The Vía Blanca runs east out of Havana through the harbour tunnel, and within about twenty minutes the last of the apartment blocks give way to sea grape, scrub pine and a low white line of sand. Habaneros call the whole nine-kilometre run Playas del Este and treat it as municipal infrastructure rather than a holiday: you go for an afternoon with a cooler and a towel, you eat something fried, you come back sandy. When the heat and the queues have flattened you, and a Havana summer will flatten anyone, the fix is about 500 CUP and forty minutes away.
Start at Cojímar and take the long way
If you are driving or in a taxi, the first stop is not a beach at all. Cojímar, a fishing village folded into a small bay about ten kilometres east of the tunnel, is where Hemingway kept his boat and where the men who crewed it drank; the village gave him The Old Man and the Sea, and there is a bust of him on the point by the little Spanish fort, cast from boat fittings the local fishermen melted down themselves. La Terraza de Cojímar (Cojímar) sits a street back from the water with its long wooden bar and its wall of photographs, and it is a genuinely good seafood kitchen: shrimp, snapper, the paella if there are enough of you to justify it.
It is also on every coach itinerary out of the city, which means two things worth knowing before you sit down. It takes big tables without blinking, and service can drag badly when a party of thirty lands ahead of you. Open daily from noon to eleven with live music in the evening; call +53 7 7665151 if there are more than six of you. Expect a few hundred CUP a head for something simple and into the low thousands for the better fish, cash only. Couples wanting a quiet lunch should come at noon or after three. Groups should just book.
The near beaches, Bacuranao and Tarará
Playa Bacuranao (Bacuranao, roughly 18 km east) is the closest proper beach to the city and the one to use when you have half a day rather than a whole one. It is a small horseshoe cove with a reef close in, which gives it the best snorkelling of the near beaches. Bring your own mask, because nothing is hired on the sand. The trade-off is real: the sand is plainer and coarser than what lies further east, and the entry is rocky in places, so it is not the beach for a toddler or for anyone unsteady on their feet. Behind it, the Islazul-run Villa Bacuranao (51 cabins with a bar, pool and restaurant) is open and bookable at roughly $35–60 a night and will feed a group without ceremony. It is plain. It is also fifteen minutes from the city.
Playa Tarará (Tarará, about 20 km east) is the better-looking of the two and the calmest of the developed beaches on the strip. The beach itself is public and nobody checks anything, but it sits inside a low-key resort village of villas and quiet streets, which is why it still feels oddly suburban rather than touristic. Parasols and water-sports gear hire on the sand from a few hundred CUP. For couples, this is the pick of the eastern beaches: pretty, near-empty on a weekday, and without the drink-shack soundtrack you get further along.
Anything involving a boat starts at the marina
Next to Tarará beach is the coast's only real nautical operator, Náutica Marlin Tarará (Tarará marina), which runs diving, snorkelling trips, sport fishing, catamaran sailing and small aquatic bikes for people who want a motor without a commitment. It is by some distance the easiest group booking out here: one email, one boat, everybody on it. Dives and boat trips generally run $40–90 per person and the small craft are considerably cheaper. Contact [email protected] or (53 7) 796 02, or VHF 16/19 if you are already afloat.
Book a day ahead rather than turning up. Fuel supply moves schedules here more often than weather does, and a day's notice is usually the difference between going out and being told to come back tomorrow.
The Santa María strip, beach by beach
Playa Santa María del Mar (Santa María, about 25 km east) is the anchor of the strip and earns the billing. This is the stretch with actual infrastructure: lifeguards, water-sports kiosks, drink shacks, and loungers and parasols that rent in blocks, so ten of you can set up in one row instead of scattered down the sand. Entry is free and there is no door policy of any kind; a lounger and parasol run roughly 100–400 CUP each depending on who is renting and how busy the day is. The Transtur T3 beach bus leaves Parque Central every forty minutes and drops you here for about 500 CUP or €5 return, which makes this the default arrival point for anyone without a car. Weekends belong to habaneros, loud and sociable and family-heavy and worth seeing once, but the last bus back at six gets uncomfortably full on a Sunday. Come midweek if you want space.
The one complaint people make about Santa María is that there is nowhere to get out of the sun. The answer is a few minutes' walk. Playa El Mégano (Santa María, just west of the bus stop) is the shadiest block on the whole strip and the one locals choose, with pines coming down close to the sand. Sunbeds are around 100 CUP, nobody polices anything, and a group can claim a shaded run of beds without negotiating for it. If you have small children, or anyone in the party who cannot spend six hours in Caribbean sun, start here rather than at the main stop.
Further along, Playa Mi Cayito (Santa María, eastern end near the Itabo river mouth) is the only openly LGBTQ+ beach in the country and has been for years. Large, loud, entirely unbothered groups are the norm rather than the exception, there is no entry control and no attitude. Loungers go for around 100–200 CUP, and the Las Palmitas ranchón behind the sand does food and cocktails in the low hundreds of CUP when it is stocked. Facilities here are thin and occasionally bare depending on what arrived that week, so bring water, bring cash in small notes, and do not count on finding either on site.
