For as long as I can remember, Cuba has been on my bucket list. There were talks about sneaking in from a gateway country but it was always too complicated or too expensive. When the announcement was made last fall that the US would start offering direct flights to Cuba I jumped for joy...then started planning. For everyone who has asked, here are the deets of my trip!
Getting There
Several major US airlines now offer direct flights to Cuba on a daily and/or weekly basis. I'm lucky enough to live in one of them, Houston, where United now offers weekly Saturday service to Havana. For a list of flights from the US as of April 2017, check out this site. Since United only offers flights to/from Cuba on Saturdays, we opted to fly back on American Airlines via a layover in Miami. My BFF and I were able to get both our tickets for both airlines with air miles so the total cost for airfare was just under $100 for the taxes!
Visa Process
A visa or tourist card is required to enter Cuba. Airlines who offer direct service to Cuba also offer visa services in the airport. For those who don't have time to get the visa in the airport or just want to get it ahead of time and have piece of mind, you can go to Cuba Travel Services to get your visa online for $85. At Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport, all passengers to Cuba are required to check in at a special counter where you can obtain your visa for $75. Each airline has a different process and a different fee for the visa so check with your airline directly with any questions about the visa.
Am I Allowed to Travel to Cuba?
According to the US government, travel to Cuba is permitted and does not require a special license as long as it falls under one of the 12 reasons covered by a general license:
1. Family visits;
2. Official business of the U.S. government, foreign
governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations;
3. Journalistic activity;
4. Professional research and professional meetings;
5. Educational activities;
6. Religious activities;
7. Public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other
competitions, and exhibitions;
8. Support for the Cuban people;
9. Humanitarian projects;
10. Activities of private foundations or research or educational
institutes;
11. Exportation, importation, or transmission of information or
informational materials;
12. Certain authorized export transactions.
Nowhere on the visa document does it ask you for your reason for travel. When we booked our flights, United did not ask us for our reason for travel but American Airlines did. At no point during our trip did anyone from either the Cuban or the US government ask what the purpose of our travel was. My best advice is to have a valid reason prepared, but don't be surprised if no one cares why you're there! For more info on the US travel requirements for Cuba you can visit the State Department site.
Travel Medical Insurance
Cuban law requires all foreign travelers to have travel medical insurance in place before entering the country. Do they enforce this law? Not so much. But it is something you need to be aware of prior to traveling to Cuba. We're rebels and we took the chance and it worked in our favor, but for those of you who would like to look into purchasing medical travel insurance, check out the US Department of State's website for a list of companies.
Gum, Anyone?
Something that consistently came up when researching my trip to Cuba was the idea that you should give gum or small toiletries out as a tip. Not wanting to be the "stupid Americans" who were just handing out random things, I asked our new friend Osmel what the deal was with the gum. The average Cuban wage was $25 per month in 2015. Cuba is also still very much a communist country and Cubans have limited or no access at all to things that we as Americans take for granted. Osmel explained that although they don't necessarily want gum, per se, they appreciate gifts like toiletries and gum because that's less they have to spend of their hard earned money (if they can even find those items). So feel free to hand out gum, toiletries, medications and other small items as tips and don't forget to give cash tips too!
Dolla Dolla Bills, Y'all
American credit and debit cards DO NOT work in Cuba. That's right. So Americans are required to use cash when traveling to Cuba, and you've got to have enough to cover your entire trip...because we're so good with cash, right? There are 2 currencies in Cuba. The CUC, or convertible peso, is the money that is used by tourists. The CUP, also called moneda nacional or MN is the money that is used by Cubans. The exchange rate for USD to CUC is essentially 1:1 but the Cuban government levies a 10% tax on USD and a 3% fee for all foreign exchange transactions. So for every $100 USD you exchange you will only receive $87 CUC. To avoid paying the 10% tax, you can exchange your USD to British Pounds or Euros before you go. Many US banks will exchange money for clients who have an account with them for free. Depending on your bank, some banks (Wells Fargo) have foreign currencies on hand immediately at certain locations. Others, like Chase, can get your requested foreign currency but they need at least 48 hours for turnaround time. At the airport, they were very happy to exchange USD for us but wouldn't touch the British Pounds we had and said we had to change them once we got into the city. If you do decide to exchange your money in the US first make sure you bring some American money with you for your cab fare from the airport!
Don't Drink the Water
I mean, you can if you want to but have a toilet nearby.
