@vfonic Generally you need to purchase wifi cards (in 30 min to 1 hour increments) and hang out around places that have wifi which include major hotel lobbies in central Havana or local parks. It’s actually a fun experience to go to the locals parks full of locals on their phones, etc. connected to the wifi. Teenagers standing around in the parks will sell you wifi cards, marijuana, any other contraband you might need haha. Although an interesting experience, I’m sure you will want to opt for the hotel strategy if you plan to be productive. Internet could be doable depending on your work but I don’t think it would be sustainable if you regularly have to have Skype calls with clients or large files to upload/download. I definitely think Cuba has a long way to go in terms of being work-able for digital nomads. If it had better infrastructure to allow me to work, I’d move there in a heartbeat. Love the people and culture!

The comments by @tkrunning and @rimu_atkinson are correct. Internet access isn’t widely available. You’re not going to get it in your room wherever you’re staying. Internet access is controlled by the Cuban government, and you have to buy wifi access cards at government distribution points at set times (I think it was 2PM on week days). If my memory serves me correctly, you’re allowed up to three per person, and they cost either 1.50 or 2.50 each. They give you an hour access. The better hotels will have wifi in the lobby, but you still have to buy the government issued access cards. There are distribution points in some hotels.

Last year, the Cuban government started a pilot programme to bring wifi into homes and businesses: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35463423. However, that’s not widespread as yet, as no one we met while in Cuba in August 2016 had Internet at home.

The connectivity speeds are going to be poor. Because it’s so heavily controlled, you’ll find lots of people standing and sitting around the parks and hotel lobbies with access points. So the networks are always congested. Also be prepared for some things not to work at all because of censorship.

When I was preparing to travel to Cuba, I told all my clients that I would be off the grid for the duration of the trip (2 weeks in August 2016).

I was in Cuba about 18 months ago, so things might have changed a bit since then. The way to get online is like @Rimu_Atkinson mentioned to get wifi scratch cards that have a code on them you use to log on to the public hot spots. Larger cities will probably have a few hotspots—I think Havana had about 5, perhaps a few more. Some are in parks, others at hotels. Smaller cities will have only one hotspot, if you’re lucky. Many smaller cities/towns didn’t have any hotspots at all.

To get the scratch cards, you’ll have to queue up at a government run telecom shop. At certain times and locations the lines can be very long. Some places entrepreneurial locals walked around selling the scratch cards for a slight markup so you could skip the line or get access outside opening hours of the telecom shops (which can be quite limited). I recall paying $1.50 per card, but I don’t remember the duration that gave you. I think it was 60 minutes, and you don’t have to use all of it in one go. You can surf for a few minutes, download email, etc and then log out and later back on again.

Speeds are okay-ish for surfing and some places probably video calls, too. They do vary a lot, though. One location at a hotel in Havana was so slow it was barely useable, while the spot in Viñales was pretty snappy (probably a few Mbps down).

When my mother visited there a few months ago, she had a really hard time with internet. To get online she had to wait in a queue for up to an hour to get a voucher which could be used for 3 hours of Wifi access. She then had to go to a ‘wifi park’ somewhere in the city and try to connect and use the login info on the voucher. It almost never worked and when it did it was very very very slow.

She is 65 so not great at technical stuff - maybe you will find a better way. Maybe expensive resorts have usable Wifi…

I considered visiting it when I was in Central America and researched it as well, but based on what people say who visited or lived there, the speeds are very low and prices for somewhat reliable internet are very high (not just Cuba high, 1st world very high!). Basically expect you won’t be able to get serious work done, or make internet calls. Just emails.

It’s unreliable, slow and the system is a complete joke. However it’s improving… so I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, just doesn’t worth the hassle. Also if you have a client/employer in the US, they might not like your Cuban IP because of the embargo. Try to use a VPN that’s not in the US but close to Cuba.

Thank you all! Really enjoying reading these updates.

My fiance’s parents are from Cuba and she’s visited once about 10 years ago. We’ve both long wanted to go, but have also long known that working from Cuba would be impossible for us. The same thing has kept me out of Burma the last few years.

