Views from the Meliá Cohiba hotel

With the United States having recently mended their broken relationship, it seems like everyone is traveling to Cuba this year from the Kardashians to Jay-Z & Beyoncé, and even the latest installment of the Fast & the Furious phenomenon was filmed there. Now I would like to point out that Cuba has been on my mom and I’s travel bucket list way before it became a trend this year. My grandpa and grandma lived there for a couple of months with my mom when she was two and then my mom went back on a education trip during her junior year of college. So naturally, my mom wanted me to experience the history rich country for myself. Although I’ve been back from my travels for a good week now, I don’t know if it was the nostalgia from riding in the old cars, seeing the buildings, walking along the malecón, or a combination of all 3, but being in Cuba had a way of making me feel like I was getting to experience the Latin American 50’s for myself even though I was born 50 years later. But it’s not just this country’s pause in time that has made it a top tourist attraction in recent years; it’s the names of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara that bring attention to the Caribbean country. My mom and I happened to be there on “26 de Julio” which happens to be the official day that the Cuban Revolution started in 1953 and continued on until January 1^st, 1959. No matter what your views are on the Cuban Revolution, we can all agree that it brought on not only major changes to the country but to the world. It impacted Cuba’s relations with the U.S. and helped influence revolutions soon after in other parts of the world including Argentina.

With that being said, in case any of my readers are contemplating planning a trip to Cuba soon, or coincidentally getting ready to go on one, I thought I would include some travel must dos. My mom and I were in Cuba for 5 days, we decided to rent an apartment off of air b&b which turned out to be very beneficial because it happened to be next to a park with Wi-Fi. (There are only certain areas in Cuba where you can access Wi-Fi and you need to pay for it.) We didn’t rent a car so a lot of what we saw was done walking, taking taxis, and taking the Habana Bus Tour, which I HIGHLY recommend doing. For about $10 per person, you can take a red double decker tour bus similar to those in London and see Old Havana and Vedado, seeing all of the popular attractions and monuments like Plaza de la Revolución, Hotel Nacional, the Jose Marti monument, Cementerio Cristobal Colon, and more. The convenient thing about the bus tour is that you can get off at any of the attractions and then catch the next bus when you’re ready to leave. It was a great way to see some of the most important aspects of the city.

Hotel Nacional

The best ice cream I had on the trip was by far at Coppelia Park which I highly recommend!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was going to Museo de la Revolución because that is where we really got to learn more about the revolution, what the impact of it was and how it helped the people of Cuba.

I think what always strikes me the most about whenever I travel is how nice the locals are. They always have a sense of pride for where they come from, are highly friendly, and all lives matter to them no matter what your race is. U.S. take notes. So whether or not you’re planning on visiting Cuba soon, it won’t hurt you to read up on the history of this beautiful country and remember that not everything was once as media driven as it is now.