If you live, work, or are visiting the Tampa Bay area, you can travel to Cuba for FREE.  That's right, free.  Even better, you don't need a plane ticket or fancy cruise ship, or even a passport to get there.  AND, it's not ruled by communists.

If you're scratching your head in complete befuddlement right now, we understand.   Let's backtrack a bit.

You see, it all started wayyy back in the day in the 1890's with a small, wooden boarding house that sat where 1303 8th Ave. in Ybor City is now.  Owned by Afro-Cuban patriot, Paulina Pedroso, this dwelling acted as a safe house of sorts for another famous Cuban patriot, Jose Marti, when he traveled to Tampa in his attempts to free Cuba from Spanish rule.

Cuba eventually did just that, but not before Marti died in battle in 1895.  Pedroso sold her small house and moved to the newly independent Cuba in 1910.  It exchanged many hands until 1951 when a couple from Cuba decided to give the property to the state of Cuba as a memorial to  Marti.  Easy enough right?  Newly free and independent Cuba accepted and now Tampa has a small patch of Cuban land....until Fidel Castro and the communist regime took over the country in 1959, obviously not caring too much about a half-block sized patch of land in Tampa.

This abandoned baby of what was now deemed a park was left in the care of the City of Tampa.  They decided they'd take care of the stuff like lights and irrigation, but left it to the Cuban community to handle the rest.  This was in the 60's when the Cuban community was very much divided on the topic of communism v. democracy in their native country.

Scuffles upon scuffles, protests, and more riddled the grounds of this park until 1990 when it was finally handed over to anti-Castro group, The Cuban Historical and Cultural Center.  Now it's owned and operated by a number of these pro-democracy Cuban-Americans in the community and still exists as a the only patch of free, democratic Cuban soil in the world.  Pretty cool, huh?  Just don't echo any of your pro-Castro sentiments too loudly because, well, this is still very much a politically-opinionated area.  The Marti statue inside has been vandalized numerous times and pro-Castro speech is "not welcome" according to, at least, one of the owners, so halfway-democratic land is a little more fitting.

The park, located at 1303 E. 8th Ave., is open from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.  If you wish to use it on the weekends, you've got to call the number on the gate, and even that's not a guarantee.

So yeah, you can technically walk right into Cuba if you're in the area.  Best of all, if you're around Downtown Tampa, Channelside, or Ybor City, you can take the TECO Line Streetcar and stop right at the park along the route.  Make a trip to Cuba from Tampa today!