We need nearly good, reliable and daily internet to be comfortable working while we travel. We do fine in SEA & Europe. We can get buy for a day or two without when planned, but are pretty accustomed to having good wifi by day and at minimum phone tethering at night…

Anyway, we’ve decided to go to Cuba for our honeymoon this october, it’s the first time we’ve had a window where we’ll actually be “on vacation” and can be offline for a long stretch. After a week or two honeymoon in Cuba we’ll spend spend the next 3-4 months in mexico and the caribbean working/traveling… Very excited.

I live in Cuba most of the year and running my online travel company from there. However its only possible via emails and sometimes I am able to do Viber calls. Internet is available (legally) only in hotels where they have wifi and in Etecsa offices. From February they installed first public wifi (paid) in Vinales, later on in Trinidad. Its planned to spread them more around the island. Its handy as sometimes hotels makes problem and wont let people to use the wifi if they are not their guests.
One hour of internet costs 4.5CUC. If someone has internet at home then its dial up via landline and very very slow!
As a tourist you can stay in Cuba 2 months. Sometimes the immigration gives you also third month…
If you know someone in Havana you might be able to find accommodation (apartment) from 300/400CUC per month.
Food is not expensive but be ready there is shortage of most of the things you are used to.
If you move around Havana by taxi collectivos it will cost you 0.5CUC per ride. Camelo bus are not there anymore. They have now normal chineese bus which doesn’t cost you nearly anything but also they are always packed during the day and you might end up waiting for very long time.
If you stay longer it will be worthy to get Cuban sim card and you will be able to have email in mobile. Its cuban email Nauta. Not gmail or your work email and you pay per data received.
If you dont speak Spanish everything will be more expensive for you and way more difficult.
Cuba is very unique and complicated country and its not for everyone. However I love Cuba, their people, their culture and their attitude for life!

Hasta pronto
Veronika

Visited Cuba last year for a month. Larger cities like Havana, Santa Clara, Santiago de Cuba have some spots, mainly hotels that offer internet. In my experience it’s your lucky day if you found a hotel with a working WiFi spot. Even most of the 5 star hotels I visited don’t have a working internet connection. And if they have a internet connection, it is usually hooked up to an old Windows PC and quite expensive to use (10 US dollar for an hour, 500 KB/s connection). Your best changes are in the few American run resorts.

So, unless you bring your own illegal satellite connection (yes that was illegal in Cuba when I visited), you should prepare for a lot of time without an internet connection. I simply gave up and went offline almost the whole month.

Make sure to download ForeverMap witch caches OpenStreetMaps maps for offline usage.
Very useful, since most streets don’t have street names and a lot of roads don’t have signs and/or directions. Buy a local map as backup, or for the occasion you want to ask for directions (since GPS was also illegal when I visited Cuba).
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ForeverMap

I do agree that the Cubans are very helpful and they have a amazing culture. If you’re open for adventure and haven’t been there, then you should definitely visit Cuba at least once in your life. It was one of the most interesting countries I’ve been to.

Hey there @jb510,

Cuba is beautiful. Internet can be found at guest houses and hotels. Its not common to have access to wi-fi spots everywhere though.

You can get by with $500 a month (of course that depends on your standard of living) As you can see its ver affordable.

Transportation- Taxis are very nice ( more cost), they have Coco Taxi (its like a Coconut cabin and a person pulls you by bike). They have public transportation, what they call “Camello” like Camel (because they are buses that have a curve in the middle). This is the cheapest way of transport. You will see a lot of people traveling via motorcycle (4-5 people at once).

Housing- You can get a hotel to guest house. I stayed with a really nice woman and her son for under 100/night.

In essence, Cubans are the nicest people. They will go out of their way to help you in every way. Once your there, everything will fall in its place. Hope you go!

Well I’ve been there, but it was about 7 years ago. I stayed at a beach resort first, and internet was worse than dial-up 28kbps… You could barely check your emails, and it was super expensive because all prices were in euro.
Habana is a whole different thing, internet was still crappy in hotels, but you get to go more to the places where locals buy. The problem was that back then you had different prices for tourists, and even a different currency. Tourists were not allowed to exchange Cuban pesos, I don’t know how’s the currency situation at the moment.
Maybe things changed since then with Raul in charge.