As we've mentioned before, most Americans can't legally visit Cuba, but it looks like the rest of the world is having a hell of a holiday down there without us. The communist Caribbean island recently welcomed its two millionth visitor for 2008, marking the fastest it has reached that annual milestone in four years. As the AP reports, Fidel and Raśl didn't single out one passenger in particular for the honor of being number two million. Instead, the Cubans threw parties for passengers arriving at international airports in Havana, Santiago, and Varadero on Friday, November 14, plying them with boozy mojitos and salsa music. We don't dig the Castro regime's heavy-handed treatment of its political adversaries, but who doesn't love a good rum cocktail! The 10.7 percent surge in international visitors is especially impressive considering that the island got rocked by three hurricanes this year and the global economy absconded with everybody's money. To the rest of the world, all I can say is enjoy your Cuban vacations, and maybe we'll be joining you some time in the no so distant future.

[Photo: usacubatravel.com]

Related Stories:
· Cuba Throws Party For 2 Millionth Visitor [msnbc.com]
· Cuba Travel Coverage [Jaunted]]]> Victor Ozols 2008-11-15T12:17:03-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/10/24/155117/10

This November 4 is about more than just deciding between McCain and Obama. Other issues that directly affect travelers are up for decision, and this week we're taking a closer look at some of them.

Early in the Democratic primaries, Sen. Christopher Dodd, a returned Peace Corps volunteer, talked up the fact that all the American embargo on Cuba seems to accomplish is getting presidential candidates those 27 electoral votes in the swing state of Florida. We haven't heard much about Cuba policy ever since everyone's money evaporated, but there remain differences between the two possible presidents on whether or not the US should ease its embargo.

Barack Obama brought up the "pander to Cubans in Florida" aspect of campaigning when he spoke in Miami back in May. Before that, he stated that his administration would hold a "series of meetings with low-level diplomats" in Cuba. On the travel tip, though, Obama's policy isn't encouraging to would-be tourists from the US who want to obey the law. His stance on Cuba:

In the case of Cuba, [he and Biden] will empower our best ambassadors of freedom by allowing unlimited Cuban-American family travel and remittances to the island. Using aggressive and principled bilateral diplomacy he will also send an important message: If a post-Fidel government takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with freeing all political prisoners, the US is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades.

As Americans, we can't really travel to Cuba legally, so until the economic embargo is lifted, we'll have to experience the country through the eyes of others. As crummy as that is for the avid Yankee traveler, at least there are a few inspiring films out there that seem to provide a vivid glimpse into the northern Caribbean socialist republic. One of the most interesting of the bunch is a 1964 film entitled I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba), a Soviet/Cuban production depicting the dramatic events of the 1959 revolution.

While their approach to government might elicit a few sharp opinions here and there, there's no question that they knew how to make an inspiring, engaging motion picture. The above clip (if the quality is too lousy, try this one) uses long tracking shots for an zoomy overview of a bourgeois, pre-Fidel era pool party, a farmer burning a sugar cane field, and an austere procession that culminates in the release of a white dove. For a variety of complicated reasons, the movie was a flop in Cuba and the USSR when it came out, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, American directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola became so taken by it that they supported a remastered release. It's hard to watch this clip and not feel transported to Havana for one minute and forty-seven seconds.

Related Stories:
· I Am Cuba [Bright Lights Film Journal]
· Cuba Travel Coverage [Jaunted]]]> Victor Ozols 2008-10-19T11:57:17-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/7/21/112527/358

While the rest of the world enjoys famous golf courses and lovely beaches, most Americans are stuck dreaming of the day they'll be able to visit Cuba legally. We met a couple a few weeks back that made their illegal trip to Havana via a stop in the Bahamas, but Windsor, Ontario hopes to become the gateway to the forbidden island.

Starting December 18, Sunwing Airlines, which is like the Allegiant Air of Canada, will offer flights to Varadero, Cuba from Windsor Airport, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Detroit. And the airport manager is rolling out the welcome mat for Cuba-bound Americans:

On average, about 50 percent or more of passengers flying to Cuba from Canada are from the US. Given our unique geographic position near Metro Detroit, we're expecting at least that.

