I haven't travelled widely in Cuba, but I have travelled a little outside the tourist areas (though I was based in one) - nor was I doing LF photography.
But I doubt there would be any problem at all. Lot's of Canadians I know have done their own self-directed trips, driving all over the country, staying in small places etc etc.
One friend is a fourth-generation Saskatchewan farmer and an expert in sustainable and organic farming. He takes part in an exchange programme through a farmers group where Cuban farmers come up to work with him here, and he goes down there with his family for 6 weeks at a time and works with Cuban farmers - they stay all over and get to know people.
In my own somewhat limited travels, I found all the Cubans I met incredibly friendly and helpful. Getting lost in largish towns with limited road signs, people would hop in the car to show us the way, or lead us through the streets on an old motorbike.
We once spent an afternoon with one family we met visiting their apartment, being fed Cuban food and then taken around the Che Guevara monument, museum and mausoleum in Santa Clara.
Even the military and police we came across tended to be friendly (if proud). My wife, who was heavily pregnant at the time managed to go across a railway crossing late at night on the outskirts of a small town and missed the Stop sign. We were chased down by the local policeman who obviously staked it out to catch offenders. He was most bemused to find a rather pregnant foreign woman driving the little Cuban car (filled with her husband, young son and elderly father...).
Her Spanish suddenly became very limited :-) He checked our passports, indicated the Stop sign, wagged his finger at her, smiled and shook his head and then sent us on our way with directions to the main road we were looking for.
(of, do try and avoid driving at night, many Cuban cars, and all bikes and horse carts lack lights most of the time - as do many of the streets... it's rather nerve wracking).
Just try not to hang out near military establishments - that could be a different matter for an American :-)
Another friend who is a teacher went on vacation to a resort and got to know one of the guides who was also a teacher. She now goes back every year for a few weeks, has a short vacation then rents a place and works with the kids in the school she linked up with. She's also a painter and has linked up with some Cuban artists and spends time with them and has arranged for some of their work to be shown in Canada.
I'm no expert, but I certainly know people who have gone and had a good time doing all sorts of things (the only place I have heard of people having any problems is in some parts of Havana, with the typical pickpocketing and preying on tourists and such - but plenty of other tourist destinations have a much worse rep - and outside Havana, most of what I've heard has been the opposite)
I think your biggest problems would be from the US Government. At one time they were checking up on US citizens booking trips through Canada....
(BTW, it's one of Canada's major winter vacation destinations - though obviously mainly to the resorts - which are usually filled with a strange mix of Canadians, some Brits, the Spanish and Portugese and Germans... and a smattering of USAians)
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Originally Posted by Robert Brummitt
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