Issue · October 2026 · everything a nomad needs, city by city

Nomadzine

Cuba · the visa

Havana

Havana suits a remote worker whose job survives a day offline, who carries cash and wants a month somewhere unlike anywhere else, with a private flat in Vedado costing less than a room in most capitals. The catch is the infrastructure: six nationwide grid collapses so far in 2026, average measured connections of a few megabits, and mobile data sold to foreigners in hard currency at some of the highest per-gigabyte prices in the Americas.

    A month · September 2026$700–1,600Coworking4 spacesPieces19

The sheet

Researched 7 September 2026 · figures hold for September 2026

A month in Havana

CUP (Cuban peso); informal rate 683 CUP per USD on 6 September 2026, which is what rents, SIMs and most nomad spending are actually priced against
One-bed flat, Vedado (private, with air conditioning)
CUP 205,000–342,000 ($300–500) a month
Landlords price in USD and take cash; the guides that track the area put a private one-bed at $300–500, a larger central flat at $800–900. Figures are from undated 2025–2026 guides, converted at the 6 September 2026 informal rate.
Coworking hot desk
Not published (September 2026)
None of the four spaces found publishes a day or month rate online; Amarillo Coworking in Vedado and Instar in Old Havana answer on Facebook or Instagram. Budget the price of a hotel-lobby coffee instead.
Coffee (cappuccino)
CUP 800–2,000 ($1.20–3)
$1.21 in the eta-cuba cost index; around $3 for a drink in a foreigner-facing café per Andy Sto. Both undated 2025–2026 figures.
Lunch at an inexpensive local restaurant
CUP 1,400–5,500 ($2–8)
Under $2 at a neighbourhood cafeteria, $3.80 in the eta-cuba index, $8 at a paladar aimed at visitors. State-salary Cubans pay in pesos; prices for foreigners drift upward.
Tourist SIM and data (Cubacel Tur, ETECSA)
$13.99 (4 GB, 7 days) or $34.99 (10 GB, 30 days), sold in USD
Cubacel Tur Plus at $34.99 includes 100 minutes, 100 SMS and unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook for 30 days; add-ons of 10, 20 or 50 GB extend validity. Price checked September 2026.
Local mobile data on a resident line
CUP 360 for 6 GB a month, then CUP 3,360 per extra 3 GB or $10 per 4 GB
ETECSA tariff in force since 30 May 2025 and still the basis of 2026 reporting: national top-ups capped at 360 CUP per 30 days, everything beyond that in hard currency or at ten times the base price.
Transport
CUP 170–700 a ride ($0.25–1), or $25 for a monthly pass in the cost index
State buses cost pennies but run erratically during fuel shortages; shared almendrón taxis along the main avenues run about $1 a seat. Undated 2025–2026 figures.
Gym membership
CUP 25,800 ($37.75) a month
eta-cuba cost index, undated, 2025–2026. Independent gyms in Vedado and Miramar price in USD.
Beer
CUP 1,300–2,000 ($1.90–3) a bottle or draught
$1.90 for a bottle in a shop, $2–3 in a bar, per the Andy Sto and eta-cuba figures, both undated 2025–2026.
A modest month$700–1,600

CUP 480,000–1,090,000 ($700–1,600) for a single person in September 2026, converted at 683 CUP per dollar. Basis: a $300–500 private one-bed in Vedado, one $34.99 tourist data plan plus at least one add-on, eating mostly at local places with a few paladar meals, shared taxis, and no coworking fee because none is published; Andy Sto's guide puts a careful month at $700–1,000 and nomads.com's crowd-sourced figure sits at $1,200–1,400.

