Cuba Travel 101: Should We Still Visit Cuba, Why or Why Not
By SE Lewinski
HAVANA TIMES – A recent Cuban national visiting family via Panama noted very few Cuban passports going through immigration, and the foreigner line was predominant. However, they spent thirty minutes in a “Welcome Back to Cuba Interrogation” with a total luggage dump and repetitive questions before being released.
My friends always ask me, “Should we visit Cuba?” That is like giving financial advice; if things go wrong, people get upset and disgruntled. So, to be fair, I will provide the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for whoever may take my advice as a world traveler and attempt to be unbiased (okay, maybe not hahaha!).
THE GOOD
Traveling to Cuba depends on where you’re coming from for accommodations. US citizens are not allowed to stay in government hotels or resorts on the island so they revert to private homes or apartments. Many Cuban entrepreneurs have their homes and apartments available for foreigners, leading to positive experiences. Travelers are encouraged to support the local people by bringing their tourist dollars coming to the island. These individuals struggle to maintain their property and are very diligent in taking care of their customers.
“Deborah’s apartment is modern, well-designed, and clean. The apartment has two air conditioners that you can control. We had no problems” Cassandra October 2024
“Amazing place to stay and explore the Vedado area of Havana. Close to restaurants and entertainment. Had all of the amenities I needed.” Troy September 2024
As for transportation, the equivalent Uber is La Nave a mobile application that connects passengers and drivers in Cuba 24 hours, whatever your destination. Just be careful, you can be taken on a joy ride to increase the payment. La Nave is not like Uber where you pay upfront, you pay cash after being delivered. Of course, you will need a SIM card for the island and can pay and pick up a prepaid one at the airport (need an unlocked phone).
Viazul is a country-wide bus system and can order tickets online (highly recommended). I have used Viazul to transit from Havana to Varadero, rather than a taxi or private car. Zero issues, just be aware gasoline availability can impact the schedule for buses.
Now a secret on how to get to the beaches east of Havana. Nice tourist buses leave from Parque Central in Old Havana. Make sure you ask where the beach pick-up return is because it’s not the same as drop-off. Also, keep your ticket; it allows a return at no extra charge. Just be aware the locals know about this transit and will line up way earlier than the foreigners to get on the bus. Side note, toilets are essentially non-existent on Cuban public beaches, except you know where.
Now, if you want a great nighttime experience, visit Fabrica de Art Cubano. It’s one of the most unique, fun, and unbelievable venues in Cuba. It’s a location with art, bars, dancing, drama, etc. I would say one of the most amazing places to match anywhere in the world! I was surprised the government would allow it in Cuba, but this is part of the tourist propaganda that feeds cash flow. Plus, it’s very upscale for those who may have elitist status on the island.
Overall, many “Good” places to visit and leisure opportunities in Cuba. However, planning and research are very important before undertaking an expedition to the island. Essentially, enjoy Cuba but don’t do anything stupid, and keep the fun clean and respectful on the island.
THE BAD
The problem with travel is that it’s always the bad that remains in one’s head no matter how many good things occur. These bad things influence the justification of airline tickets and the consumption of hard-earned holiday time. Let’s face it, returning with a few Cuban photos to share on social media may not be worth the thousands of dollars spent.
Stories to share for the continuation of the “Bad.”
Baracoa Expedition: Based on the word of local Cubans a cool place with magnificent beaches to visit. To get there was first finding a driver crazy enough to transit from Holguin on a 5-hour trip with large sections of dirt roads. Once arriving in Baracoa, I found a rural town with very little infrastructure. But, I did make it to one of the beaches and it was nice, but truthfully not worth the car trip. A few days later back in Holguin sick from probably some contamination in the beach water. However, I had the golden opportunity to visit Lenin Hospital.
Entering, there must have been 100 people waiting for medical care. I was taken to the front of the line because I had prepaid medical insurance on my airline ticket (required by Cuba, and of course milked for government revenue). I received an x-ray, but didn’t allow the doctors to draw blood or other diagnostics. I had a nasal infection so I was provided a prescription for antibiotics. My fondest memory of Lenin Hospital was my Cuban associate telling me, “DON’T touch or lean on the walls.” The hospital was dirtier than a truck stop restrooms back home. In retrospect, I still haven’t forgiven the local Cubans who recommended Baracoa.
