CUBA TRAVEL TIPS | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN TRAVELING TO CUBA FROM THE UNITED STATES

hey everyone welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is summer today I brought back my brother once again we're gonna be doing a fun little video for you guys it's gonna be all the tips you need to know if you are planning on traveling to Cuba so we have 12 very important tips actually we also put them in order from most important to least important but they're really all important so let's get into the video if you haven't already make sure you subscribe and like this video and let's jump right in alright hot tip number one you need need need to have a visa to travel into Cuba so the best way to do this is to stop somewhere out of the country along the way so we were traveling from California and we stopped in Panama before we got to Cuba and Panama is where we bought our visa so I say this because if you stop somewhere along the way rather than traveling direct your visa is gonna be a lot cheaper so we got ours for 20 dollars when we stopped in Panama but if you fly direct from Miami or wherever else there's direct flights you are going to have to pay for visa once you get in Cuba and it's usually around a hundred dollars we paid twenty four hours because we bought in a different country and also I check to see if it's included in your flight some airlines will include it some well ours was not so you have to make sure you buy your visa if it's not included in the purchase price of your airline ticket you have to buy it at the last airport you're at before you enter Cuba exactly and we flew Copa Airlines and it was not included I'm not sure which airlines do include it and do not include it tip number two hot tip so in order to travel to Cuba you have to have health insurance it's a short term health insurance plan just for your vacation or your business or whatever you're doing to go over there now they say it's absolutely mandatory and you have to bite before you enter Cuba but they didn't even check to see if we had it so Alliance travel insurance calm alliance with a Z at the end instead of a CES Z Alliance travel insurance calm and buy the cheapest plan you can we bought two for fifty dollars 25 each I believe and so it's super cheap and didn't even check so but they say it's mandatory they wouldn't even let us go on the plane we were literally the last ones to board our plane at LAX because they said it was mandatory to get into Cuba but nobody ever checks for it so just buy it ahead of time because everyone else seemed to have it and you don't have to worry about it once you get there check to see if it's included in your air for as well because some of them are alright hot tip number three a screenshot all your important documents stuff that you looked up before you went to Cuba before you actually get there because once you get there Internet is super hard to find which we'll be talking about in a little bit but for example if you have Airbnb reservations make sure you a screenshot those before you get there your travel insurance that we just mentioned make sure you screenshot it before you get there anything else you can think of pictures of places you want to go any type of reservations for hotels or for excursions or anything that you absolutely want because we would pictures we would find on Instagram or online we would just have to show people like where is this but we didn't have access to internet so we wouldn't be able to pull up so just trying shot everything that's important to you before you go that way you have it all you can even put in a separate folder in your photo albums on your phone if you want to makes it a lot easier so just screenshot everything that's important hot tip number four absolute lifesaver go to the App Store download maps dot me it's an absolute must we both used it every minute of every day that we were in Cuba and which viewers are gonna go to Maps me you're gonna download the entire country it's a map of the entire country and it downloads it onto your phone is where it's saved so you don't need internet access to now access the map and it'll show you everything from restaurants to places to go it'll even route maps for you to see how to get places in directions and hotels and monuments and everything you need is on maps dot the other cool thing is that you can leave a review or you can see other people's reviews so some things don't have a review but then others will say oh eight point six or nine point three or whatever so you can actually see comments that other people have left about places you're interested in going so it's exactly like your Maps on your iPhone but you can use it there with no internet whatsoever so definitely saved us yeah huge huge because a lot of times we would tell people where we wanted to go taxi drivers for example and they would have no idea I mean would show them the map is exactly where we want to go we would have it routed out and everything and then they would know where to take us another important thing to download is a Spanish dictionary so people actually spoke a lot more English than we thought they were there we thought it they would speak basically none but it's important to have this just for like the