Havana Runs on Cash and a Backup Plan

A Havana evening announces itself twice. First when the air conditioners drop out mid-block and the street noise suddenly sounds very close, and again a minute later when a generator somewhere down the road coughs into life and the bar you were sitting in comes back. Rolling power cuts, rationed fuel and a card network that treats foreign plastic as decoration have been part of the city's rhythm long enough that everyone here (restaurateurs, drivers, box-office staff) has a workaround. Learn theirs and Havana is still one of the great walking capitals of the Americas. Arrive expecting a normal city and you will spend the week improvising badly.

Money before itinerary

Cash is the load-bearing decision of this trip, and it is worth making before you have booked a single table. Cards issued by United States banks do not work here at all, and non-US cards work only sometimes, in the places you would least want to gamble on. Even the most visited bar in the old town has a card terminal that fails as a matter of routine. Plan as though there is no electronic money in the country and you will never be caught out.

Bring hard currency, euros or dollars, in clean, unmarked notes, and bring far more small denominations than feels sensible. A great deal of your spending happens in five- and ten-dollar increments: a drink, a tip to the musicians, a museum ticket, a tour. The museums price in Cuban pesos and want pesos, so you will be converting at some point; the restaurants, drivers and cabarets will happily quote and take euros or dollars. Split your money across at least three places, your person, your room, your bag, and count what you have left every couple of days, because there is no cash machine that will rescue you mid-week.

So book and confirm anything expensive before you fly. Payment on the night in cash is normal; arranging the night itself on the night is not.

Getting around once the buses stop

Public buses stop running at six in the evening and fuel is rationed, which reshapes the whole geography of a Havana day. The distances in the old town are small, Plaza Vieja to the Malecón is a twenty-minute walk, but anything beyond central Havana needs wheels you have arranged yourself.

NostalgiCar (a licensed family operation that collects you from wherever you are staying) is the fallback worth having in your phone before you land. They run restored American cars with four passenger seats, and put together convoys when there are more of you than that. Booking is by WhatsApp, Messenger or Airbnb, they quote by the car rather than the head, and they take cash in dollars, euros or pesos. Hourly city drives are the obvious tourist use, but the airport run and the half-day out to the edges of the city matter more, because out there the alternative is standing on a road with no bus coming.

Book the car for the trips that genuinely need one, the house museum, the mosaic streets to the west, and walk the rest. After dark, a convoy of cars is simply how a group of eight moves at all.

A morning on foot in Habana Vieja

Start early. The old town is at its best between eight and eleven, before the heat settles into the stone and before the cruise-hour crowds fill the plazas. Walk east from Parque Central along Obispo and you will cover most of what matters in a morning.

El Floridita (Habana Vieja, at the top of Obispo) is where the daiquiri was made famous, and it is unapologetically touristy: standing-room busy most afternoons, no bookings, a house band and a bronze Hemingway propping up the end of the bar. Treat it as one drink at around 7.50 in dollars or euros, paid in cash, and expect the card machine to decline. Small groups fit; a party of ten will be stuck in the doorway.

Carry on to Plaza Vieja, the square the city spent two decades restoring, and stop at Factoría Plaza Vieja (Habana Vieja, on the square itself). It brews its own clara, oscura and negra on the premises, which is why it holds up when bars dependent on imports run dry. The beer arrives in tall shared tubes built for a table of six, there are no reservations, and the shaded arcade seating makes it one of the few sane places to sit through midday. Open noon to midnight daily, a few dollars a tube.

Ten minutes north, Museo del Ron Havana Club (Habana Vieja, by the harbour) is the reliable indoor hour. Tours leave every fifteen minutes in five languages, take you through the working scale model of a distillery, and end with a tasting of the seven-year añejo. Book ahead in high season if you are more than a few people. The bar and shop take cash.

Keep the indoor hours in reserve

Havana's museums have trimmed their hours, and this catches out visitors who assume a big national collection will absorb a wet afternoon. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes — Arte Cubano (Habana Vieja, a block from Parque Central) is open Thursday to Saturday, nine until five, and Sunday mornings only, ten until two. That is it. Entry is 125 CUP for the one building or 200 CUP for both, cash in pesos, walk-in, with guided visits arranged at the desk and no limit on group size.

The collection is the best argument in the country for Cuban painting as its own tradition rather than a footnote to European schools, and two hours in it will reframe everything you have been photographing outside. But you have to plan around it: if your only free afternoon is a Monday, this is closed, and the rum museum is the indoor fallback.

Vedado and the places that stay lit

Vedado is where the city's twentieth century happened, and where the power situation is most visibly managed. Hotel Nacional de Cuba (Vedado, on the bluff above the Malecón) opened in 1930 and has hosted film stars and the mafia conference the novels never stop writing about. Its terrace and gardens are open to non-residents with no door policy at all, drinks run five to ten dollars, and there is a free guided history tour Monday to Saturday at ten. The important part for planning: it has backup power. When the block goes dark, the fans and the bar keep working, which makes the terrace the most dependable place in Vedado to sit out a cut. The cabaret in the Parisién room runs Friday to Sunday, nine until two, and seats groups. If you would rather sleep somewhere with its own generator than gamble, compare rates across the district with a Havana hotel search and ask the property directly about backup power before you commit.