Interrogation Adventure: Being interrogated twice at the airport was interesting. First time this tall guy walks up to me and pulls me aside. He had a Chicago Bulls t-shirt which was his undercover uniform. The key when traveling are documents, where you’re staying, and remaining calm. Show no fear since that feeds the animal instincts of the interrogators. I answered all his questions, knowing he probably knew the answers ahead of time.
The second interrogation I got a shakedown of my entire luggage and this antiquated body scan where I needed to spin around, not where the machine spins instead. Of course, multiple stories of bringing items for Cubans and dealing with the customs interrogation attempting to be positioned for payment even on totally stupid things. I remember one tourist lost his drone and I thought, are you nuts bringing it to Cuba? He asked what his chances of recovering the drone were, and I said, zero, since some government kid probably has it by now.
Luggage Insanity: Lesson learned when you travel into Cuba during the holidays, the Cubans can fill up the entire airplane cargo hold area. In my case, my checked-in luggage (all stuff for Cubans) did not make the flight. Rule 101 on international travel, always take a photo of your luggage before handing it off. Two days later I recovered the luggage and had this amazing experience of being allowed into this multi-room storage location with lost or late luggage. What I saw was the insanity of the baggage left behind, for whatever reasons. There must have been at least 2000 plus pieces of luggage. I was instructed to go look for my own luggage and then return to check it out and of course, attempt to charge a customs fee. I still have nightmares of the images of all that luggage in bondage at the airport! Yes, I did recover my checked-in luggage and got past customs minus a fee.
Hostage Situation: One of my favorite stories to deal with was staying at a private apartment that had multiple issues including no WiFi, no water, and electricity turned off multiple times in the middle of the hot summer for air-conditioning. The owner blamed me for breaking the WiFi since I moved the router when water came pouring from a crack they had to route the cable from outside. When checking out of the place, I replaced the water and some other drinks and was told that was against the apartment policy. I was told to pay them money and they locked the exit gate so I could not leave the apartment. I needed to leave for the airport and found myself in a difficult tourist hostage situation. I finally conceded and paid, but in turn, got a refund later from the rental entity for being held against my will.
I think the four examples of the “Bad” are fine for what to expect in Cuba. Don’t travel to the island unless you have the patience to deal with the chaos. I have viewed the deer in headlights tourists who are stunned as if hit by a car on how to deal with the crazy stuff. There is always a solution to the inevitable, just have cash on hand and avoid arguments because Cubans don’t back down and will always win!
THE UGLY
Now for a taste of the “Ugly”, and it pains me to provide but the reality is the island is hidden in tourist propaganda and influence to move money into the government’s economy. If I were to scale Good, Bad, and Ugly the ratio would be 20:30:50 as a percentage for travel to Cuba. The ugly pains my heart and soul and all comes down to it’s easy for me to leave the island but the people left behind have to continue their existence in hell every day.
The reality as voiced by Evan Dyer (CBS News), “Canadian tourism sustains Cuba’s army and one-party state. Beach resorts popular with Canadians fuel exploitation and repression.”
Concern with how tourist dollars have been voiced by Cubans in my presence living off the island. Or may I say sort of a scolding why visit Cuba? This included a plane trip where one passenger stated, “You are taking food out of the mouths of Cubans since all the good food goes to the government businesses.” The same with a casual encounter with a Cuban lady at Walmart scolding me for traveling to Cuba, she said, “You need to stop going there.” Of course, she also colorfully scolded the government for around 10 minutes while standing in the detergent section of Walmart.
For the voice of the local island Cubans, I asked the following question: “As a Cuban would you recommend travel to the island?”
“Hell no, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to come to this s-hole place, with everything overcharged due to the lack of supplies. Better travel to the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, or Mexico. In Cuba, the only places worth visiting are the northern keys, and I’m not even mentioning the power blackouts.” Anonymous #1
“The foreigner who wants to see a country in misery where people do not know if they will eat tomorrow or if they will have electricity or water for their basic needs…while luxurious hotels and resorts show a life that is far from reality, they can come anyway. They are going to enjoy what Cubans can only dream of.” Anonymous #2
“The island is #&$*, whoever wants to come here to be without electricity and misery that exists because not even the hotels offer decent services to people.” Anonymous #3
As for the general “Ugly” experiences in Cuba, the list would require another article of contents and truthfully it’s somewhat dreary to express. Besides the rubbish in the streets with no gasoline for garbage trucks to pick up, regular electrical blackouts, and paralysis of the government to respond to a decaying country, it’s not getting any better for tourist travel.
