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A travel guide through the most idealized Caribbean island

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"Visiting other countries and peoples today has helped many to realize that we are truly one human family and that we have the potential of living together on earth in peace [source]."

Aside from experiencing a glimpse into a beautifully unique culture, visiting Cuba allows you the opportunity to practice responsible tourism and sustainable practices which, aside from minimizing negative social impacts, will generate greater economic benefits for locals. For me, this meant enjoying my travels on a much higher level.

One way we were responsible tourists was by making real connections with the locals, many of which found it hard to believe that we weren't Cuban. See, whenever we travel, my husband and I make it a goal to spend time with locals who share our faith. We include it in our itinerary to share meals with them, visit their places of worship, and engage in spiritual activities with them as we find that it strengthens our faith and we're able to build meaningful relationships with them. By doing this in Cuba, we made so many friends in every city we visited, and my only complaint is that keeping in touch will be so 90's which will make for delayed communication.

Here are my tips for "Responsible Tourism" in Cuba:

Frequently Asked Questions (by me to other Cubans)

What should I expect while in Cuba?

Glam travel has never appealed to me. Thankfully, because it's definitely not what Cuba has to offer. Sure, you can spend hundreds of dollars a night on an overpriced hotel with internet. However, it's definitely not worth it because once you step out of your hotel, you'll be hit with the reality that most places can't serve anything but pork or chicken, bottled water can be hard to come by, and you still need to bring your own toiletries no matter where you stay. By choosing to stay at a Casa Particular, not only are you helping out a Cuban family, but you're getting a much more authentic experience for half the price.

What about getting around?

If you know how to drive an automatic car, renting a car is not such a bad option. At first we were afraid because we didn't know how GPS systems would work, etc. But of all the countries we've visited, driving here seems the safest.

There are taxis for hire, always look for the license plate marked with a T for tourism. These cars have been registered and found to be safe, and the taxi drivers are held accountable for their treatment and exchanges with tourists. It's technically illegal for anyone else to drive you around.

Once we were in the center of Viñales or Havana, getting around was fairly easy on foot, horseback, bike, and bici-taxis.

Regardless of which transportation option you use, install the MAPS.ME app and be sure to download the Cuba map before arriving to the island. Once there, the app works perfectly well offline with your location

What about the visa for Americans and the required medical insurance?

We filed for our visa with Airline Brokers two weeks prior to traveling. We filed as "Support for Cuban People" and to be honest it's not as much of an issue as we thought it might be. As for the medical insurance, which is included in the airfare, you're given a document to keep on you at all times, should you need medical care while you're there.

What should I take to Cuba?

I must admit, we were over-prepared for this trip. We packed light, to make more room for the food, medical items, etc. that we were taking some of the local families. However, I was still able to pack all of the following items which made my life so much easier in Cuba.

Where should I go in Cuba?

Here's our itinerary and interactive map.

Viñales Valley 3-4 days

Parque Nacional Valle del Silencio, hay una notable 'playita' y Casa del Café

Canopy/Zip Line

Cueva del Indio

Mural de la Prehistoria

Mirador Los Jazmines

Rio La Jagua, Ranchón el Rio

Havana 3-4 days

Old Havana

Bars: La Bodeguita del Medio, El Floridita, Havana Club

Parque Central

Capitolio

Historic Hotels

Plazas (so many Plazas)

Malecon

Los Marinos

Barrio Chino

El Vedado

Beaches

Varadero Beach 1-2 days

Stay tuned for my next post: "Lessons I Learned in Cuba"

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7 Tips for Responsible Tourism in Cuba - A Girl in her Thirties

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"Visiting other countries and peoples today has helped many to realize that we are truly one human family and that we have the potential of living together on earth in peace [source]."

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Machanized farming
highest literacy rates
locals swelling
shipping in slaves
carving it up
plots
doomed
hurtling
eradicated
glimpse

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(ICEBREAKING AND PREPARING FOR LEARNING: Welcome to the CLIL unit, What’s CLIL?, Sharing learning outcomes with students, Padlet as transversal task, Glossary
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxdxRz6HbwRadTNEbUg4bWRNYUU/view?usp=sharing

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After reading the document on responsible tourism I found this very interesting phrase: "In recent times, mainly thanks to the World Cup and the Olympic Games, the eyes of the world have been firmly trained on Rio de Janeiro. But there was plenty that the city wanted to hide from the world’s gaze – namely, the drugs gang-ruled favelas that cover the city’s dramatic hillsides. These strangely picturesque slums often lie just a few hundred metres from Rio’s most exclusive districts and beaches.