Slow and interruptible, and the single reason Havana is a base for some jobs and not others. The measured citywide average on nomads.com is about 5 Mbps; the two coworking spaces reviewers trust report up to 42 Mbps. Many casas particulares still have no private connection, so the flat's wifi is a question to ask before paying a deposit. The SIM to buy on arrival is the Cubacel Tur from ETECSA, sold at Terminal 3 of José Martí airport around the clock and at any ETECSA office: the Básico is $13.99 for 4 GB over 7 days, the Plus $34.99 for 10 GB over 30 days with unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook, and add-ons of 10, 20 or 50 GB extend the line up to 90 days. There is no eSIM. Resident lines get 6 GB for 360 CUP a month under the May 2025 tariff, after which every extra gigabyte is priced in hard currency, so Cubans ration data and the parks are crowded. A VPN is needed for many US-based services, and US bank cards do not work anywhere. Power is the deeper problem: the grid collapsed nationwide for the sixth time in 2026 on 3 August after three collapses in July alone, and scheduled cuts in parts of Havana ran past 30 hours in July. A flat with a generator or a battery inverter, plus a charged power bank, is part of the working setup, not a luxury.

Where to work

  • Amarillo Coworking · Vedadoday Not published; enquire via Facebook or Instagram (September 2026) · month Not published (September 2026)The space named most often by nomad guides for Vedado; nomads.com reviewers report stable desks and connections reaching 42 Mbps, several times the city's measured 5 Mbps average.
  • Instar · Habana Vieja (Old Havana)day Not published (September 2026) · month Not published (September 2026)Listed by Andy Sto's Havana guide as the Old Havana coworking option; walkable from the casas around Obispo and the Plaza Vieja.
  • Havana Coworking · Havana (address not published)day Not published (September 2026) · month Not published (September 2026)Named alongside Amarillo in nomads.com reviews as one of two places with dependable desks and speeds up to 42 Mbps.
  • Parque Científico de La Habana coworking · Boyeros (Carretera a San Antonio km 2½, Torrens), far from the nomad districtsday Not disclosed on the official page (September 2026) · month Not disclosed on the official page (September 2026)The state science park's shared workspace, aimed at R&D companies rather than freelancers; the only coworking with an official website, but a taxi ride out of town and oriented to registered businesses.

Cafés that tolerate laptops

  • Cuba Libro · Vedado, Calle 24 at the corner of Calle 19Bookshop café with a garden, English-language books and a mix of Cubans and foreigners; inexpensive drinks and nobody moving customers along. Appears on Havana wifi-café lists, though as everywhere in the city the connection is ETECSA-dependent.
  • Café Arcángel · Centro Habana, a few blocks from the Old Havana tourist streetsSmall, quiet, and rated for some of the best coffee in the city; listed among cafés with wifi and the sort of place where a laptop for two hours is unremarkable.
  • Café Fortuna Joe · VedadoVintage-decorated Vedado café listed on wifi-café rundowns; slow-paced, with seating away from the street.
  • El Café · Habana ViejaOld Havana breakfast and coffee spot that appears on the Havana wifi-café list; busiest mid-morning, calmer after lunch.
  • Hotel Nacional lobby and terrace · Vedado, Malecón end of Calle 23Not a café but the fallback nomad guides name for a connection that holds when the parks and cafés drop; buy a coffee, sit on the terrace, and use the hotel's own link.

Where nomads live

  • VedadoCUP 205,000–342,000 ($300–500) a month for a private one-bed; larger central flats $800–900. Undated 2025–2026 guide figures converted at the September 2026 informal rate.The district nomad guides call the centre of the scene: leafy grid streets, most of the wifi parks, the university, Amarillo Coworking, the Hotel Nacional and Meliá Cohiba as connection backstops, and the best density of paladares and bars.
  • Habana Vieja (Old Havana)Around CUP 342,000 ($500) a month for a comfortable Airbnb one-bed with internet and air conditioning, per an undated guideThe restored colonial core, tourist-facing and the priciest per square metre; suits a short first month for its walkability, less so for anyone who wants quiet or local prices.
  • Centro HabanaPrivate rooms from about CUP 10,000 ($15) a night, so roughly $450 a month before negotiating a monthly rateThe cheapest and most lived-in of the three, between Vedado and the old town; crumbling housing stock, little tourist infrastructure, and the most exposed to long outage windows.
  • Miramar (Playa)No verified monthly figure found; the guides describe it as the expensive optionEmbassies, gated villas and the better-supplied private shops; quiet and generator-heavy but a taxi ride from everything a nomad without a car needs.

