Jose... I have a serious question for you. I was shocked to find out my step son-in-law's mother a citizen of Canada can visit Cuba any time she wants. Could you or I go to Canada and then fly to Havana??? Or is it that no US citizens are allowed to go to Cuba?? Or can we go and I just don't realize it?
Bob: It is illegal for any U.S. citizen to travel to Cuba; you have to apply to the State Dept. for special permission if you want to go there and they usually would grant you one if you're a journalist, professor doing some research or scholarly work, etc., or if you are a Cuban-American with relatives there like yours truly. Now if you are an American citizen and you still want to visit Cuba, it is very easy to do. First you go to a country that has normal relations with Cuba ( Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Dominican Rep. European country, etc.) and you book a flight from that country; when you get to Cuba and they see you are an American, then they do NOT stamp your passport on purpose. You then fly back to the country you originally went to Cuba from and then the USA. Now comes the "tricky" part: when you finally come back to the USA and fill out that form they give you when you travel abroad, you put all the countries you visited EXCEPT Cuba of course and since your passport doesn't have any thing that says you were there, no one finds out. Now if you do decide to go there in the near future, you owe me some Cuban cigars or you could wait till I go there some day, hopefully not in the too distant future, and invite you to go there and spent some days together.