Another option will soon be Sunwing service out of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, just north of Michigan's UP. Of course, these new flights just add to Sunwing's existing Cuba route network, though they do make it even easier for Americans to skirt Treasury Department rules.

Related Stories:
· Boarding Soon: Cuba Flights from Windsor [Detroit News, via]
· Travel Ban Not Stopping Cuba Tourists [Jaunted]
· Cuba Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: hellosputnik]]]> pbb 2008-07-21T11:30:20-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/5/23/155922/374

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain has been stumping around America, and lately he's been slamming Barack Obama for his position on Cuba. (You'll remember that the Illinois senator wants to ease travel restrictions to the island.)

Hoping to set the record straight, Obama delivered a speech today to the Cuban American National Foundation:

Every four years, [politicians] come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington and nothing changes in Cuba. That's what John McCain did the other day.

Obama then laid out his plan for dealing with the island, which isn't exactly what those of us who'd like to visit legally were hoping to hear:

I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island ... [but] I will maintain the embargo.

Sounds like we'll be keeping our golf clubs in storage no matter who wins in November.

Related Stories:
· Obama Pledges New Approach to Latin America [Bloomberg]
· Barack Obama coverage [Jaunted]
· 2008 Candidates Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Obama '08]]]> pbb 2008-05-23T16:15:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/2/25/14138/8159

So Americans may be playing less golf, but that doesn't mean it's not a big, ahem, driver of tourism. And now that Fidel's on the way out--and Raul's in charge--at least a dozen golf-and-resort projects are underway around Cuba.

Seems the reason golf never caught on was Castro's taste in sports, though he did once play a game with Che Guevara, above:

Mr. Castro built a state-sponsored sports machine that produced world-famous boxers and baseball players, killer volleyball spikers and fleet-footed runners. But Mr. Castro was never keen on golfers, whose sport reeked of money and Yankee imperialism.

Today, there's only one nine-hole course in the capital, simply called the Havana Golf Club. Thanks to a pricey greens fee of 20 Cuban convertible pesos ($18) it draws more tourists than locals, and soccer great Diego Maradona has been spotted on the links. Also worth a trip is Varadero beach, where one 18-hole course is already open, and another resort is in the works.

Related Stories:
· Hooking Left: Cuba Tees Up Golf's Revival [WSJ]
· Castro Resignation Travel: Can We Go to Cuba Yet? [Jaunted]
· Travel Ban Not Stopping Cuba Tourists [Jaunted]

[Photo: Alberto Korda]]]> pbb 2008-02-25T14:05:51-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/2/19/91054/4818

Fidel Castro announced overnight that he'd be stepping down as president of Cuba. After taking power in 1959, he's been the only leader the island has known and a continuous scourge to American presidents from Kennedy to Bush 2. Fidel's 76-year-old brother Raul will almost certainly take over the presidency.

That said, don't start planning your Cuban beach getaway just yet. (If you're American, that is.) President Bush, on a trip to Rwanda, isn't even pretending to be excited by this move:

Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections--and I mean free, and I mean fair--not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy.

We'll put away the sunscreen for now. Even American presidential contender Barack Obama, who's said he wants to change policy toward the island, won't go so far as to end the embargo. Fidel's resignation, then, has us wondering what comes not next week but in the next few years.

Will a cascade of power swaps destabilize Cuba, making it unappealing to even European tourists? Or will the nation finally welcome US tourists, who'll be gagging to make the short hop south from Miami to enjoy the once-forbidden island? And maybe more importantly than can we go, when will we be able to visit legally?

Related Stories:
· Fidel Castro Resigns as Cuba's President [AP, via Miami Herald]
· Is the Embargo Hurting the United States, Too? [Jaunted]
· Travel Ban Not Stopping Cuba Tourists [Jaunted]
· Can US Citizens Travel to Cuba? [Jaunted]

[Photo: jim snapper]]]> pbb 2008-02-19T09:15:02-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/