Arriving in Cuba
Getting your checked luggage in Havana is a circus so I'd advise you just to sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Until the embargo restrictions were loosened in 2016, Cubans were not allowed to return to Cuba to visit. Now that they are able to return to the motherland, they are bringing everything they can back to their family members still on the island. Literally, everything. We saw bicycles, car bumpers, huge packages filled with clothes, toiletries, and whatever else they were asked to bring riding around the luggage belt. Personal space is also a foreign concept in Cuba so what you get is 300 people crammed up to the luggage belt waiting anxiously for their stuff to come off the plane. And they will dive on top of you to get their packages off the belt. I'm also fairly certain that the unloading of the luggage from the plane is done by one person who has to walk the suitcases from the plane to the belt because we would only see a new bag on the belt about every 5 minutes. Seriously, just hang back and enjoy the people watching until the crowd thins enough to get to your bag.
Our First Night in Havana
After waiting an hour for our luggage, it was time to head to our hotel. We stayed in an area called Vedado which was right along the malecón (seawall for the non-spanish speakers). To my knowledge, Americans cannot book hotels in Cuba in advance (although I'm sure if you look hard enough on the web you can find info). I am fortunate to have access to be able to book rooms for myself because I am a travel agent, so for our Havana stay we chose the Meliá Cohiba. The hotel was beautiful...much more modern than we expected it to be. Although it's a ways from Old Havana, the hotel provides a free shuttle on a regular schedule throughout the day to bring you to/from Old Havana. We freshened up, grabbed a bite to eat near the hotel and headed over to the malecón to enjoy the sunset. After the sunset, we hopped on the shuttle to go check out the cañonazo ceremony at the Castillo de San Carlos de la Cabaña. The nightly ceremony is a theatrical show during which actors dressed in full 18th-century military regalia reenact the firing of a cannon (at 9pm on the dot) over Havana harbor – a ritual that used to signify the closing of the city gates. The tickets were $8 CUC per person and although it was crowded and we couldn't see the actual lighting of the cannon, the views of the Havana skyline at night were spectacular.
Old Car Tours
Anyone who knows anything about Cuba knows bout the classic cars, so of course taking a spin in one of those bad boys was tops on my list. In order to maximize our time we decided to do a tour of Havana in a classic car and we chose Old Car Tours because they had fantastic TripAdvisor reviews. After deciding on the 3 hour city tour we got to pick out the make, model and color of the car we wanted. I know nothing about classic cars so I winged it and ended up picking a pretty bad ass car, a cherry red 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe. Our car drew attention from other drivers and tourists everywhere we went! Our driver, Rodrigo and our guide, Patricia were fantastic and we learned a ton about classic car restoration, Cuban history and Cuba today. Havana is a very spread out city so I would highly recommend taking an old car tour to see all of the sights! I have Patricia's direct contact information and she is available for other tours besides old car tours so please contact me directly if you want her info!
La Habana Vieja (Old Havana)
After our tour we headed out to explore the sights of Old Havana. Havana is very large and it's not easy to navigate a foreign country when you don't have access to Google maps but the people are very friendly and will help you find your way. On our way to our first stop we were lucky enough to come across a street vendor selling homemade ice cream in a coconut shell. I had read about this ice cream on a blog and was super excited that we found it! I got tangerine-mango and BFF got coconut with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. It was AMAZING! If you're lucky enough to run into a vendor while you're in Havana, don't pass them up. Fat and happy, we made our way to El Floridita, one of Cuba's most famous bars. El Floridita is famous for 2 things...inventing the daiquiri and being one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite spots. It gets pretty crowded inside but it didn't take us long to move into a standing-room spot at the bar where we sipped our daiquiris while people-watching and enjoying the live music. After our drinks, it was time to find some real food. As we wandered down the streets we met a cute young man who convinced us to go eat at his mom's paladar. Paladares are restaurants that are not run by the government. They are typically small and may even be in someone's own home but they have much higher quality food than the government owned restaurants and you get the authentic Cuban experience. Our food was excellent and we got to eat it on a balcony overlooking the streets of Havana with a trio of musicians serenading us. Even fatter and happier now, we spent the rest of our afternoon exploring the city until it was time to catch the shuttle back to the hotel.
Adios, Havana...Hello, Varadero!