La Guarida (Centro Habana, up three flights of a crumbling mansion staircase) is the one restaurant in the city that reliably runs its own generator and holds its standard through the shortages. Roughly 25 to 45 dollars a head, and it takes groups and private events: weddings, corporate dinners, receptions. Reserve weeks ahead by email and accept that replies are slow, because their internet comes and goes like everything else. Book it long before you fly, not on arrival.

For something lower-key, El Cocinero (Vedado, in the old cooking-oil factory with the brick chimney) opens daily from noon to midnight and charges roughly 260 to 640 CUP a head. The arts complex next door is dark for now, which has had one happy side effect: the rooftop terrace, once impossible to get onto, is reachable again. Go at dusk for the terrace rather than late for the night, and call ahead if there are more than six of you.

Evenings a blackout cannot cancel

The single most reliable fixture in the Havana evening is a piece of eighteenth-century military ritual. At Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña (across the harbour from the old town, reached by car or the little ferry) soldiers in period uniform fire the cañonazo at nine o'clock sharp, every night, re-enacting the closing of the harbour. The fortress went up after the British took the city in 1762, and it is enormous, open-air and entirely indifferent to the grid, which is why it still happens on nights when half the city's programme does not. Tickets are bought at the gate for a few dollars in pesos, cash, and there is no door policy or group limit. Arrive by 20:15 if you want a spot behind the cannon.

Tropicana (Marianao, in its open-air garden) has been running its revue since 1939 and has outlived every crisis thrown at it. Doors at 20:30, show at 22:00, Wednesday to Sunday, over-18s with ID. It is built for groups, with dinner booked for the whole party and dance lessons from four people up, and at roughly 98 to 110 euros a head before dinner and extras it is expensive by any Cuban measure. Treat it as the one big night of the trip rather than a habit.

Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso (Habana Vieja, facing Parque Central) is the 1,500-seat home of the national ballet, and tourist tickets run from about 10 to 30 dollars equivalent, paid in cash at the box office. Programming is thinner than it used to be, so check the board in person rather than assuming there is a show. The exception is late autumn: the 29th International Ballet Festival runs here from 28 October to 6 November 2026, and gala nights sell out first.

La Zorra y el Cuervo (Vedado, down the steps of the red telephone box on La Rampa) is the city's serious jazz basement, holding perhaps fifty people, with a cover of around 10 dollars that includes drinks. It is listed as running nightly from ten until two, but late-night venues are the first thing the energy shortages hit. Walk past in daylight, check the door, and only then build your evening around it. A group of more than six should arrive at 21:30 and expect to be split across tables.

Sunday rumba and the road west

Callejón de Hamel (Cayo Hueso, Centro Habana) is a single alley that the artist Salvador González began painting in 1990 and never stopped, and on Sunday the rumba runs outdoors and acoustic from around midday until four. It is free, it is shoulder-to-shoulder by one o'clock, and because nothing in it is plugged in, it is one of the few cultural fixtures a power cut cannot touch. Arrive before noon if you want to stand anywhere useful, and carry small notes for the musicians and the bar.

Half an hour west in Jaimanitas, Fusterlandia (Jaimanitas, Playa) is what happens when one mosaicist tiles his own house and then keeps going down the street. José Fuster's studio and house are open to visitors until about five, wandering is free, and sales of tiles and prints fund the tiling of more neighbours' walls. It is entirely outdoors and entirely blackout-proof, which makes it the safest bet in the city against a wasted afternoon.

In the other direction, fifteen kilometres southeast, Museo Ernest Hemingway — Finca Vigía (San Francisco de Paula, on the city's southeastern edge) preserves the house he kept until 1960, with the typewriter, the books and the boat exactly as left. You look in through the windows rather than walking the rooms, so large parties queue and rotate rather than crowd. Entry is modest plus a camera fee, cash, and the hours are short and vary by day, so confirm before setting off and pair it with a car hired for the half-day rather than turning up at three and finding the shutters closed.

Cash, timing and what a day actually costs

Budget in cash, by the day. A walking day in the old town with a museum, a tour, lunch and two drinks sits comfortably under 50 dollars a head. Add a proper dinner and you are at 80 to 100. The cabaret night stands alone at well over 100 before anything else. Carry a day's worth in your pocket and leave the rest where you sleep.

On timing: do the outdoor and walking things in the morning, keep one indoor option in reserve for heat or rain, the rum museum, or the art museum if it is a Thursday to Sunday, and hold the evening loose until you have physically checked the door of wherever you intend to end up. Book the generator-backed restaurant and the big show from home, weeks out. Book the car the day before. Everything else can be decided at breakfast.

And carry a torch, a power bank and a bottle of water, every day, without exception. Havana is not a difficult city, but four hundred grams in a bag is the difference between a cut being an inconvenience and a cut being the end of your evening. For where to base yourself and how the districts connect, our Havana guide covers the rest.