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I would strongly caution you against basing a decision to travel to Cuba on anecdotal advice provided by users here. I'm not saying that friendly advice is not useful, only that you should make your decision based on full information gathered from further substantial research into the matter.

For example, you should take a look at the information at the Treasury Department Office for Foreign Assets Control at http://www.treas.gov/ofac/

These are the official statutes and regulations regarding such travel, and you should know that there can be serious consequences for you as a US citizen if you do travel and spend money there. The casual suggestions of other users on how to circumvent these regulations should be approached cautiously, and I think you need to make your own assessment of the risks and penalties involved.

With that said, I would be interested to know if you actually do decide to go (and whether travel to Cuba is easy to plan or not)!