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a beach bum, so it's only right that a trip to the Caribbean include a beach! The problem is that Havana doesn't have any beaches within the city. The nearest beach is about 30 minutes away and with our trip being so short, we didn't want to waste an entire day traveling to/from the beach. Instead, we moved the party to Varadero for the last 2 days of our trip. Varadero is a lot like Cancun...it's a peninsula known for beautiful beaches and all-inclusive hotels. It consistently ranks as one of the best beaches in Cuba but it's not the authentic Cuban experience, so if you can't fit both into your trip I wouldn't pass up Havana for Varadero. I also saw Playa Jibacoa come up several times in my search for the best beach and it happens to be on the way from Havana to Varadero. Score! Our taxi ride to Varadero from Havana was $100 CUC (I think we could have bartered the price down but we were just ready to get there) and our taxi driver was nice enough to make the pit-stop in Jibacoa for a picture. There is also an airport (Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport) if you want to fly in or out of Varadero. We stayed at the Paradisus Princesa del Mar which is an adults-only all-inclusive resort. The service was great, the staff were friendly, there's nightly entertainment and most importantly, the drinks were cold and the beach was gorgeous.
And with that, our 5 day Cuban adventure was over. I absolutely loved Cuba and I would encourage anyone who loves the Caribbean culture and history to go visit before it changes too much. There's so much more I want to see and do there so I will definitely be going back!
Travel Medical Insurance
Cuban law requires all foreign travelers to have travel medical insurance in place before entering the country. Do they enforce this law? Not so much. But it is something you need to be aware of prior to traveling to Cuba. We're rebels and we took the chance and it worked in our favor, but for those of you who would like to look into purchasing medical travel insurance, check out the US Department of State's website for a list of companies.
Gum, Anyone?
Something that consistently came up when researching my trip to Cuba was the idea that you should give gum or small toiletries out as a tip. Not wanting to be the "stupid Americans" who were just handing out random things, I asked our new friend Osmel what the deal was with the gum. The average Cuban wage was $25 per month in 2015. Cuba is also still very much a communist country and Cubans have limited or no access at all to things that we as Americans take for granted. Osmel explained that although they don't necessarily want gum, per se, they appreciate gifts like toiletries and gum because that's less they have to spend of their hard earned money (if they can even find those items). So feel free to hand out gum, toiletries, medications and other small items as tips and don't forget to give cash tips too!
Dolla Dolla Bills, Y'all
American credit and debit cards DO NOT work in Cuba. That's right. So Americans are required to use cash when traveling to Cuba, and you've got to have enough to cover your entire trip...because we're so good with cash, right? There are 2 currencies in Cuba. The CUC, or convertible peso, is the money that is used by tourists. The CUP, also called moneda nacional or MN is the money that is used by Cubans. The exchange rate for USD to CUC is essentially 1:1 but the Cuban government levies a 10% tax on USD and a 3% fee for all foreign exchange transactions. So for every $100 USD you exchange you will only receive $87 CUC. To avoid paying the 10% tax, you can exchange your USD to British Pounds or Euros before you go. Many US banks will exchange money for clients who have an account with them for free. Depending on your bank, some banks (Wells Fargo) have foreign currencies on hand immediately at certain locations. Others, like Chase, can get your requested foreign currency but they need at least 48 hours for turnaround time. At the airport, they were very happy to exchange USD for us but wouldn't touch the British Pounds we had and said we had to change them once we got into the city. If you do decide to exchange your money in the US first make sure you bring some American money with you for your cab fare from the airport!
Don't Drink the Water
I mean, you can if you want to but have a toilet nearby.
Arriving in Cuba
Getting your checked luggage in Havana is a circus so I'd advise you just to sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Until the embargo restrictions were loosened in 2016, Cubans were not allowed to return to Cuba to visit. Now that they are able to return to the motherland, they are bringing everything they can back to their family members still on the island. Literally, everything. We saw bicycles, car bumpers, huge packages filled with clothes, toiletries, and whatever else they were asked to bring riding around the luggage belt. Personal space is also a foreign concept in Cuba so what you get is 300 people crammed up to the luggage belt waiting anxiously for their stuff to come off the plane. And they will dive on top of you to get their packages off the belt. I'm also fairly certain that the unloading of the luggage from the plane is done by one person who has to walk the suitcases from the plane to the belt because we would only see a new bag on the belt about every 5 minutes. Seriously, just hang back and enjoy the people watching until the crowd thins enough to get to your bag.
