Cuba is one of my favorite places I have ever traveled, but I have never written about my 2008 trip… that is, until now.
You see, for the past 50 years, it has been illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba, except in rare circumstances. Finally, however, it looks as through the travel ban between Cuba and the U.S. will be lifted!
Once I saw the news that relations with Cuba were thawing, I immediately contacted my friend Oliver, with whom I’d taken that 2008 trip.
“Oliver!” I said, breathless. “Can I go through those 800 photos you took of our Cuba trip and edit the best ones? I want to publish them into articles!” (2008 was before I bought my first camera for the 2009 launch of this blog, so I always used to mooch off the photos of friends.) Oliver kindly agreed to contribute his pictures to the effort, and thus I spent the next seven hours getting these luscious photos ready to lure YOU to Cuba. Are they working yet?
The truth is that Cuba has haunted my mind with its beauty, joy, intellect, and sadness for the past six years. If you are on the fence about visiting this legendary island when the doors for travel open, I highly suggest you leap at the opportunity — and fast — before everything completely changes.
I am now in the process of dividing our edited Cuba photos into three articles which will be published this month. The second Cuba article will show Havana, and go more deeply into the politics of the country. It will also reveal the powerful confessions local people told about their lives.
The third article will focus on Viñales: one of the most uniquely beautiful towns on Earth. So, you may ask, what is the theme of this article? Here’s my answer: Trinidad, and beauty.
All of the photos in this article were taken during our stay in the glorious seaside town in the southwest of Cuba called Trinidad. The entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can see why: Charming cobblestone streets, brightly colored houses, mountains, creamy white clouds in a blue sky… and an out-of-this-world beach.
As you can see from the Trinidad beach photos throughout this article, Cuba has ridiculous beaches: white sand, azure sea (warm as a bathtub), and swaying green palms. Like most of Cuba, it also boasts historic colonial architecture dating back to 1514 when the town was settled by the Spanish.
Like every other town we visited in Cuba, the local people were friendly and fun. We kept in touch for years with locals we met in Trinidad, though it was difficult for them to obtain Internet access to write to us.
That said, the time to talk politics and logistics will come (in the next article, in fact), but for now, I just want to swim in the beauty of Trinidad with you for a little. Scroll through the rest of these Trinidad photos and feel what you feel!
So what do you think? Does Trinidad, Cuba seem like a place you’d like to go? Have YOU been to Cuba? Do share! More Cuba articles are coming very soon, so stay tuned.

The author, Lillie Marshall, is a 6-foot-tall National Board Certified Teacher of English, fitness fan, and mother of two who has been a public school educator since 2003. She launched Around the World “L” Travel and Life Blog in 2009, and over 4.2 million readers have now visited this site. Lillie also runs TeachingTraveling.com and DrawingsOf.com. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter, and follow @WorldLillie on social media!
Ray
Thursday 7th of April 2016
Trinidad is only about 2 hours south of Santa Clara where the Cuban Revolution was won on January 1, 1959. For one of the most significant places during the Cuban Revolution, Santa Clara is one of the most "non-touristy" places you can possible visit in Cuba at the moment. It is still worthy of a half day trip from Trinidad, though.
Aside from visiting Che Guevara's Mausoleum, there isn't much around in this town to see or do aside from people watch and really experience Cuban life as it is today. It will be really interesting to see how much this will change once American corporations are allowed to conduct business within Cuba and American tourists begin to flood in.
Lillie
Thursday 7th of April 2016
Great tips! Thank you!
Lotte
Tuesday 8th of December 2015
Awesome post! Thanks for showing me a piece of Cuba. It's on my bucket list!
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Thursday 10th of September 2015
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Molly @ Molly On the Move
Saturday 28th of February 2015
Those colors are so vivid! Not even just the manmade objects, but also the landscapes. Cuba's at the top of my travel bucket list :)
Sarah
Thursday 26th of February 2015
Awesome photos! Thanks for sharing! :)
Cheers,
Sarah