Who We Are Thor getting a $1 hair cut in Matanzas while friends watch in the mirror. Photo by Chuck Smart. PLANET CUBA is a tour and travel consulting service specialized in designing customized, high-touch tour packages to Cuba.  What makes PLANET CUBA especially unique and valuable is our Tour Representatives, my talented Cuban friends, who enjoy introducing the PLANET CUBA traveler to the wonders and attractions of their country and culture.   I started PLANET CUBA to enable others to benefit from my experiences and contacts after traveling there regularly since 1995 to study music and dance.  Originally, I traveled to Cuba with a tour company called Caribbean Music and Dance Programs, now operating as Plaza Cuba (visit PlazaCuba.Com).  Plaza Cuba arranges and conducts music and dance workshops in Havana for the study of folkloric and popular Cuban styles.  The workshops were great experiences for me and hundreds of Americans and foreign participants.  Of course, I made many Cuban friends over the years and these special people now form a network of resources for PLANET CUBA.   PLANET CUBA tour specialists are independent, highly educated, responsible, well connected Cuban professionals who are your guides and friends when you travel with consultation from PLANET CUBA.  All are bilingual in English and Spanish, but more important, they are each experts in different areas of Cuban life and culture.  Based on your interests, we employ this expertise to arrange and conduct a personalized trip to Cuba that you can’t get from any other source.  Cubans of all walks of life are presently engaged in a daily struggle for economic survival.  PLANET CUBA gives our Cuban tour specialists a very important opportunity to earn supplemental income.   Most of the photography on this site was done by Seattle artist Chuck Smart.  Visit his site at ChuckSmart.com.   For an excellent online journal of news and information about Cuba, visit Havana Journal at http://www.havanajournal.com/.   For an excellent compendium of photography about Cuba, visit David Stanley's Cuba-Pictures.com at http://www.cuba-pictures.com/index.html From right to left, René Suárez, timbalero for Pupy y Los Que Son Son; Pio Leyva of Buena Vista Social Club fame; Roberto Vizcaino, master percussionist recently with the Cucho Valdes Quartet; and Thor Anderson owner of Planet Cuba.  Thor was hanging out with the musicians at a rehearsal of an all-star Cuban band being filmed for a German production on Cuban music, in Havana, February, 2003.