Cultural Cuba Tours with Musician Guides
Three 2027 small-group Cuba tours led by musicians and musicologists, plus private custom tours by request.
2027 Small-Group Cuba Tours
HAVANA JAZZ FESTIVAL 2027
January 26–February 1, 2027
$3,950 per person · Double occupancy · $650 single supplement
HAVANA MUSIC & CULTURAL TOUR 2027
Jan 11–15 • Feb 8–12 • Mar 8–12 • Apr 12–16 • May 10–14 • Jun 7–11, 2027
$2,985 per person • $450 single supplement
Prefer your own dates or a fully customized Cuba trip? We can build a private music and cultural itinerary around your group, interests, and schedule.
What Makes These Cuba Tours Different
Our small-group tours are built around direct cultural exchange. Professional musicians, musicologists, and local experts help you understand Cuba through the people who create, perform, teach, and preserve its music.
Music in Its Cultural Context
Days combine music with the wider culture around it. Experiences can include dance, visual art, neighborhood visits, and direct engagement with Cuban artists. Architecture, history, museums, and local markets add context to the music you hear.
A Survey of Cuban Sound
Evenings focus on live music in a variety of settings. Depending on the departure, that can include historic theaters, intimate clubs, and private performance spaces. Programs are designed to expose you to different Cuban musical traditions rather than a single style. You may hear rumba, son, bolero, Afro-Cuban traditions, Latin jazz, and contemporary Cuban sounds.
Private Stays and Local Dining
We use carefully selected private accommodations, including Casas Particulares and boutique-style stays. The emphasis is on comfort, private bathrooms, and a more personal connection to daily Cuban life. Food is part of the cultural experience. Meal inclusions vary by itinerary, and we prioritize quality private restaurants and local dining experiences. Common dietary needs can be accommodated with advance notice.
An Informed Cultural Exchange
These tours are for travelers who want to learn directly from the people and places behind the culture. The focus is informed, respectful, and substantive cultural exchange. The quality of this approach is consistently documented in the company’s traveler reviews on TripAdvisor.
Choose one of the 2027 departures above, or plan a private Cuba tour around your own dates and interests.
Accommodation
We include your luxurious “Casa Particular” or “Villa” in the tour price. Each one is hand-selected by us and quality tested.
“Casa Particular” is the Spanish phrase to describe a privately owned bed and breakfast style house or room for rent. Casa Particulares are the best option for supporting and interacting with the Cuban people. We highly recommend them!
Daily itinerary
You can view sample itineraries for each of our tours on their respective pages
About a week or so before you depart for your tour we will provide a uniquely arranged and final itinerary for each day of your tour. It will feature the most up-to-date live performance schedules for all musical and non-musical events. It will also include all of the places we will visit. This is usually very similar to the sample itinerary, but it will have more details such as the time frames, artist/venue names, etc.
Each tour is unique and fits different travelers’ desires.
Live Music Venues
In Cuba, most of the primary musical performances can occur really late at night. Band start times can range from 10pm-1am each night.
In addition to your daily itinerary, we maintain an optional late night schedule that features private reservations to the best music venues in Havana and beyond. If you wish to go, we also include the entry to each musical event into your Casa-Inclusive-package. (By the way, some entries to venues will include a couple of free cocktails.)
We will see some of the best musicians in Cuba authentically performing styles such as Afro-Cuban Rumba, Latin Jazz, Traditional, Afro-Funk, Timba (Salsa), and more.
Meals
Most of your food is included on your trip. Each tour has different and specific meal inclusions, but all of them include breakfast. For the most part, we like to eat family-style at all of the best restaurants in Cuba. Certain tours may include lunches and/or dinners, and there are some free days to have a private meal on your own (if you wish). Usually, breakfast is pretty fulfilling, so snacks may be appropriate when walking around on some days. We have discovered that sitting down at a restaurant to eat 3 times per day with a group takes up too much time… and we have lots of stuff to see!! Don’t worry, you will eat well!
Breakfast usually features a freshly sliced array of fruits, vegetables, a choice of eggs, bread, freshly squeezed juices, and even an authentic Café Cubano.
Sometimes we will prepare snacks for lunch as needed, otherwise, we typically eat dinners between 5 pm-8 pm.
For dinner, we will eat at some of the best restaurants in Cuba. We have tried many of the top-rated restaurants and handpicked our favorites to share with you. We will eat altogether most evenings and dine family style, in a similar way to how Cubans eat. We will usually allow at least one evening to dine at your own leisure. Whatever you choose, we have plenty of recommendations for you and we will gladly make any reservations on your behalf.
Tour Guides
You will have an experienced professional musician or musicologist as your tour leader. Your tour leader will be bilingual in Spanish and English. Let us know if you speak any other language. We can also get interpreters that speak Chinese, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and more.
We also include local tour guides that specialize in different aspects of Cuban culture: history, architecture, art, music, etc. This makes for a comfortable, informative, and exciting experience. (Even if you don’t speak Spanish!)
Flights and transportation
All tours include pick up and drop off from the airports in Cuba. We arrange daily transportation from the Casa/Villa to all scheduled events and to different cities.
We do not include the flights, but we will help you to book the best flight based on your location. There are many commercial flights available from the US, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. So, no matter where you are flying from we will help you pick the best connections to join the tour on time.
Tour Reservations and Payments
Current pricing, deposit requirements, and accommodation details are shown on each individual tour page. Scheduled tours use carefully selected private accommodations with private bathrooms; private-tour arrangements are customized to the group.
For scheduled group tours, a $500 deposit reserves your place. The remaining balance is due 90 days before departure. Bookings made within 90 days of departure require full payment when confirmed. Private and custom-tour payment schedules are provided with your quote.
Prices are in U.S. dollars. ACH payments have no added fee. Credit card payments add a 3.5% fee. Wire transfers are also accepted; cash and checks are not accepted.
We have plenty of individuals, couples, groups, and families that travel with us, and everyone has a blast. If you have any special requests, please let us know. We will work with you to make sure you have the perfect space and feel comfortable during your stay.
If our dates do not work for you, keep in mind that we also do personalized tours with custom dates and group sizes. More info here.
Kudos to Chaz for assembling an amazing Cuban staff who are always ready to help, guide, and educate. Cuba is not an easy place to describe, but the experience was life-changing in a good way! Incredible music, warm and intrepid people. Lots of history, culture, and good food. Our fellow tour members from all over the world became friends. We loved supporting the mission of helping build bridges across cultures through music. Read More
My 14 year old son and I just spent 4 days visiting Havana on a private tour with Havana Music Tours. We chose them because they offered the 2 main things we were seeking – (1) the license, knowledge, and experience needed to make the visit smooth for U.S. citizens and (2) the expertise and relationships to facilitate authentic and direct interaction with Cuban music and musicians. I’m so grateful to the entire Havana Music Tours team for all they did to make our trip so smooth and meaningful. I’d highly recommend both HMT and Ismelys to anyone and would happily travel with them again to Cuba or anywhere else! Read More
Absolutely fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime custom-built musical and cultural tour around Havana! Chaz and Yami took all of our requests and constraints into consideration while planning and customizing our tour, which included mouth-watering dining in paladares, musical experiences & concerts, and walking & driving city tours. Read More
Chaz personalized our tour and gave us a 5-star experience. He has chosen the best staff, from the tour guides all the way down to the house staff that fixed us breakfast to the bus drivers! We also were happy to give back to the people by bringing much needed items that the locals could use or needed..I HIGHLY Recommend Havan Music Tours! Read More
