Havana

Havana operates on a rhythm set by scarcity and ingenuity — classic American cars from the 1950s run as shared taxis along the Malecón because newer imports never arrived, not because anyone curated a museum-piece aesthetic. The city's historic core, La Habana Vieja, is a UNESCO-listed grid of Baroque churches, colonnaded plazas, and crumbling mansions where colonial Spanish architecture survives in states ranging from meticulous restoration to dramatic ruin. Outside the tourist pocket, the economy runs on the CUP peso and the informal networks Cubans have built across six decades of embargo — a visitor who expects ATM reliability or consistent wi-fi will face repeated friction. The Malecón seawall is the city's social spine: fishermen, lovers, and domino players occupy its eight-kilometre stretch every evening regardless of weather, making it one of the most genuinely inhabited public waterfronts in the Americas.