My financial advice for travel to Cuba. One trip is adequate for the experience, but please bring things for Cubans even if it’s randomly handed out on the street. Avoid government businesses (hotels, bars, etc.) and provide your patronage currency to the local entrepreneurial people, and be blessed you have a passport to leave the island!
I would like to meet and better yet, travel alongside any of the people who commented that Cuba is a beautiful and wonderful place. Where else have they traveled? Sure, the Cuban countryside is beautiful but isn’t the countryside in most places beautiful? Did these people visit La Habana? Piles of garbage in the streets half a block long! Yes, the Cuban people are nice…to tourists! They see a Canadian or a German or an Italian and what do they really see? $$$! People all over the Caribbean are nice people. So are the Dutch and the South Koreans. The only EXCEPTIONAL thing about Cubans is nearly everyone can dance salsa. Cuban rum and Cuban cigars are generally good but so is Dominican rum and cigars. I would really like to know what exactly these people who love Cuba so much are really talking about. Am I missing something?
The logic “don’t do anything to support the Cuban communist government” simply hurts Cuban people 3 times more than it hurts the Cuban government. So does the economic embargo. It has not been able to bring down the communist regime for the past 60 years. So the real victims of the political/economic war that American government has raised against Cuban government for the past 60 years are Cuban people.
The first time I went to Cuba was 2007. Daughter and I had a great time and felt safe. We didn’t stay in the resort the whole time and met some of the locals. The second time was in 2012 with friends. Things had improved quite a bit over those 5 years. The local people I spoke to said they had more food and products available and more selection. However, when I went in 2024, I couldn’t believe the terrible changes Covid and hurricanes had done to Cardenas and Varadero area. My friend from Canada moved there a few years ago and I went to visit him. I knew to bring clothes and other items for the people. Some clothes I wore but didn’t bring back. I am going again in 2025 and bringing another suitcase or two full of items. If you travel there, buy a cheap suitcase from Value Village or Goodwill and leave it behind with the stuff you bring. Less baggage fees on return trip.
The “GOOD” section should most definitely include all of the incredible music and dancing in Cuba which are unparalleled in the world. For someone who is interested in either or both, I don’t think there is a comparable place where there is good quality live music in the parks and streets, restaurants, and low cost music/dance venues.
Every body loves Cuba the people are the best.
Don’t expect Florida
Do expect polite people great vegetables chicken and pork.
Great beaches.
We went to many countries in Carribian,but Cuba is the best!!Very safe,very friendly, hospitable people, great service ,beautiful beaches ,and much cheaper prices!!Cuba is the best !!
Paul writes: “As hard as it may seem we need to stay away.”
With that statement are you not contradicting yourself. You just explained how your Cuban friend went back to Cuba to help his diabetic mother. He did a very humane and honourable thing. He is to be commended. The fact is he went back to Cuba to provide much needed help – despite the harrowing hardships.
How about all those other visitors/tourists to Cuba who want to go back and visit their family and friends. Many visiting foreigners have made lasting friendships with Cuban families throughout the years. Now they see the dire economic circumstances their Cuban friends are in, and like your Cuban friend, they want to personally help.
Your Cuban friend brought down the medication appropriate for his mother’s illness. Great. Other visitors may go down and bring other types of perhaps generic medications or other basic essentials. That is also a great contribution. They may feel a sense of humanity in helping those in desperate need – a win – win outcome.
If you now suggest that visitors stay away from Cuba, what does that do to all those suffering Cuban mothers, fathers, children who so desperately need of assistance. Are Cubans now simply just abandoned? Your solution, I am afraid lends itself to that outcome. That would be a tragedy.
Paul asserts: “As tourists we have to realize that vacationing there is just proping up current govt . . . “. You are correct in that statement. Tourists going to Cuba are in fact putting tourist dollars into the Cuban communist government’s coffers. So what do we do?: Cut our noses off to spite our faces? No. That is no solution.
One solution is to do exactly what your Cuban friend did. Bring life saving medication directly to another Cuban living on the island and then finding alternative ways to enhance that commendable act. Unfortunately, the “smuggling” solution into another country may not work and he may have to continue visiting his mother personally.
Like so many other Cuban visitors many are caught in a dire dilemma. Abandoning Cuban friends and family is easily contemplated sitting in a comfortable living room chair outside the island, As hard as it seems for some visitors to Cuba, they will not stay away.The decision to go for some is first and foremost for family and friends desperately in need of outside help.