Playa Boca Ciega (Boca Ciega, between Santa María and Guanabo) is the opposite proposition. No stores, no rentals, no music, nobody selling you anything: a completely public, entirely uncommercial stretch where the loudest thing is the water. That is the whole appeal and it is a real one, but it comes with a condition, which is bring-your-own everything. Water, shade, lunch, ice. Arrive loaded or don't arrive.
Guanabo, where the strip becomes a town
Playa Guanabo (Guanabo, about 27 km east) is the end of the line in every sense. It is where the #A82 guagua (the route older habaneros still call the 400) terminates, and it is the only part of Playas del Este that is a working town rather than a beach with a car park. The sand is coarser and darker than Santa María, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something; you do not come to Guanabo for the best sand on the strip. You come because there are streets. Casas particulares take group bookings at roughly $25–45 a room, paladares along 5ta Avenida will seat a party at short notice for $5–15 a head, and there is a bakery, a bank queue, a barber, the ordinary texture that makes a three-day stay possible rather than just a day trip.
For lunch, Don Peppo (Guanabo, 5ta Avenida) is the reliable one. It has been trading since 1996, which on this avenue counts as an institution; other well-known pizzerias here have opened and closed unpredictably and this one has not. The chef is a member of the Cuban Culinary Association and the house pizza comes topped with seafood. Under about $7 a head, cash in CUP, euros or dollars. Walk-in groups are fine, takeaway is fine, there are indoor and outdoor tables and the access is step-free. If there are more than eight of you, ring (+53) 7796 4229 an hour ahead and the kitchen will be ready when you sit down.
Where to sleep if one day isn't enough
Staying out here changes the arithmetic of a trip. You swim before breakfast, you skip the bus entirely, and you are insulated from a fair amount of what makes a week in the city tiring. If you would rather keep the city as your base and come east for days, the Havana hotel search covers the central options, and the Havana guide sets out how the districts fit together.
On the beach itself, Hotel Atlántico (Santa María) is the name to know, currently the only Gran Caribe property still listed for Playas del Este, the neighbouring state blocks having dropped off the books. Rooms run roughly $60–110 a night on a bed-and-breakfast basis and it takes groups. There is no formal day pass, but in practice the bar, buffet, à la carte restaurant and grill are usable by non-residents, which makes it a serviceable base for a day on the sand: order something, behave, and nobody will trouble you.
For a family or a group of friends, Aparthotel Terrazas Atlántico (Santa María) is the better answer: one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with their own kitchens at roughly $45–90 per apartment per night, plus four places to eat (El Trópico, El Ranchón, El Mojito and the pizzeria El Pronto), three bars and meeting rooms. A kitchen earns its keep here, because it turns a shortage of one ingredient into an inconvenience rather than a night without dinner. Reservations on (+53 7) 797 1315.
Blau Arenal Habana Beach (Santa María) is the one internationally managed property on the strip, all-inclusive at roughly $90–160 per person per night, with tennis, a sports court, a games room and kayaks. Recommend it without apology to anyone who wants power, water and food to stop being a daily negotiation; that is what the premium buys. Excursions and massages cost extra. Book direct on (+53) 7 796 3700 or [email protected].
Further east, past the end of the strip proper, Memories Jibacoa (east along the coast road) is for readers who want the beach to be the holiday rather than the day out. Blue Diamond-run and consistently well reviewed through 2026, with four restaurants, five bars, a nightclub, volleyball and basketball courts and one of the better buffets in Cuba. Roughly $110–200 per person per night all-inclusive, and it runs its own guided full-day coach excursions into the city at around $60 a head, which solves the transport question from the other direction.
The practical end
Getting there. The Transtur T3 from Parque Central is the simplest option: about 500 CUP or €5 return, every forty minutes, straight to Santa María. The #A82 guagua costs a fraction of that and runs all the way to Guanabo, but it is crowded, slow and not built for luggage or coolers. A taxi from Habana Vieja is a negotiation: agree the fare before you get in, and either agree the return separately or fix a pickup time, because finding a car back from the beach at sunset is harder than finding one out. If you are driving, it is the tunnel then the Vía Blanca, a straightforward half-hour.
Cash. Bring it, in small denominations, and bring more than you think you need. Loungers, ranchón lunches, beach vendors and most paladares are cash businesses, and card acceptance out here is unreliable at best and non-existent on the sand. Euros and dollars are widely taken at the hotels and at some restaurants, but you want CUP for anything costing less than a meal. There is no dependable ATM on the strip, so sort money in the city before you leave.
Timing. Weekdays are calmer everywhere. Weekends belong to the city and are more fun for it, but go early and leave before the last bus. The water is warm year-round; heat peaks from July to September, and the wet season brings afternoon downpours that usually clear inside an hour. In winter the occasional norte, a cold front that brings wind and churned-up water, can flatten the strip for a day or two, so if your dates fall in January or February, keep the beach day flexible rather than pinning it to one.
Budget. A day done properly, bus both ways, a lounger and parasol, lunch and a couple of drinks, lands somewhere around 1,500–2,500 CUP a person. A night on the strip ranges from about $25 in a Guanabo casa to $160 a head all-inclusive, with the self-catering apartments sitting in the middle. Bring water. Bring a mask if Bacuranao is on the list. And go on a Tuesday if you possibly can.
