Our vacation in Cuba was 1 week long. So in planning, I remembered I had this huge canvas bag that I figured would be great for the both of us for the duration of our trip. But what we did was each of us packed a weekend travel bag and put them into the large canvas bag. Sounds weird but bear with me! Along with our clothing, we of course brought hygiene products which filled our personal bags. in addition to this, we had 4 grocery bags of items for trade! Yep, trade is good in Cuba! In all my research before hand I read that Cubans don't have access to American brand products due to the trade embargo. So we loaded up with $30 worth of items from our local Dollar General. We bought hygiene products for both male and females such as deodorant, tooth brushes, tooth paste, feminine products, Q-tips and cotton balls, cologne, chalk and bubbles for kids and even mixed bags of candy. So these bags of goods took up a lot of room going down to Cuba but my thoughts were trading them to make room for items to bring back! When purchasing our plane tickets we planned it out that I would be in charge of the large bag and it would of course be checked in and Michelle would be in charge of the free carry on which was filled with essential items, our cash, phone chargers and travel paperwork along with snacks of course.
Probably the most important item we brought was a safe! This safe provided such piece of mind and security for our important documents and the large amount of cash we brought. Never once did we feel like we needed the safe, our B&B hosts were all super nice and professional! It was the perfect size, and has a chain so you can attach it to stationary objects. This safe came with 2 keys, so we each kept one on us in case of emergencies. Other items we brought along were printed material, such as maps, and lists of foods and drinks we wanted to try. We also wrote down certain attractions we wanted to visit and see because internet is in its early stages in Cuba so no pinterest or google! Oh a portable phone charger would be wise to pack and a selfie stick is a MUST, especially for those classic car joy rides! Speaking of phones, I would clean out as much as you can from your phone and make as much room as possible, because you will use a lot of space taking tons of pictures! My phone filled up on our third day in Havana... We had to use Michelle's for the other 1,200 pictures we took! Wifi in Cuba is becoming more and more available, but it'll cost ya! We paid 3 CUCs a minute (CUC is short for the Cuban Convertible Peso, the money you will be using most of the time). Picture messages costs 4 CUCs to send, phone calls were 1 CUC a minute. Of course all this was through AT&T. Unfortunately this last piece of advice comes from a lesson learned. Turn off your data roaming! We came back to a $300 charge added on to the phone bill...
