PASSPORT: “How to visit Cuba: First, find your passport”, por Uri Friedman (Inglés)

The Washington Post reminds us this week that beginning on March 21, Island Travel & Tours will be operating direct charter flights from Baltimore's BWI Airport to Havana as part of the Obama administration's liberalization of travel to Cuba, which has been subject to a U.S. economic embargo for half a century (you can also take charter flights to the island from Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and a host of other U.S. cities). The president's efforts to increase "people-to-people" contact between the two countries represents a return to Clinton-era policies, after President Bush's tighter restrictions in 2003 caused the number of annual U.S. visitors to Cuba to drop precipitously from more than 200,000 to less than 50,000 in the space of a year.
Depending on which category you fall into, you may or may not need specific written permission from the Treasury Department to travel to Cuba. But the restrictions don't end once you've made it to the island. Travelers can spend no more than $179 per day on travel expenses that don't involve informational materials or activities for which they received a license to enter the country. They also can't purchase "services unrelated to travel or a licensed activity" -- which includes non-emergency medical services and, presumably, most souvenirs. What's more, U.S. credit cards don't work in Cuba because of the embargo. Taken as a whole, these restrictions often translate into itineraries stuffed with U.S. government-sanctioned activities around Havana and other locations such as Cienfuegos in the south.