Cuba enters the age of the selfie

Well, that didn’t take long.

Paris Hilton last week became the latest American celebrity to visit Cuba in the new era of U.S.-Cuban relations, dropping in to Havana to attend an annual cigar festival and highlighting how quickly the Caribbean island has become chic again.

But unlike other recent big-name visitors, the Hilton Hotel heiress chronicled her trip with a slew of photos on Instagram, posing with Cuban cigars, standing against a backdrop of Old Havana, and snapping a selfie with Fidel Castro’s son, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart. (In a sign of how dramatically things have changed, remember the kerfuffle over Jay-Z and Beyonce’s visit to the island less than two years ago?)

And so it begins … Cuba, one of the world’s least connected countries, enters the era of the selfie.

As travel restrictions loosen, Havana becomes #Havana 8-). Though officially travel for tourism remains banned, new regulations —and broad interpretations of those new rules (see“support for the Cuban people”) —have made it easier than ever to visit the island.

Other signs of change: U.S. travel website CheapAir.com has started selling flights to Cuba and MasterCard now allows U.S. cardholders to pay with plastic on the island.

While it’s nice to see Cuba finally getting some love, is the island ready for gringos with selfie sticks?