Above, Paul wrote “………He just went back to help his mother who is sick with diabetes. As a diabetic myself I scrambled everything I could to send with him including insulin. He was able to get it into the country to his mother. And we are now trying to figure out how to smuggle into the country on a regular basis to help her………”
I can help with that. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].
Cuba is very safe ,beautiful and friendly country.. love ❤️ Cuba ❤️
Greatest from Serbia
We have a friend who is Cuban born and just recently returned to Cuba. He didn’t last a week. He just went back to help his mother who is sick with diabetes. As a diabetic myself I scrambled everything I could to send with him including insulin. He was able to get it into the country to his mother. And we are now trying to figure out how to smuggle into the country on a regular basis to help her. He left because the living conditions were just unbearable. Sad state. Govt should be ashamed of itself. Communism is a sham. Heartless. As tourists we have to realize that vacationing there is just proping up current govt and nothing will change until it falls. As hard as it may seem we need to stay away.
I’ve been going for many years an had I kept believing everything you hear I probably would still be going to Vegas. Our first trip to the island was to a cheap resort in Varadero. We went because it was 1g for 2 all inclusive. We fell in love with it. The beach is so beautiful. From the feeling of stepping back in time to wonderful people we have met. Some we now call family. If it wasn’t for us visiting some of the gifts we bring would be impossible to find or very expensive. We’ve been just after a hurricane an also after Covid. Maybe growing up on a northern reservation made me more resilient. I honestly feel more home in Cuba than in Canada.
Go an have a great trip, bring stuff you take for granted as gifts. I like to tip the gardeners or give some random lady with kids a $20 in a town. It’s not much but they may eat better that week.
Help out with monetary gifts if you can. They never ask for much.
To me from the article, the two most prominent pieces of salient advice for visiting tourists are:
“ . . . please bring things for Cubans even if it’s randomly handed out on the street.”
And, “ . . . provide your patronage currency to the local entrepreneurial people. . . “
SE Lewinski provides a well rounded timely description of the immense misery in Cuba today. In this totalitarian, dictatorial dichotomy of a country there are two classes of Cubans. Those, very few, with money and means and those, the majority, without.
Visitors to hotels and resorts will intermingle with privileged Cubans, the former. Those lucky enough to be employed in these tourist havens earn a salary with perks like much needed monetary tips. Their privileged job necessitates them to constantly smile and pretend everything is fine in make believe “paradise “. To say or appear indignant about any island negativities to a tourist is the metaphorical kiss of death – fired.
Visitors to “casas particular” see and experience the reality of how the majority of Cubans cope with day to day misery. As the article clearly points out there are regular blackouts, lack of essentials like medications, filthy streets strewn with rat infested garbage, lack of transportation, and the maladies go on and on.
Despite the decades of disastrous hardships, many visitors return because of friendships formed over the years. To some going back to Cuba to visit friends is worth all the potential hardships they may encounter and perhaps have to endure.
This is where bringing down much needed basics to poverty stricken Cubans is so appreciated by them plus a huge humane gesture on the part of the donor. To those visitors who choose to spend their vacation in a “casa particular”, the Cuban entrepreneurial owner is, without a doubt, exceedingly grateful.
To me, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly can be interpreted this way from a tourist’s perspective: Good, those who visit and contribute in some small way to the betterment of the many poverty stricken; Bad, those who visit and know the misery they are witnessing yet return home having contributed absolutely zero; Ugly, those who visit expecting and insisting on better tourist treatment having no compassion for the abundance of abounding misfortune.
I was born in Baracoa Cuba in 1962 and our family left in 1968. It pains me to hear your story especially your trip to Baracoa. But the truth is the truth, I visited the island back in 1995 to see what little family i had left in the island. The Russian had just stopped providing support and Cuba called it “SPECIAL PERIOD” do to lack of pretty much everything. However it got even worse thereafter and even worse during and after COVID hit. The Cuban people are resilient and innovative to survive in what was once a paradise now a prison island, much like Alcatraz in CA. In my opinion Cuba is in desperate need of another FREEDOM REVOLUTION to remove its current dictatorship regime and align itself with the U.S.just like Puerto Rico.
I hope that the new US president, Trump, will lift the blockade from the island. He will have to.
Any people in the gov in Canada and travel agencies are now saying to avoid Cuba since Sept of 2024 you said the way things are. Cuba in my opinion is more expensive and dangerous than many other places and will be for the next year or more because of shortages and a broken system. Thanks you honestly in your review.