The scene, such as it is

Havana has no nomad economy in the sense of Lisbon or Medellín: no visa scheme, no laptop-hostel strip, and coworking counted in single digits. The people working remotely here are mostly on 30-day tourist cards, renting from a casa owner they found on Airbnb or through a friend, and treating the wifi parks of Vedado, the Hotel Nacional terrace and one of two coworking rooms as a rota of places to get online.

Vedado is where that rota runs. The 1950s grid between the university and the Malecón holds the parks, the hotels, Amarillo Coworking, Cuba Libro and most of the paladares, and its flats are the ones landlords have fitted with the routers, water tanks and inverters that make a month workable. Old Havana is the place to visit from there, not the place to sign a lease.

Money and paperwork

Cash rules. The informal rate stood at 683 CUP to the dollar on 6 September 2026, against an official retail rate 43 pesos lower, and the euro at 775. Rent, SIMs, coworking and most restaurant bills for foreigners are quoted in dollars or euros; pesos are for buses, street food and the occasional state shop. Nobody accepts US-issued cards, and non-US cards work at a handful of hotels and almost nowhere else, so the month's budget comes in through the airport in notes.

Most nationalities enter on a tourist card valid 30 days and extendable once for another 30 at an immigration office; Canadians get 90. Immigration stamps the card, not the passport. Cuban-approved medical insurance is compulsory and starts around $3 a day. Sixty days is therefore the practical ceiling for a stay without leaving and coming back.

What recent arrivals report

Reviews collected on nomads.com through 2026 describe the same three things: internet that is slow and inconvenient, needing prepaid cards or a walk to a park or hotel; power cuts that stop work and shut off water pumps; and shortages of bottled water and basics that turn small errands into long ones. Guides written for the 2025–2026 season still put a careful month at $700–1,000 and a comfortable one at $1,200–1,600, and still recommend Vedado without hesitation.

The 2026 grid record is the part no guide has caught up with. Nationwide collapses in March, a western-provinces failure in May, three in July and a sixth on 3 August, followed by storms that undid restoration work, mean a remote worker should plan for whole days offline rather than hours, and should ask a landlord one question before any other: what happens here when the lights go out.

Seasons

November to May is the dry season, with days of 25–30°C, lower humidity and the highest rents and flight prices; it is the only stretch a first-time base should be attempted. June to October is hot, wet and the hurricane season, peaking August to October, with dengue risk and, in 2026, storms that repeatedly set back grid repairs after the August collapse. Summer heat also pushes demand on the failing power system, so outage windows lengthen exactly when air conditioning matters most. September, the month these figures hold for, is the wrong month to arrive.

Researched from cubaheadlines.com · cubaceltourist.com · cubasbest.com · cubadebate.cu · andysto.com · eta-cuba.com · digitalnomads.world · nomads.com · figures hold for September 2026

