The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
THE CARIBBEAN
If most tourism in Jamaica understandably focuses on the island’s lovely beaches, it also underscores the capital’s ongoing status as the cradle for the Caribbean’s most distinctive genre. Bob Marley is hardly forgotten, but Kingston has also forged the careers of reggae giants from (sadly recently departed) Toots Hibbert to Chronixx, the latest bright young thing.
Key location: The Bob Marley Museum (bobmarleymuseum.com) remembers the king of reggae in the house where he lived, recorded and survived an assassination attempt in 1976. Essential track: Bob Marley: Could
You Be Loved (1980).
How to do it: Explore (01252 883747; explore.co.uk) offers a 10-day Explore Jamaica group tour that charts the island in depth, including Kingston. From £2,633 per person, with flights.
HAVANA
There is a certain amount of misconception about salsa, the genre that, though defiantly Cuban in soul – all infectious rhythm and brass flourishes – actually originated with the island diaspora in New York in the 1960s. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear it in Havana, where it shimmers alongside “son cubano”, the more restrained music of pre-revolutionary Cuba – as was notably revived in the 1990s by Buena Vista Social Club.
Key location:
Casa de la Musica, on Calle Galiano, where the dancing never stops.
Essential track: Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco: Saludo Celestial (1978).
How to do it: G Adventures (020 7313 6953; gadventures.com) offers a 16-day Salsa & Snorkelling group tour – aimed at 20-something travellers – which dives and dances in equal measure (including salsa lessons). From £1,104 per person ( flights not included).