At 75 cruises and counting, here’s why I’m always planning my next voyage | Canada Voices

Every cruise is a bit of a maritime miracle. Like magic, a ship can spirit travellers to amazing places. Often through the night. Open the curtains in the morning, and a whole new destination awaits.

That slight euphoria you feel when the ship casts its lines and steers for open water. The joy of unpacking, just once. The happy realization that – whether you’ve booked passage on a megaship or an intimate yacht – this will be your floating home for a while. This is what I love about cruising.

Once, I was a young, hard-core backpacker. I slept on hard seats on overnight trains or in dorms packed with bunk beds. I told people that I didn’t like cruises. That they were too easy, not real travel.

And then, one day, I took a cruise. You never forget your first, and mine was a simple seven-night Caribbean voyage. I loved everything about it. Now, a significant amount of my work as a travel writer focuses on cruises.

I’ve sailed on 75 voyages in the past 20 years or so. Across the High Arctic and down to Antarctica, crossing both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Sailing rivers in Europe and Asia, the Rhine and the Danube, the Mekong and the Irrawaddy. Around Japan, down the Amazon and along Australia’s remote Kimberley coast and the shores of India. And lots more.

What is it about cruises that captures my imagination? Maybe it’s the endless horizons, in all directions. Ships take me to places that I couldn’t otherwise visit. In 2023, I sailed to the Tuamotu Islands. Part of French Polynesia in the South Pacific, these 76 atolls are spread across a vast expanse, 3.1 million square kilometres of blue water. Each small island is a world unto itself, a unique ecosystem under swaying palms, by white sand beaches bordered by coral reefs.

I visited aboard Aranui 5, a Tahitian-owned freighter and cruise ship. Purpose-built, she delivers cargo to remote places, while also carrying up to 230 guests. Staffed almost entirely by local Polynesians, even the experience on board was a journey into the culture of this paradisal part of world.

Every night, crew would gather on the breezy stern deck for a guitar-and-ukulele jam session. Guests were waved into the circle. Some passengers opted to get tattoos on board. You told a waiter your life story, and, based on that, he came up with the design. (I declined, but honestly wish I hadn’t.)

Visits to the islands were embarked on small barges that also carried the shipping containers. One stop: the island of Amanu, home to about 220 people. There’s no airstrip and Aranui calls there twice a year, at the time the only passenger vessel to do so.

But cruising has its problems, too, especially since it is more popular than ever. According to its 2024 annual report, the Cruise Line Industry Association noted that 31.7 million people took a cruise in 2023 – a 7-per-cent increase over the previous record year, in 2019. Cruising’s contributions to overtourism are problematic, as well as the environmental impact of all those ships.

I’ve seen the impact firsthand. In Mediterranean ports such as Dubrovnik, Croatia, the ancient cobblestone streets are jammed with cruisers. And in Alaska thousands of passengers flood tiny towns. (Juneau, the capital and a popular port-of-call on the Inside Passage, just officially capped the number of ships and passengers for the coming season.) Some destinations such as Venice have banned big ships in their harbours.

When things get a little too thick on the streets, I just head back to the ship and take a dip in the pool (exactly what I did in Dubrovnik). But I do try to contribute to local economies whenever possible. In Juneau, I booked a culinary tour that stopped at several small restaurants and merchants. I made sure to purchase something from each. At other ports on other cruises, I’ve hired local drivers to show me around their hometown – a fun way to get real-world insights. These included a memorable tuk-tuk tour around the historic port city of Cochin in Kerala, India, and a tour in a loveably beat-up Lada to citadels and catacombs in Alexandria, Egypt.

Solutions to cruising’s problems are elusive. But I am supportive of moves to make the industry more sustainable. While big ships are fun, they’ve grown now to almost unimaginable proportions. Limiting their size could be a good idea. In sensitive ecosystems such as Antarctica, operators have implemented a number of restrictions, including requiring ships to use cleaner fuel and to limit the number of guests on shore at one time. Changes such as this across the industry and around the world should be helpful.

One of cruising’s central dichotomies, and perhaps the reason I love it so much, is the way a voyage brings together big and small. On one hand, an enormous sea, worldwide voyages and endless possibilities. On the other, the small communities and fast friendships that form on board. This happens on big ships but especially on small ones, and friends form around the goofiest things crew concoct to keep you busy – pickleball tournaments and putt-putt competitions and scavenger hunts with dubious prizes (a free round of drinks, when they’re already included).

During a 17-day sail on Seabourn, I joined a trivia team. We competed every evening and the cruise director kept a tally. In the end, there would be one champion, based on the accumulation of individual games won.

It was an amazing voyage around New Zealand, the shore excursions were filled with wild jet boat rides and volcanic geothermal wonders and close-up experiences with Maori culture. Then I would come back on board and share stories of the day with my team at trivia night.

On the last evening of the trip, my team won the whole tournament. In celebration, one of my trivia mates made us all paper bow ties, to mimic the cruise director’s meticulous style. And make us all feel spiffy. It was a silly thing. But exactly the kind of fun that can happen on board.

On disembarkation day, there’s always some melancholy. I often feel a tiny amount of triumph for completing the voyage but also wonder if these new friendships are ending. But once I step back on shore, I’m already thinking: Where will I cruise, next time?