Where to live

11 pieces by the writers on the ground

  1. Where to live · HavanaFusterlandia: The Gaudí of the Caribbean and Havana's Most Surprising NeighbourhoodIn the fishing village of Jaimanitas, one artist covered his home and half his neighbours' walls in mosaic — here's how to see it, eat well afterward, and turn it into a proper half-day out of Havana in 2026.
  2. Where to live · HavanaRiding Shotgun: A Local's Classic-Car Tour Through Havana's NeighborhoodsHow to pick a 1950s convertible tour in Havana that actually runs, actually talks, and quotes you a price you understand — operator by operator, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.
  3. Where to live · HavanaVedado, Havana: jazz basements, modern kitchens and the city after darkFrom the Hotel Nacional’s clifftop terrace to Calle 23’s small-hours jazz clubs, Vedado is Havana’s modern district with the best nights out and the strongest tables.
  4. Where to live · HavanaSiboney, Havana: the quiet diplomatic suburb with a pool and a taxiA leafy west-Havana enclave of walled villas, protocol houses and beach-club escapes, where the city’s noise gives way to birdsong, guards and generator hum.
  5. Where to live · HavanaRegla, Havana: Across the Bay, Under the SaintsA seven-minute ferry ride from Old Havana, Regla strips Havana back to its working port bones and its deepest spiritual pulse.
  6. Where to live · HavanaPlaya, Havana: the city where Havana exhalesA slow, green, residential westward Havana of villa gardens, serious salsa, and some of the capital’s best paladares.
  7. Where to live · HavanaMiramar, Havana: the city’s west side of space, shade and serious salsaAcross the Almendares, Miramar trades Old Havana’s street theatre for embassy mansions, long lunches by the sea and the timba floors that still matter.
  8. Where to live · HavanaHabana Vieja, Havana: plazas, rum and the old city that still singsBetween five plazas and a pedestrian spine of bars, bookstalls and bandstands, Habana Vieja delivers the classic Havana of colonial stone, live son and late-night rum.
  9. Where to live · HavanaCojímar, Havana: Hemingway’s Harbour Village Still Living by the TideA slow, salt-stung walk through Cojímar, where a 1649 watchtower, a fisherman’s bust and a lunch of paella still keep time with the water.
  10. Where to live · HavanaCentro Habana, Havana: the city at street volumeBetween Habana Vieja and Vedado, Centro Habana is Havana without varnish: rumba alleys, Malecón sunsets, Chinatown lunches and the kind of street life that makes the whole capital feel close enough to touch.
  11. Where to live · HavanaCasablanca, Havana: the hill above the harbourAcross the bay from Habana Vieja, Casablanca trades restaurants and nightlife for quiet lanes, fortress history and the city’s best free skyline.

What it costs

1 piece by the writers on the ground

  1. What it costs · HavanaEating Well in Havana When the Cash and the Fish Run OutWhich Havana kitchens still cook properly when the supply chain narrows and your small change disappears: sixteen addresses, with prices, door rules and the questions to ask the waiter.

Getting around

4 pieces by the writers on the ground

  1. Getting around · HavanaGetting Around Havana Without a Car When Fuel Is ShortShared máquinas, a one-peso ferry, bicycles and the days the Viñales bus actually runs: how to move around Havana, and out of it, without ever queuing for fuel yourself.
  2. Getting around · HavanaHavana Airport to Your Casa Without the ScrambleChange money, buy a SIM, agree the fare: the twenty minutes inside Terminal 3 decide how your first night in Havana goes.
  3. Getting around · HavanaLanding in Havana with Enough Cash and Enough PatienceWhat the first ninety minutes at Terminal 3 ask of you: the exchange window, the SIM counter, the ride into town, and a bed with a host who knows when the power returns.
  4. Getting around · HavanaHow to Cross Havana Without a Tank of PetrolFerries, e-trikes, shared Ladas and a bike bus through the bay tunnel: the honest mechanics of moving around a city where fuel is the scarcest thing on the street.

The weekend

3 pieces by the writers on the ground

  1. The weekend · HavanaGetting to Viñales from Havana When the Fuel Runs ShortThe valley is still two hours west of the capital, and the hard part in 2026 is arranging the drive home before you arrange anything else.
  2. The weekend · HavanaPlayas del Este When Havana Wears You OutNine kilometres of sand half an hour east of the tunnel, taken beach by beach: what each one costs, who it suits, and how to get back.
  3. The weekend · HavanaTwo Nights in Havana and One Day in the Viñales ValleyA tight, walkable Havana itinerary built around Habana Vieja, a Vedado night and a day trip west into the tobacco country, with real prices, door realities and what to book before you land.

The kit

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A first week before the flat: the Havana hotel directory