🇨🇺 Classic cars, hand-rolled cigars, thatched-roof bars and...mid-term exams? The Development of Study Abroad Tours in Cuba. 🇨🇺

About 2 million people visit Cuba every year.  Classic cars, hand-rolled cigars, and thatched-roof bars are popular sites on the tourist track.  But hundreds of students and professors from around the world come to Cuba to hit the books - even students from the United States.   In this bonus episode of GDP Dr. Sarah Blue chats with Dr. Bob Huish about leading study tours to Cuba.  Both Dr. Sarah & Dr. Bob have years of experience in organizing university study tours to Cuba.  This bonus episode debunks a lot of myths about traveling to Cuba and gives students and educators some handy tips for studying in Cuba.   Sarah A. Blue is an associate professor of geography at Texas State University. Her research broadly focuses on how international migration and changes in the global political economy affect local socio-economic dynamics in the Latin America and the United States. Her current areas of research focus on gender, race, and migration, specifically undocumented Latino migration to the United States and socio-economic change, medical internationalism, and agroecology in Cuba.  She also owns an educational tour company that has taken 12 educational tour groups to Cuba since 2013. She has been traveling to and conducting research in Cuba for the past 23 years and has been to the island around 30 times. Dr. Blue opened the company Candela Cuba Tours in 2013. Candela Cuba Tours works closely with Dr. Blue’s friends and colleagues in Cuba for the tours, many of whom she has known for over 20 years, and is able to share an authentic Cuban experience with the groups she leads. Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish