Travel To Cuba: It's Complicated

Above, a Havana flea market/bazaar. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It is still possible for American to travel to Cuba, but there's many rules and restrictions that have to be sorted out.

The Los Angeles Times posted and article on traveling to Cuba, which I found interesting since I visited Havana in April, before travel got clamped down in June. I had never been to a communist country before and thought a trip there would be educational. And it was.

Here's a snippet:

The numbers of foreign visitors had been growing every year, boosting Cuba’s economy even before President Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, Cuba’s head of state, restored diplomatic relations in 2015. 

In June, President Trump clamped down, canceling the loose “people-to-people” category of U.S.-sanctioned group travel to Cuba. 

For Cuba travel to be “sanctioned” by the U.S. government, the money that individual American travelers spend here must benefit ordinary Cubans, not fall into the hands of the Cuban government. Rules for organized groups are different but now Americans traveling individually are supposed to stay in private homes, eat in privately owned restaurants, called paladares, and shop in privately owned stores.

Above, yours truly and Mitch Geriminsky upon arrival at a Havana Port terminal.

To read more, go here.