small world words that you don't remember and just to help to try to kind of form sentences you can't actually translate whole phrases or sentences when you're offline but it will break it apart word by word because it's already saved in the dictionary so you can kind of still put it together just by looking up words and whatnot so that was a huge help because a lot of times we would you know want to communicate with people but we would forget things like how to say waterfall for example you know we wanted to go to a waterfall and so Toa and we looked up how to say it which was what ll cascade yeah and also direction is to give a driver to like here there left next to all that right all right hot tip number five before you go make sure you convert your money this is if you live in the u.s. it is different obviously for people from here apart Canada because they have different currency make sure if you are an American you convert your currency either to Euro or to Canadian before you get there we did it to Canadian just because we did all the conversion rates and we thought that that was the best conversion rate going from u.s. to Canadian to Cu P which is what they call it there you don't want to keep your money in actual US dollars because they do charge I think it was like a 10% fee or something to change your money once you get there so definitely make sure you have it in either Euro or Canadian ahead of time before you get there and then as soon as you get off the plane in the airport there are little kiosks that you can go to and then you couldn't convert your money right there no problem I don't even think there was a fee and we got our money with no problems and if you need to in town you can also convert at local banks just look it up on maps me see if there's a bank round if you get into a pinch like we did I had to go to a bank to convert some extra money so that's also an option tip number six okay this is an absolute must and it's also a lifesaver this is good even hey like tip number why it could be okay take baby wipes and hand sign it sanitizer with you wherever you go every day of the trip you can bring baby wipes with you I encourage to do it on the plane not gonna be able to find you there so have to take them with you and your luggage as well as those small sanitizer bottles to use with your hands take them everywhere because there is no toilet paper in any of the public restrooms in Cuba there's rarely any soap and there's usually not any toilet seats so it's pretty disgusting and so carry on all your excursions everywhere you go walking whatever baby wipes hand sanitizer yes so we bought the baby wipes ahead of time just you know a normal baby like pack and then obviously those things are really big and we didn't want to take the whole thing with us wherever we went so I just brought a resealable bag of Ziploc bag it's fine too and we just put a few in for the day and then that's what we took with us everywhere we went and I cannot stress to you how much this save does especially me because with the food that you eat there and the ice and stuff it can really affect you know your insides and cause a lot of bowel movements so you want to make sure that you have that and of course like he said hand sanitizer none of the women's restrooms ever had so finally said that the men's did but mine ever did so Hannah wherever you go I would also carry tums with you throughout the entire trip too just in case you do get upset stomach it'll come in handy yeah absolutely tums our pepto-bismol whatever helps you bring that for your tummy problem number seven we know all of you guys are wondering about it how is the Wi-Fi there how do you get service there well we're going to tell you exactly how so what you have to do is buy these little vouchers I'll put a picture of it and the side of the screen they are from this place called a Tesco I think that's how you depicts Texa adoration for the telecommunications of Cuba or something right so locals go there as well as tourists locals it's kind of like their local phone service and for tourists that is the only place in Cuba you can go to buy Wi-Fi cards so all they sell are our Wi-Fi vouchers and you can buy them for one cook which is also equal to one u.s. dollar which i think is a pretty good deal and we got one for each of us each day we were there so we're six days we ended up spending twelve dollars or twelve cook on these and that is like I said the only place you can get it the only bummer is there's only specific areas you can use these Wi-Fi vouchers so when we were in Varadero beach there was a little bar like a block from us that also had a teske Wi-Fi available there so we would go there every night to use our Wi-Fi voucher other than that there was nowhere near us there and then in Havana we had a hotel a couple blocks from us that you could go do where you could use the voucher or a park so almost every night we were in Havana I think I said one night we were literally in a random Park at 10:00 p.m. at night in the dark using our Wi-Fi voucher because that was the only place you can use it and another side note when you are using these vouchers in places like bars or hotels they charge a ridiculous amount for the drinks it's not even worth it because we