Travel Tips

Travel Tip: What Americans Should Keep in Mind Before Going to Cuba

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons User Mariordo

Everyone, it seems, is jockeying to jump on the Cuba travel bandwagon.

The U.S. and Cuba just concluded agreements to resume regularly scheduled airline service. Some cruise lines are also poised to go, most likely in May.

But before you leave, consider this: Just because most Americans have not traveled to Cuba in five decades doesn’t mean the rest of the world hasn’t been going.

There’s an infrastructure challenge in Cuba—not enough hotel rooms.

The 60,000 available rooms in the country are usually full of Europeans who have been going since the 1960s.

So if you want to be first on your block, you’d better be first, or be prepared for huge price surges.

Those aren’t just for hotel rooms, but for basic goods and services.

Imagine 6,000 passengers coming ashore from a cruise ship looking for the last three available cigars, or a bottle of Cuban rum.

My advice?

Try to go as soon as possible, or be prepared for at least two years of incredibly high prices until they can construct more rooms and increase production on those already pricey cigars.

For more information about how travel to Cuba has changed over the last few years, check out:

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