NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: CUBA

Comprehensive Guide to Country of Charm, Romance and Contradictions

Washington—Cuba, one of the most engaging and exhilarating destinations in the Western Hemisphere, is the subject of the latest guide in the acclaimed National Geographic Traveler series.

Despite U.S. travel restrictions to the island since Fidel Castro seized power in 1963, it is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination, with some 170,000 Americans visiting Cuba last year (about 30,000 illegally).

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: CUBA (National Geographic Books, ISBN 0-7922-6931-4, February 2003, $22.95), by renowned Cuba expert and travel writer Christopher Baker, offers an in-depth look at the people, history, culture and myriad sights, sounds and flavors of this sensuous tropical isle.

Billed by Baker as captivating, romantic and saucy, filled with mystery and contradictions, Cuba thrills visitors with its complexities and perplexing duality, its lilting serenity, its delicious rums and rhythms, and its peoples' vivacity and easy spontaneity. Tourism is booming, and while most visitors come from Canada and Europe, Americans are especially welcome and are hailed as long-lost friends.

In NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: CUBA, Baker begins his guide of the island in its history-steeped capital, Havana, "erstwhile sultry seductress of the Caribbean," with its colonial fortresses and cathedrals, cigar factories, museum dedicated to the revolution and bars haunted by Ernest Hemingway's ghost.

Then it's on to the Far West's Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve and the cave-studded Parque Nacional la Güira; to the Northwest, home for a time to revolutionary hero Che Guevara; and to the Southwest, where Trinidad, a time-warp colonial town named as a UNESCO World Heritage site, is situated. The guide continues to central Cuba, home to the island's most spectacular beaches and resorts, then to the eastern side of the country, where visitors can hike to Fidel Castro's guerrilla headquarters or visit the historic city of Santiago de Cuba, "cradle of the revolution," and ends with a chapter on the Archipiélago de los Canarreos, a string of tiny isles stretching across the underbelly of western Cuba.

Among the guide's special features are mapped walking tours of the heart of old Havana, colonial Trinidad and Santiago de Cuba; a mapped driving tour along the breathtaking north coast; 3D illustrations of colonial architecture and coral reefs; and detailed sidebars on history, culture and historical life, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, cigar making, baseball fever and the Tropicana nightclub.

The guide includes 18 detailed, full-color maps, more than 180 color photographs and in-depth descriptions of hundreds of sites. A Travelwise section lists pre-trip planning information, tips on getting around Cuba, etiquette and local customs, banking and shopping hours, medical facilities, a selection of hotels and restaurants, recommended places to buy cigars, rum, arts, crafts, antiques and other goods, and a guide to entertainment and activities on the island.

In the introduction, Baker provides an overview of Cuba today, insights into the Cuban character, living conditions, government and politics, as well as a discussion of Cuba's history and culture, food and drink, land and landscape, arts and architecture.

Baker is the author of several guidebooks and the award-winning "Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling through Castro's Cuba," from National Geographic Adventure Press.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: SAN DIEGO (National Geographic Books, ISBN 0-7922-6933-0, February 2003, $22.95), is also being published next month, bringing the total number of books in this internationally acclaimed guidebook series to 37. Titles are available in 13 languages.

Contact: Alison Reeves
+1 202 857 7793
areeves@ngs.org