spent one night ten dollars and drinks and we paid two dollars for the Wi-Fi vouchers because each drink was five dollars or five so definitely go to a park if you can we didn't mind it was pretty nice out for the most part so that's what you have to do step one go to the ax Texas shop buy the voucher buy them all at once all that all at once you're gonna have to wait line there's always a live line well good morning that's step two is you take those vouchers and then you have to go find a Wi-Fi spot to use Wi-Fi so there's two separate things you got to do there yes and like we said there's always a line and it takes forever because they let like two or three people in at a time so go in the morning I think we went it like 10:00 one morning and there was nobody there was perfect perfect so we bought all of our vouchers there sometimes they sell them at the bars or hotels too but they charge of extra dollars so you can go there for convenience but you're gonna pay more tip number eight that taxis in Cuba are through the roof expensive okay and we had to trial and error throughout our whole trip to find out what a taxi should cost taxis are super expensive we spent like $900 on the trip total between the two of us and $250 of that were just on taxis alone so invalid Oh Beach we rode in a convertible we buy a couple other taxi rides and we spent like $37 $40 a day and it was ridiculous and then so what you have to do is you really have to bargain hard so we found out that the sweet spot is about $2 a mile especially in Havana that's what we need $2 a mile and we had to pass up three or four taxis just to find one that would take us for that rate but we were only about 2 to 3 miles outside of Old Havana and taxis kept wanting to charge $10 $10 and l5 and we finally find five and what we found is that the older cars with the older drivers for the cheapest I'll put a little picture here so they're like old we were Entomology see calls of Russian cars and their old Russian cars but their taxis with older drivers and those are the ones that were super cheap and then another tip on top of that is if you do a day trip to Vinny Alice and so Noah hire a taxi driver to be with you all day and if you do it through the horseback riding trip that we booked it'll be a hundred and twenty dollars and the guy all arranged that for you which is a super cheap deal and he took us everywhere we wanted to go and he was with us the whole day for one hundred and twenty dollars and usually the going rate for pinatas a full day just to have a taxi driver with you and stay there is 140 or 150 so we got such a steal so you just want to make sure you know what the going rate is so that you're not overpaying also you'll see these little yellow cards which we called egg cars and they also want to rip you off they want to charge as much as the classic cars which is ridiculous because you're sitting outside in this little egg car so definitely bargain hard with them as well and the ridiculous thing is that these cars are driving around no matter what if they don't even have people in there but they'd rather drive around with no one in them and make people pay more than just give a good deal and have people actually in their car making them money and they don't really care so if you don't mind take those little Russian cars but obviously you want to ride in a convertible at least once or twice or do a tour in them and take some pictures that's probably your best bet yeah do a tour I think it's like 30 or 40 dollars for half an hour it's expensive but don't take it anywhere else because it'll be too expensive right okay hot tip number nine SL or just kind of like insight into what you should be spending on food while you're there so we found that the average rate for dishes with anywhere between five and seven seven is on the high end some would be anywhere from seven to eighteen we never got those ones on the eighteen scale but that was like Lobster and like lobster shrimp and chicken all combined but for a half chicken or a quarter chicken which you'll see everywhere you should not be paying more than five or six see you pee for those dishes and if a place is charging more than that then you know you're getting ripped off it's probably a tourist spot try to go places where the locals eat sometimes they'll even have the dishes in prices of CPM which is the local rate that's how you know you're at a locals place and you're getting a really great deal we found one locals place in Havana we ate there three nights in a row because we could get three huge dishes sometimes even for three beers four beers for around fifteen dollars or fifteen cook and that was because everything on the menu was in tup and that's how you know you're getting a good deal also drinks should be no more than three dollars you'll see them for 350 for 450 a lot of places but the average is three that's what you should be paying three or less actually because we found the great spot in Havana that was also seem to be a local spot but it was in cuc on the menu and their drinks were like 250 275 for a great pina colada amazing best one we've ever had or a mojito or anything like that so don't pay more than 3 or 350 for a drink that should be the max tip number 10 about half the restaurants