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After the work about responsible tourism in Brazil, I found out how much is important to be "responsible" before, during and after a journey.
This image is a way to promote this behavior.

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Hello, we are Valentina Rocco, Oksana Makar, Caterina Gazzillo e Francesco Fusco, our Group is called "New Age Travels" and we are students from five years of institute Terra di Lavoro. Our future plan is to visit all the most beautiful places in the world, respecting the environment and culture of these places. In order to realize this project we must be able to speak English, now spoken all over the worls. We had the opportunity to participate in CLIL , that allows us to deepen English Language ant tourism geography, our address important subjects. We hope this project will help us to improve fluency and that will allow us to realize this project with excellent results.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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bulldozed
over-crowding
catalyst
inform
inspire
conserve
benefits
over development
pollution
visitors

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Hi, we are Maria Andreozzi (18 years old), Vincenza Esposito (18 years old) and Valeria Esposito (18 years old). Our travel agency is called “Travel with us”. We are attending the fifth years of tourism course at “ISISS Terra di Lavoro” high school. We love travelling and our dream is to visit the most beautiful places of our five continents. We would like to know others cultures and traditions, different from ours. So to realize this, it is important to know the geography of different places and English, the most important language spoken in the world. We have the possibility to do the project “CLIL”. In  this way we can study geography in English. We hope that this experience will increase our knowledge in both subjects.

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We are Corona Gennaro, Faredo Valeria e Jelassi Miriam.Our agency we called Heaven & Earth Tour.We attend the institute Terra di Lavoro Caserta, Tourism Course.Our passion is to travel and we propose adventure destinations
So we had the possibility to experience the CLIL. There is no better chance to learn English and increase our knowledge about Tourism sector studying Geography in English. We hope that this project will stimulate our creativity and our passion for both subjects.

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Hi, we are Tonia Iovine, Lorena Corsale and Valentina Giordano we have 18 years and we attend the fitfh year at the Terra di Lavoro high school. Our Travel Agency/Group is called "Fog's travel"; our agency name is inspired by the protagonist of the film "il giro del mondo in 80 giorni" because we would like to visit the most beautiful places in the world. We need English for traveling and in fact our school gave us the opportunity to experience the CLIL, then we will study geography in English. A very useful opportunity. We hope that through this project we can improve our English language skills in order to improve our communication skills to be able to travel and to make ourselves understood by the locals.

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Hi, we are Giuseppina Falco (19 years old) and Rosa Falco (20 years old), our Travel Agency/Group is called "Falco's Travel" and we attend the fitfh year at the Terra di Lavoro high school. One of our biggest dreams is to visit the most beautiful places on earth. To fulfill our dream, we know that we must know how to speak English because  it is a language spoken everywhere. So we had the possibility to experience the CLIL. There is no better chance to learn English and increase our knowledge about Tourism sector studying Geography in English. We hope that this project will stimulate our creativity and our passion for both subjects.

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Hi, we are Miriam Feola, Chiarapina Romano, Sonia Palumbo and Annachiara Pascariello, we attend the fith year of an institution in the tourist sector. This year we are working with our geography teacher at a new project in English (CLIL). Our agency is called "Mariposa Viaggi" and we designed the tourists guides and itineraries. The passion for this project is an element that unites us. CLIL gives us the opportunity to study one of our guidance materials in English

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After watching the video "Did YouKnow? A quickie on responsible tourism and you!" we have found some interesting words that we didn't know. These are the words: Bulldozed, Over-crowding, Catalyst.
We have also found some keywords that can help you to find out the main aspects of this video. These are the words: Inform, Inspire, Conserve, Benefits (across the local community) , Over Development, Pollution, Visitors.

After reading the document about Cuba, I found so many words that I didn't know before. These are the words: Swelling, carving, doomed, plots, hurtling, glimpse.

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Hi, we are Antonio Vernillo (18 years old) and Sarah Fernandes Carbonel (18 years old), our Travel Agency/Group is called "L'isola che c'è" and we attend the fitfh year at the Terra di Lavoro high school. One of our biggest dreams is to visit the most beautiful places on earth. To fulfill our dream, we know that we must know how to speak English because  it is a language spoken everywhere. So we had the possibility to experience the CLIL. There is no better chance to learn English and increase our knowledge about Tourism sector studying Geography in English. We hope that this project will stimulate our creativity and our passion for both subjects.