Kuba

This small but well-endowed province is Cuba at its loveliest, also guarding a precious chunk of the country's fantastical historical legacy. Sancti Spíritus Province boasts nature worth exploring. The best on Cuba’s underwhelming south coast, Playa Ancón is a stunner. And then there are mountains. Outside Trinidad, the haunting Escambray offers outstanding hiking on a network of picturesque trails.

Cuba's cultural capital, Santiago is a frenetic, passionate and noisy beauty. Situated closer to Haiti and the Dominican Republic than to Havana, it leans east rather than west, a crucial factor shaping this city's unique identity, steeped in Afro-Caribbean, entrepreneurial and rebel influences.

In this beautiful hill-studded hinterland, Cuba’s contradictions are magnified. For the visitor, there's rich landscapes ranging from the pine-scented mountains of the Sierra Cristal to the palm-fringed beaches around Guardalavaca. Holguín's beauty was first spied by Christopher Columbus who, by most accounts, docked near Gibara in October 1492 where he was met by a group of curious Taíno natives. The Taínos didn’t survive the ensuing Spanish colonization, though fragments of their legacy can be reconstructed in Holguín Province, which contains more pre-Columbian archaeological sites than anywhere else in Cuba.

La Victória de Las Tunas (as it's officially known) is a sleepy agricultural town anointed provincial capital. It has long held a sleazy reputation for being the Oriente's capital of sex tourism. But thanks to good private lodgings, welcoming locals and a handy location on Cuba's arterial Carretera Central, handfuls of road-weary travelers drop by and are pleasantly surprised. Missing here are the touts that exasperate tourists in other destinations. It's a window into real provincial life.

The pioneering ecovillage of Las Terrazas dates back to a reforestation project in 1968. Today it’s a Unesco Biosphere Reserve, a burgeoning activity center (with a canopy tour) and the site of the earliest coffee plantations in Cuba. Not surprisingly, it attracts day-trippers from Havana by the busload.

Most travelers say hello and goodbye to Las Tunas Province in the time that it takes to drive across it on the Carretera Central – one hour on a good day. But, hang on a second! With laid-back, leather-skinned cowboys and poetic country singers, the province is known for daredevil rodeos and Saturday-night street parties. Here barnstorming entertainment is served up at the drop of a sombrero.

With a name translating as 'massacres,' Matanzas Province conceals an appropriately tumultuous past beneath its modern-day reputation for glam all-inclusive holidays. In the 17th century pillaging pirates ravaged the region's prized north coast, while three centuries later, more invaders grappled ashore in the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) under the dreamy notion that they were about to liberate the nation.

The sandy arc of Playa Girón nestles peacefully on the eastern side of the infamous Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), backed by one of those gloriously old-fashioned Cuban villages where everyone knows everyone else. Notorious as the place where the Cold War almost got hot, the beach is actually named for a French pirate, Gilbert Girón, who met his end here by decapitation in the early 1600s at the hands of embittered locals. In April 1961 it was the scene of another botched raid, the ill-fated, CIA-sponsored invasion that tried to land on these remote sandy beaches in one of modern history's classic David-and-Goliath struggles. Lest we forget, there are still plenty of propaganda-spouting billboards dotted around rehashing past glories.

Drömlika stränder, lyxresorter och djurvård. En udda kombination? Inte på den kubanska ön Cayo Largo där besökare kan följa hotade sköldpadds­arter från ägg till frisläppning.

Spread out like a fan on three sides of downtown, Havana's little-visited suburban municipalities hide a handful of disparate sights that can make interesting half-day and day trips from the city center. Santiago de las Vegas and Santa María del Rosario are former rural settlements that have been incorporated into the larger metropolis without losing their soporific airs; San Francisco de Paula trades off its association with famous former resident, Ernest Hemingway; Arroyo Naranjo encircles the city's largest green space, Parque Lenin, and hosts Havana's expansive botanical gardens.