we went to did not charge us tip included and the other half did so definitely check your bill to see if tip is included the going rate is about 10% so usually you'll see it on the menu it'll say it's probably somewhere small where you almost can't even read it but we looked at every single menu just to make sure and so about 50% like I said the tip was included so we didn't tip on top of it and another tip is if you have large bills which you will because you'll do your currency conversion pay with your large bills and get a lot of small ones in return because at first we were using all of our small bills because things are three dollars here $2 $1 buy souvenirs this and that and then we were stuck with a bunch of 50s and 20s and the restaurants and the places are going to tell you well do you have anything smaller it's like well no because everybody else wanted smaller bills I'm not a small bill so pay with your 50s and your 20s first as much as you can everywhere you go yeah then get all your small bills and just save them for when you want to bargain especially when you're buying souvenirs and gifts and stuff and then you can pay him straight that way they're not looking at you all weird when you paint right because you don't want to bargain with someone and say you get them down to six or seven for something and then you hand them a ten and ask for a change like I feel like that's a little rude so you definitely want to have smaller bills and they also have dollar coins as well keep those for as long as you can you know until you're ready to bargain or it gets to veneers at a lower price number 11 so we stayed at some great ear beam bees which I will link below I want to say the average was what did we pay a night forty to fifty forty to fifty these places were great the hosts were always super helpful and one thing that they do at the air B&B is they offer to cook you breakfast so the first place we went you know they took our order they would make us breakfast and then it was until the very end we found out when we were checking out that they charge for breakfast so the next place that we stayed which was in Havana we made sure to ask our Airbnb host do charge for breakfast if so what you charge the going rate is always 5 CU P which isn't bad because you see sorry you see a person yes per person and if you were to go to a restaurant it would probably come out to more than that plus tip so just make sure that you're asking before you agree to have them cook you breakfast but yeah it's more of a convenience thing anything else like you can't write ok you're not gonna pay more than less than five dollars anywhere else right and I mean at our second place we got oatmeal we got eggs we got fresh fruit we got smoothies we got a lot for five dollars each every day so tip number twelve bring extra cash you never know how much you're gonna need and how much you're gonna spend we spend so much the first few days we were literally skipping meals in Havana to save money and luckily had some extra Canadians and I had some extra US dollars I had to go to the bank do some exchanges but anyway bring more than you think you're gonna need you're gonna have a good time you're gonna want to do stuff we spent nine hundred dollars between the two of us in seven days so that's an indication one hundred hundred fifty dollars a day for two people and you should be good but always bring extra just in case because your cards don't work no cards no debit cards you can't go to the ATM machine it's either you bring the money or you're pretty much add a lot alright for today's video thank you so much for watching we hope these tips were helpful helpful for you if you plan on traveling to Cuba if you have any questions make sure you leave them in the comments below we'll be sure to get back to you I will also link everything that we mentioned down below our Airbnb czar excursions and everything else that we mentioned despite what people say Cuba is actually really really easy to get in and out of so if there's any false misconceptions out there go to Cuba you won't regret it you'll have tons of fun and it's very easy to travel into I don't think we mentioned that as well but I'm glad you threw that in it's very easy it's very safe despite what a lot of people may think so if you have any questions about that as well how hard it may have been for us to get in or how easy how easy make sure you just ask that in the comments below as well and I will get back to you Troy thank you so much for helping out this video if you haven't already make sure you check out our travel vlog to Cuba I will also link that down below and we will see you next time bye guys yeah

Channel: Summer Gravett

Views: 47,934

Keywords: summergravett, romina, cuba travel tips, cuba travel tips and advice, cuba, havana cuba, varadero beach cuba, traveling to cuba, things to know about cuba, kbmaria, tar mar, cuba travel advice, vinales valley, vinales valley cuba, varadero beach, saroa, saroa cuba, cuban food, CUBA VACATION TRAVEL GUIDE, americans traveling to cuba, traveling to cuba from the united states, travel guide to cuba untold tips, travel guide to cuba, HOW TO TRAVEL TO CUBA AS AN AMERICAN

Id: YqMKEqcsSh0

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019