Ten Reasons to Avoid Traveling to Cuba in 2024

Known in various circles as the "Pearl of the Caribbean," Cuba is far from the idyllic image promoted by travel magazines, guides, and its own government to attract investments and tourism. For years, the situation in the country can be described as a descent into Dante Alighieri's Inferno, marked by shortages of fuel, food, medicines, and other supplies, alongside a significant increase in destroyed buildings that confirm the image of a nation in ruins. This is coupled with rising crime and constant blackouts.

Even those spaces reserved for the enjoyment of foreign visitors, such as the Varadero resort, the prized cays, or the hotels in the capital, Havana, suffer from the impact of poor governmental decisions, economic "reorderings" without results, and the structural debacle of a failing system clearly in decline.

Furthermore, it is a country without freedom of expression, where raising one's voice could lead to severe problems due to increasing police repression in response to protest risks. Currently, more than 1,000 Cubans are serving unjust sentences for criticizing the regime and demanding their rights.

Reasons to Rethink Your Trip to Cuba

To understand why you might want to avoid visiting Cuba, here are some reasons for consideration:

1. Endless Blackouts in Cuba
Characterized by a prolonged crisis, the national electrical system suffers from an infrastructure incapable of meeting the energy demands of a country plunged into the darkness of blackouts. In many places, power cuts exceed 18 hours a day. The lack of imported fuel, breakdowns in aging thermal power plants, maintenance delays, and investment shortages are among the reasons cited by the government, which - incredibly - demands understanding from the people, exacerbated by high temperatures and the shutdown of several generating units.

2. Lack of Medicines and Supplies in Pharmacies and Hospitals
The massive exodus of the Cuban population to other regions has also impacted public health, a sector experiencing a decline in healthcare personnel at all levels and working without resources amid a shortage of medicines and other supplies. This situation sees no "light at the end of the tunnel," even with donations from international organizations and friendly countries. In March of this year, President Miguel Díaz-Canel admitted that the scarcity would persist, worsening the shortages in pharmacies and the lack of basic products in medical centers.

3. Shortage of Basic Food Items
Hundreds of idle lands, difficulties in delivering supplies to farmers, as well as issues in paying for and marketing agricultural products, have led the country to a near-total dependence on imports. The results? High prices, shortages, and long queues. Added to this is an unstable basic basket (rationed products sold by the state), unaffordable essential items for workers' wages, empty stores, and the contentious micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with a greater variety of products but prices out of reach for many.

4. Scarcity and High Prices
For a country where the only production is communist ideology, it is easy to understand that it almost entirely depends on imports. Combined with the poor management of available finances, this explains the scarcity of basic human necessities. With the informal market dollar skyrocketing, the minimum wage for workers (2,100 CUP) and retirees' pensions (1,528 CUP minimum) barely suffice, leaving millions of Cubans below the extreme poverty threshold.

5. Low-Quality Hotels
The Cuban regime aimed to receive 3.5 million international tourists last year, but the figures fell more than 30% short of their predictions. Unsurprisingly, there are numerous complaints on social media about cockroaches in hotels, poor-quality facilities, and limited food variety, even in high-category hotels. This contrasts with the tourism performance of its regional neighbors. In 2023, the Dominican Republic received over six million international tourists, consolidating its leadership in the Caribbean tourism industry. Meanwhile, Cancun, Mexico, attracted over four million visitors.

6. Increasing Police Repression Amid Protest Risks
Cuba is a dictatorship where citizens do not enjoy civil and political rights and freedoms. The regime controls Cubans through repression, coercion, propaganda, and indoctrination. The cost of raising one's voice is high, and police repression increases without limit amid the risks of protests from a population tired of misery. Today, the island of beautiful beaches, rum, and tobacco has over 1,000 political prisoners, mostly for peacefully protesting during the historic demonstrations of July 11 and 12, 2021, known as 11J. Artists like Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and rapper Maykel Osorbo, opponents like José Daniel Ferrer, activists, men, women, elders, and even children and cancer patients... the list deeply saddens the hearts of parents, siblings, spouses, friends, and citizens who cry out for justice.

7. Rising Poverty, Destruction, Collapse Risks, and Trash in the Streets
According to the VI Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba, presented on September 28, 2023, by the Cuban Human Rights Observatory (OCDH), 88% of Cubans live below the poverty line, and nine out of ten households struggle to survive on their incomes. These results demonstrate the decaying state of the majority of the Cuban population, living in homes at risk of collapse due to poor housing conditions, facing daily food problems, dirty streets, garbage dumps, blackouts, and unaffordable prices for essential products. Despite "complying" with the United Nations standards in the so-called Human Development Index (HDI), Cuba shows figures below extreme poverty (understood by the World Bank: $2.15 in total daily income).

8. Insecurity in the Streets Due to Rising Crime
Although statistics indicate controlled crime levels in Cuba, authorities claim that recent years have seen increased aggression among residents and a rise in minor crimes, a situation caused by the economic context, which generates great tensions and wear, ultimately influencing individual behavior. In March, Beatriz de la Peña La O, head of the Department of Investigation of the Directorate of Criminal Processes of the Prosecutor's Office, and Colonel Idael Fumero Valdés, head of Information and Analysis of the Technical Investigations Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior, mentioned on the television program "Hacemos Cuba" that "violent crimes are not increasing," but there is a noticeable rise in minor crimes, magnified by social media, which gives each robbery, crime, or attack greater significance. The economic and migration crises are among the major causes of this insecurity, where the police are effective at repression but ineffective at curbing criminal violence.

9. Fuel Shortage in Cuba
Cuba's economic crisis, caused by the political system imposed by the regime, has one of its biggest problems in the ongoing fuel crisis in 2024. Without fuel, the country suffers a generalized paralysis, affecting everything from agriculture to services. Historically, it has behaved similarly, but now even tourists have to queue to buy fuel. Added to this are the blackouts, those daily and prolonged power cuts that Cubans and sometimes foreign visitors endure.

10. Cuban Regime Supports Dictators, Terrorists, and Russian Invasion in Ukraine
With allies like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Russia, the Cuban government supports dictators, terrorists, and even the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although they prefer to call it a "military operation." This stance keeps the country on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Visiting the island can have serious consequences for those planning to travel to the United States in the coming months, as Section 309 of the U.S. Code states: "No person who has visited Cuba in the 12 months prior to the date of their visa application will be eligible for a B-2 nonimmigrant visitor visa."