorkel stop, open bar and a beach lunch on a low white sand key.
Base Náutica Marlin Chapelín
The marina for deep sea fishing charters after marlin and wahoo, priced per boat for up to four anglers.
Cueva de Saturno
A flooded cave with a clear, cold freshwater pool, wonderful when you beat the tour buses to it.
Río Canímar
A slow boat ride up a mangrove river, usually bundled into the jeep safari circuit with Saturno and Playa Coral.
Matanzas
A real port city of bridges, theatres and rumba heritage, thirty minutes away and the right sized day trip.
Best hotels in Varadero
Iberostar Selection Varadero
The most consistently praised big resort on the peninsula, garden set and family focused near the tip.
Royalton Hicacos Varadero Resort & Spa
An adults only favourite of repeat guests, older in fabric but carried by warm service and a fine beach.
Paradisus Princesa del Mar Resort & Spa
Meliá's adults only Paradisus at the far east end, built around gardens, a spa and its Royal Service wing.
Meliá Internacional Varadero
The striking modern tower near town, with sea view rooms and the shortest walk to the paladares of any luxury resort.
Meliá Las Américas
The adults only golfers' resort beside the course and Xanadu, a generation older and priced accordingly.
Iberostar Bella Vista Varadero
A mid strip Iberostar high rise a clear step below Selection Varadero, sensible only at a clearly lower price.
Sol Palmeras
One of the original modern resorts, large and green with a loyal repeat family clientele and solid buffet effort.
Starfish Varadero
The budget wristband option in town, rational at a low package price and close to Calle 62 nightlife.
Is Varadero expensive? What a day costs
| Budget | CUP 43,500 a person |
|---|---|
| Classic | CUP 110,500 a person |
| Splurge | CUP 237,000 a person |
A day of food, drink, sights and getting around, before the room
What to book ahead
- Mansión Xanadú: a few days ahead
- Varadero Golf Club: weeks ahead
- Cayo Piedra: a few days ahead
- Cayo Blanco: a few days ahead
- Base Náutica Marlin Chapelín: weeks ahead
- Río Canímar: a few days ahead
- La Habana Vieja: weeks ahead
- Iberostar Selection Varadero: weeks ahead
- Book resorts with flexible cancellation and check the named property is operating for your dates.
- Book the catamaran, diving and jeep tours ahead and reconfirm the day before.
- Reserve Varadero 60 and Xanadu in season, and book golf tee times ahead.
- Sort the Cuba e visa and medical insurance covering Cuba before you fly.
Is Varadero safe?
- Varadero has no neighbourhood to avoid; the real risks are hustles, sun, surf and dengue.
- Do not leave a phone or bag unattended on the beach while you swim.
- Carry all prescription medicine in hand luggage for the whole trip, as pharmacies often lack stock.
- Use repellent and cover skin at dawn and dusk, as dengue circulates in Cuba.
Varadero travel tips: tourist traps to skip
- Never change money with a stranger who approaches you in the street or outside a CADECA.
- Buy cigars only in official shops with the seal and receipt, never from street sellers.
- Confirm the conversion rate before ordering anywhere that bills in pesos and takes hard currency.
- Decline unofficial guides and driver pushed restaurants, and choose your own paladar.
Getting around Varadero: public transport and more
- Ride the hop on hop off double decker the length of the peninsula and verify it is running that day.
- Agree taxi fare, currency and return terms before you get in, every time.
- Use Viazul from the town terminal for Matanzas and Havana, with a taxi fare held in reserve.
- Walk town Varadero end to end and walk or taxi over the bridge to Santa Marta.
Who Varadero suits
| Solo travellers | OK |
|---|---|
| Groups of friends | Good |
| Couples | Great |
| Bachelor parties | OK |
| Families | Great |
| Bachelorette parties | OK |
Make Varadero your trip
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