The history of this small island or « Cayo » in Spanish is closely related to Cayo Largo, located south of the main island of Cuba. On November 4th, 2001, a terrible hurricane of level 4,  Michelle, hit directly Cayo Largo, and forces all accustomed tourists of this small paradise to find another sun destination (at least for the period of recovery which last several weeks to months depending of the hotels). However, where do we go?

Eureka! A new destination had just opened in Cuba, the first in the province of Villa Clara, Cayo Santa Maria, a small island of about thirteen kilometers located north of Cuba in the king’s gardens or « Jardines del Rey » in spanish. The long beach, facing north, is divided into few sections as the longest one is the hotel zone. We went there the first time, for a two week stay, from  January 13th to 27th, 2002. Though the first hotel opened its doors for Christmas 2001, but the destination was, in fact, ready for many months, but they do not want to rush it and rather wait to be truly ready. When there is only one hotel, you have one chance!

Since our first visit, we went back on several occasions. At its beginnings, this destination was really unique. Imagine! A small hotel of 300 rooms on kilometers of virgin beaches, the paradise! Those who did not return since that time will find the destination had changed, there are now four hotels, which occupy all the continuous section of the beach, which is about five kilometers long.

The origin of this website is a happy coincidence. Our friend Rigo (and his wife Tania) whom we had met on several occasions at Cayo Largo, works now as director of the reception of this new hotel Sol Cayo Santa Maria, the first on the island, administered by the Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá. Rigo knows very well the popularity of our site  cayolargo.net and then asks us nicely if it would be possible for us to create a website for this new destination to be known and we glady said… yes!

Many repeating and lovers of Cayo Largo decided to go to visit Cayo Santa Maria, this new intriguing destination of paradise beaches, considered affectionately as « the little sister of Cayo Largo » surely at its debut. Many people fell in love with this island and adopt this destination for their next trips or simply like alternative to Cayo Largo. Many Cayo Largo’s repeating guests are naturists so it became clearly Cayo Santa Maria would be a nice place to enjoyed swimming in the nude and relax on the beach to get the « Au Natural » suntan.

The only « official » naturist section is located at the western sector of the Sol Cayo Santa Maria hotel. To access the section, you take the last footbridge on the left (facing sea) near the restaurant-bar Los Flamencos which used to be called « La cabane a sucre » of Elie. Many people will remember this very animated time. Elie is no longer working at Cayo Santa Maria. He is now living in Canada. At the time we took many photos of the staff to build an album of  Cuban friends. This album (2002) is still available on our website.

Since 2001, new hotels opened their doors like the Meliá Cayo Santa Maria (2003), Meliá Las Dunas (2006) and very recently the Barceló Santa Maria (2008). In spite of this significant development, Cayo Santa Maria remains a charming island. The island is continuously in development and new hotels are under construction or will be built in the future.

Visit the new section of the Pueblo Cayo Santa Maria

As for Cayo Largo, there is a friendly cohabitation between naturists and non-naturists. Except for the Sol Cayo Santa Maria (western sector), there is no other identified area where you can be nude on the beach except, of course, isolated places, but as the hotels occupy all the main beach now, it is getting difficult to be isolated. Visit the  Naturism section of our site to know more about this subject..

We hope our dedicated website to Cayo Santa Maria will make you want to discover this island or to return. You are also invited to read and/or take part in the  discussion forum. Lily and I are the owners of the cayosantamaria.info domain name since 2002, and many more websites all related to travel. Visit the section  Our travel websites to discover all the places we visited and made websites.

Cayo Santa Maria is the exclusive property of the Cuban government. Administration contracts are allocated to foreign hotel chains like Meliá and recently Barceló.

Lily is a travel agent for Voyages Jean-Pierre for several years. She knows Cuba very well to have visited the island more than forty times. If you wish to discuss about travel packages to Cayo Santa Maria or any other destinations, to click  HERE to access the page.

This site and the previous  versions contains more than 800 pages and 2,000 photos and images. Click  HERE to discover the updates applied to the site. You may register to our mailing list by registering to by entering your first name and email in the fields on your right.

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