Travel opens us up to new places and experiences, assuming our hearts and minds are open, too. But travel’s transformative potential is not without challenges, and our recent Alaska cruise is no exception.

✨ The Good

• Ship was smooth as! No hint of seasickness, just a gentle thrumming, quite soothing at night. Makes me long for my old waterbed 🛳️
• Super-comfortable accommodation with a view 🛏️
• Enjoying multiple destinations (and scenic transit) without having to pack, unpack, coordinate, navigate 📍
• Glaciers calving* right before our eyes, an epic show brought to us by that grand entertainer, nature. (*Am I the only one who didn’t know that calving is the term for ice breaking off from a  glacier? 🧊
• Expert insights from local guides about the landscape and geology, natural environment, people, cultures, weather 🍃
• Plenty of daylight and temps not too hot, not too cold (12-14/50s) ☀️
• Surprisingly good WiFi (though trying to stay off it) 📱
• Great food — you can find virtually anything you want to eat on board, though I’m not convinced this is actually a good thing 🥘
• Meeting fascinating people from all walks of life 😊
• Overcoming some, er, challenges … heights, enclosed spaces, limited energy, different beds/chairs 😬

😬 The Bad

• Less time than expected doing the main excursion activities. (Most time is spent getting to/from/between excursions, compounded by that one tourist who’s always late, bathroom breaks etc) 🚍
• The sheer volume of tourist shops, and the fact that most tour destinations are designed to stimulate the local economy (fair enough but would be good to see more cultural, historic, immersive opportunities in the mix)
• Discovering my jacket is water resistant, not waterproof ☔️
• No travel glitches—we haven’t missed an ‘all aboard’ yet 🛳️
• Eating too much, though nowhere near as much as others. I may need to schedule a cardiac bypass due to excessive cheese intake 🧀
• Appreciating that travel isn’t affordable for many, given the rapidly rising cost of living today💰
• Germs aplenty, the by-product of mass travel. We opened our balcony doors frequently, and hopped off for the day whenever we were in port, but were warding off colds by day 5 as most other travellers seemed to be 🤧

🫣 The Ugly 

• American coffee 😩 How I survived on this stuff for so many years is beyond me. Some people travel with nannies; I’d like to travel with a barista ☕️
• The woman behind me on the bus whose speaking voice is the volume of a leafblower 📣
• That diner who sends their meal back three times because it doesn’t meet their unreasonably high standards (I would like the meat to be a bit more done so it’s pink inside, but not too pink, just the perfect amount of pink but the outside should be seared but not overdone) 🥩
• Yet another tourist who thinks they’re the cruise director and offers their unsolicited commentary at every opportunity, even while the tour leader is addressing the bus 🎤

Do you detect a theme here?

• People working under the false assumption that I’m the tour photographer. At one point a queue formed (I would have taken nearly 100 pics over the week 📸
• A surprisingly high number of people who are amidst nature’s majesty but prefer to watch reels on their phones, on speaker, of course, for passersby to enjoy 😩

But despite all this, there’s something profound about watching Alaska’s wilderness unfold from the ship’s deck. The raw beauty and scale of this landscape makes every else fade into the background 🏔️