As the title to the thread implies, I'm trying to pick out a Spring vacation site for Laura and I this upcoming year and we'd both really like to visit Cuba. Since the US has a trade embargo with Cuba, I've been researching the legality of US citizen travel to Cuba. From what I gather, it is not illegal for a US citizen to travel to Cuba, but it is illegal to spend any money there. There are also specific licenses that you can apply for to visit and in which you get some kind of daily expense budget, but I doubt I'd qualify for any of these as it's completely a tourist trip. Since Laura is not a US citizen, I figured that we would just go with the "she paid for everything" angle on my spending money there - buy the tickets with our Mexican account (in her name) and do everything in cash. So have any US citizens here done this? If so did you have any problems upon re-entry to the US? What can I expect as far as questions go upon re-entry and will my "Mexican significant other paid for everything" tact cause any issues? Many thanks Edit: No plans to bring anything from Cuba back to the States (maybe back to Mexico though.) I also have no Desire to try and get around passport stamps/perjure myself on the re-entry card for places visited...which sadly seems pretty common from what I'm reading on the net.
TRUE CONFESSIONS TIME Or, hit any FDIC insured banks, trafficked in women, or run large quantities of cocaine into the U.S.? (Might as well be thorough, Coby!) :lol: ________________ www.cubatravelusa.com/ Contains a pretty easily followed presentation, with the legal issues involved clearly in mind. Generally speaking, any attempt to be innovative, in matters of the law, carries with it greater risk than that associated with the tried and true. _________________ I'm reminded of a time I brought an exotic carpet into the U.S. I didn't know what it was worth, so I put down what we'd paid for it- $100 over the allowed, duty free amount. When the customs agent saw my customs declaration, he blew a gasket, and said, "Now, why'd you have to go and do that?" He was upset because they were going to have to do all the paperwork necessary to collect a customs duty, for the very tiny amount of tax involved. He took his pen, scratched through the amounts I'd written on the form, and changing it to read a sum below the duty free amount. Then, he thrust the form back at me and said, "Now, just get out of here!" Somehow I expect the people working in passport control at the U.S. borders also have a "list of things they'd rather just not hear."
Re: TRUE CONFESSIONS TIME I already know how to do all that Yeah, I visited that site. The thing is, they make the case slightly ambiguous by very explicitly saying that American passports are no longer stamped and then go on to say they recommend being truthful although most people aren't. And then offers lots of praise for said people for exercising their freedom to travel... The numbers for the lawyers is nice though If I can't do it without being honest then I won't. I don't mind being hassled by immigration, and it sounds like on this you are just rolling the dice and it depends which officer you get. That's one reason I love re-entering in Memphis -- the most lax US customs and immigrations I've ever dealt with, every single time. It definitely seems like just rolling the dice on whether you can expect problems, and then having some good numbers handy and not saying anything incriminating. At this point it's pretty much Desire to go versus Desire to live a risk-free, potentially boring life Ok, that's extreme, but I'm leaning towards going. And if you didn't know, there are some ridiculously good deals to Cuba from travel agents here. The package we looked at was $400 per person for the roundtrip flight and 5 nights at a nice hotel.
Like many things, if you have to ask others if it is ok, you probably shouldn't do it. You can still get in serious trouble if you are an honest person.
As my friend Cheap Tom always says, "It is usually easier to ask for foregiveness, rather than permission." That said, I would be willing to give it a try. What I have heard from Americans traveling there, they buy a trip/tour from Cancun, that is pretty much all inclusive. That way, they have the majority of their costs paid before they arrive in Cuba. They take pesos to convert to Cuban (Tourist) Dollars, which I understand Cuban citizens are not allowed to possess.
That's intentional, Coby. It's their attempt to avoid telling people, directly, to break the law; but, arguably, their business depends on people being willing to do, just that. You may be obsessing over this too much: tens of thousands of Americans visit every year, having gone through the process you're going through. (How many more might have gone, having decided not to, after giving it some thought, is anybody's guess.) It wouldn't surprise me to find many Americans are living and working there, and have been, for years, just as there was in China. I suspect if I spent enough time there, I'd find some of them.
Yes, I'm probably looking into it with more skepticism than is necessary. I suppose it helps that I'm not a terrorist...at least to my knowledge The thing about Americans who may be living in Cuba -- sounds like to me that they are effectively giving up their right to live [freely] in the US. I can see a weekend getaway not turning any heads, but I imagine it'd be hard not to break the law being there for months or years. @TJ -- Yes, the package we looked at was AI. So for Laura and I roundtrip airfare from CUN and 5 AI nights in Cuba for $800 is a downright steal in my opinion. Visiting Cuba from Mexico is far more plausible than directly from the US, so to me it seems a slight travesty to not take advantage of the opportunity. Of course, if I'm not around the forum after my next trip to the US post-Cuba, I think you all can presume the outcome
MIGRATORY IMPULSE I've met plenty of Americans, living abroad, who were happy where they were. Human beings have always been great travelers, and possessed of a migratory impulse, to some degree. I met surprising numbers of Americans living in China who had been there for decades: they were almost as old as I am, and had gone there before China opened up, drawn by the excitement of being somewhere really different and finding themselves captured by the life- oddly appealing, in spite of (or perhaps, because of) the hardships, now rapidly fading. Frankly, being in a country very different from your own can be a somewhat bracing experience, and add interest to life. For me, the challenge to enjoying Mexico is how much it's just like "back home," as I'm from Texas, and you can find plenty of neighborhoods in towns I lived in that look just like Cancun Centro- the buildings, signing, people on the streets, restaurants, etc. The taxi drivers like to joke with me about this, with them telling me I'm from "Viejo Mexico". In turn, I've taken to telling them, when they ask me, that I'm from, "la frontera," without specifying which side of the frontera. And, so it goes....
EMBARGO Coby, I wonder if it isn't time to lift the restrictions on travel to that famous island, completely. ____________________ I can't see much purpose that it serves, at this point. It failed, if it's primary objective was to force Castro from power; he's still there, now a senior politician in the Latin world, as a consequence of living so long. He still enjoys an occasional rant about the U.S., but then, so do many other people! Cuba, historically, was an extremely important part of Hispaniola; and, I've read, one of the most popular destinations for tourists from the U.S., during the Batista era. Castro prevailing in the revolution and riding on the back of a tank in the streets of Havana, to cheering crowds, is the first international event of which I was personally aware, as a child. Amazing that he's still there, after all these years, in spite of everything. I hear that Havana is crumbling, and the country generally, very poor. There is some reason to believe that the embargo has been effective in this degree, if the goal was the impoverishment of the country. Some would say that the reason that the country is poor is that it's communist, but the economic success of China in the last two decades- and, more recently, Vietnam- belies that. It seems a good time to start letting people like Coby enjoy a holiday without having all this anxiety about it....
Coby, In what city are you considering staying? A couple of years ago I was in a Terminal 2 restroom and saw a Cuban travel guide on the floor. I snapped it up and have it on a shelf in my closet. Not sure if it is Lonely Planet or Fodor's or Peoples Choice Guide, but it is of that variety. I better pull it out and take a look at it.