Our First Night in Havana
After waiting an hour for our luggage, it was time to head to our hotel. We stayed in an area called Vedado which was right along the malecón (seawall for the non-spanish speakers). To my knowledge, Americans cannot book hotels in Cuba in advance (although I'm sure if you look hard enough on the web you can find info). I am fortunate to have access to be able to book rooms for myself because I am a travel agent, so for our Havana stay we chose the Meliá Cohiba. The hotel was beautiful...much more modern than we expected it to be. Although it's a ways from Old Havana, the hotel provides a free shuttle on a regular schedule throughout the day to bring you to/from Old Havana. We freshened up, grabbed a bite to eat near the hotel and headed over to the malecón to enjoy the sunset. After the sunset, we hopped on the shuttle to go check out the cañonazo ceremony at the Castillo de San Carlos de la Cabaña. The nightly ceremony is a theatrical show during which actors dressed in full 18th-century military regalia reenact the firing of a cannon (at 9pm on the dot) over Havana harbor – a ritual that used to signify the closing of the city gates. The tickets were $8 CUC per person and although it was crowded and we couldn't see the actual lighting of the cannon, the views of the Havana skyline at night were spectacular.
Anyone who knows anything about Cuba knows bout the classic cars, so of course taking a spin in one of those bad boys was tops on my list. In order to maximize our time we decided to do a tour of Havana in a classic car and we chose Old Car Tours because they had fantastic TripAdvisor reviews. After deciding on the 3 hour city tour we got to pick out the make, model and color of the car we wanted. I know nothing about classic cars so I winged it and ended up picking a pretty bad ass car, a cherry red 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe. Our car drew attention from other drivers and tourists everywhere we went! Our driver, Rodrigo and our guide, Patricia were fantastic and we learned a ton about classic car restoration, Cuban history and Cuba today. Havana is a very spread out city so I would highly recommend taking an old car tour to see all of the sights! I have Patricia's direct contact information and she is available for other tours besides old car tours so please contact me directly if you want her info!
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| Parque Almendares |
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| Hasta la Victoria Siempre-Che Guevara |
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| Plaza de La Revolución |
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| El Capitolio |
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| Soviet missile from the Cuban Missile Crisis |
La Habana Vieja (Old Havana)
After our tour we headed out to explore the sights of Old Havana. Havana is very large and it's not easy to navigate a foreign country when you don't have access to Google maps but the people are very friendly and will help you find your way. On our way to our first stop we were lucky enough to come across a street vendor selling homemade ice cream in a coconut shell. I had read about this ice cream on a blog and was super excited that we found it! I got tangerine-mango and BFF got coconut with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. It was AMAZING! If you're lucky enough to run into a vendor while you're in Havana, don't pass them up. Fat and happy, we made our way to El Floridita, one of Cuba's most famous bars. El Floridita is famous for 2 things...inventing the daiquiri and being one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite spots. It gets pretty crowded inside but it didn't take us long to move into a standing-room spot at the bar where we sipped our daiquiris while people-watching and enjoying the live music. After our drinks, it was time to find some real food. As we wandered down the streets we met a cute young man who convinced us to go eat at his mom's paladar. Paladares are restaurants that are not run by the government. They are typically small and may even be in someone's own home but they have much higher quality food than the government owned restaurants and you get the authentic Cuban experience. Our food was excellent and we got to eat it on a balcony overlooking the streets of Havana with a trio of musicians serenading us. Even fatter and happier now, we spent the rest of our afternoon exploring the city until it was time to catch the shuttle back to the hotel.
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| La Bodeguita del Medio, another famous bar |
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| Dominoes on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon |
Adios, Havana...Hello, Varadero!
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a beach bum, so it's only right that a trip to the Caribbean include a beach! The problem is that Havana doesn't have any beaches within the city. The nearest beach is about 30 minutes away and with our trip being so short, we didn't want to waste an entire day traveling to/from the beach. Instead, we moved the party to Varadero for the last 2 days of our trip. Varadero is a lot like Cancun...it's a peninsula known for beautiful beaches and all-inclusive hotels. It consistently ranks as one of the best beaches in Cuba but it's not the authentic Cuban experience, so if you can't fit both into your trip I wouldn't pass up Havana for Varadero. I also saw Playa Jibacoa come up several times in my search for the best beach and it happens to be on the way from Havana to Varadero. Score! Our taxi ride to Varadero from Havana was $100 CUC (I think we could have bartered the price down but we were just ready to get there) and our taxi driver was nice enough to make the pit-stop in Jibacoa for a picture. There is also an airport (Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport) if you want to fly in or out of Varadero. We stayed at the Paradisus Princesa del Mar which is an adults-only all-inclusive resort. The service was great, the staff were friendly, there's nightly entertainment and most importantly, the drinks were cold and the beach was gorgeous.
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| Playa Jibacoa |
And with that, our 5 day Cuban adventure was over. I absolutely loved Cuba and I would encourage anyone who loves the Caribbean culture and history to go visit before it changes too much. There's so much more I want to see and do there so I will definitely be going back!
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