What the recent Cuba news means for travelers

With the recent thawing of America-Cuba relations, Cuba could be the new beach destination for Americans. It is the largest island in the Caribbean and one with breathtaking scenery. However, the travel ban is still not completely lifted.

|
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa/File
Tourists rest and listen to a Cuban musician sitting on the wall of the Malecon in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Dec. 19, 2014. After a half-century of Cold War acrimony, the United States and Cuba abruptly moved on Wednesday to restore diplomatic relations, a historic shift that could revitalize the flow of money and people across the narrow waters that separate the two nations.

With the recent news that US and Cuban relations will begin to normalize going forward with the prisoner swap, my first thought as a travel writer is: when's the first plane to Cuba?

According to Quartz, we Americans are already traveling to Cuba: over 98,000 in 2012 alone.  While this isn't close to the number of tourists that hop aboard a cruise ship in Miami each year, since 2011 Cuban-Americans and a select number of travel agents have been able to travel to the Caribbean island.  And, the island saw about 2.8 million visitors from the world in 2010 (more than Costa Rica).

This recent news does not automatically lift the ban for Americans looking for a new beach destination in Cuba – there are a number of bureaucratic steps that need to happen before there are direct flights from the States.  Instead, it gets us a big step closer.  According to an AP article today, Carnival Cruise's CEO says that Cuba is an "exciting opportunity."  Since it is the largest island in the Caribbean, new to most cruisers, it should be.  Cruise lines have resorted to creating their own ports, like private islands in the Bahamas or beaches in Haiti, in order to entice visitors with a new destination.  This is an entirely new island!

Airlines like American already fly to Cuba, in the form of chartered flights for sanctioned visitors (mostly academics, Cuban-Americans, and cultural visitors, like Jay-Z).

However, until the travel ban is completely lifted, get this:  as a visitor starting today, you can now bring up to $400 in Cuban goods back to you, including $100 in alcohol and tobacco products. No doubt, more Cuban cigars will be hitting American shores soon.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What the recent Cuba news means for travelers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2014/1222/What-the-recent-Cuba-news-means-for-travelers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe