If You're Interested

I've had several people ask how Forrest & I traveled to Cuba via Mexico.  

I expect travel to and fro Cuba to open up soon, but in the mean time, if you're interest, here's what we did below.

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Steps we took to get to Havana from Houston:

1) Booked flight from Houston to Cancun; (make sure to have US dollars; they are accepted in Mexico & Cuba; US credit cards are NOT accepted in Cuba)

2) Got Mexican Pesos from ATM & purchased tickets to Havana at the counter, along with a visa; I've attached the card of the guy who walked us thru the process

3) Two flights/day from Cancun to Havana - one in the morning & the other in the afternoon

4)  If you had to stay in Cancun, there is a hotel at the airport

5)  Flight from Cancun to Havana is about an hour

6)  Passport Control took a while when we landed

7)  We were told there were no hotel rooms available, but it was clear they were trying to get folks to rent rooms (Cuba's version of AirBnB)

8) First hotel we stayed in was a dump, but it was a block away from a great one, so we walked our bags over and checked in to that one the next day; The name of it is the HOTEL HABANA LIBRA. It's surprisingly not rated that high, but it was a really nice place.  Great location!  http://www.hotelhabanalibre.com/en/

9)  We hired a cab driver to give us a tour, but there were tour buses (Hop on Hop off available, too)

10)  Interestingly, there were no clocks around and we didn't realize Cuba is on East Coast time.  Thankfully, we were plenty early for our return flight or we would have been up a creek

Here's hoping you'll consider taking the plunge before Americans show up in droves and there's a Starbucks on every corner.  

Happy travels!