Talking Travel 2: Cuba

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Photo by Lonely Planet's Rachel Lewis

For the second episode of our new travel podcast, The World and Lonely Planet take you to a country where Americans are technically barred from traveling – Cuba. OK, technically, it’s not the US State Department that stops US citizens from going, but rather the US Treasury Department that makes it a crime for Americans to spend money there. Read more here. The travel ban has been in the news again recently. Critics and supporters of the ban were on Capitol Hill for hearings on lifting the ban. Critics contend that allowing Americans to freely travel, and spend money, in Cuba will only line to pockets of the government, specifically Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who is now Cuba’s president. Has anything changed under Raul’s rule? That’s the topic of a new report by Human Rights Watch, entitled “New Castro, Same Cuba.” In our podcast, you can hear Lonely Planet‘s Robert Reid and Tom Hall talk about the practicalities of traveling to Cuba, and about the millions of Europeans who can and do spend their money on the island. You’ll also hear about how online travel company Orbitz has launched an Open Cuba campaign to get the US travel ban lifted. So, would more person-to-person contact between American tourists and Cuban locals help to ease tensions between the two governments? It’s a tricky and tantalizing question, as you can hear in our latest podcast.

Our music this week is a track called ” El 4-5-6″ by a group called Los Brito, from the album Si Para Usted, Vol. 2.