When I heard rumors about Jay-Z and Beyonce heading to Cuba, I was feeling pretty confident about my trendy choice to go that way. But then I bagged Cuba, and booked a flight to Vienna, Austria, home of the Lipizzaner stallions and Wienerschnitzel.

It was three in the morning and I was somewhere in Camaguey province. Beyond the small spotlight in which I stood, the night was black.

I was in Havana, Cuba, with no visa and no permission from the U.S. government. It was just the way I wanted it.

As a travel writer specializing in Cuba, I often get asked about the best things to see and do. Here's my ideal two-week itinerary.

Costa Ricans refer to coffee as their "golden bean" because it has paid such high dividends to the local economy.

I wanted to find my bar. The bar that I would return to again and again; I would have a favorite drink; I would know the name of the barman; and every time I went, I would walk away with either interesting stories or interesting friends.

Fusterlandia is a definite must see on any sojourn to Havana. The Cuban artist has energized his community, inspiring them to create art on their own homes, and thus his vision has aesthetically inspired this part of Havana.

Eating a freshly made breakfast from antique porcelain plates beneath a teardrop chandelier in an old colonial house while being treated like an old family friend would be considered an experience possible in only hotels of the rarest kind. In Cuba, however, it's practically normal.

Detroit alone has been rejected by the International Olympic Committee a whopping seven times.

Here, there are no billboards. Instead, it's a constant interplay between state-sponsored murals and guerilla graffiti artists.

All I wanted was to tell my family that I hadn't passed out on the Cuban pavement in a rum stupor. I didn't know it was possible to run out of internet.