When I’ve told people that we’re doing an around-the-world cruise, I’ve had some people ask why we’re choosing to explore the world in this manner. I think some people are wary of being on a ship for so long or think perhaps it would be easier if we flew to our destinations to get there more quickly. I figured I’d share the reasons that we believe this is the best way for us to see the world – at least at this time in our lives. With that, here are 10 reasons we are choosing to explore the world via a cruise ship.

1. Once you pick the exact cruise, you know all your destinations. This has allowed us to focus a bit more. If you look at a map, there are endless destinations and it’s hard to pick between one place and another. Do you realize how many places are “must see” destinations? Being on a cruise makes some of those tough choices for us. Yes, we still had to choose between which cruise to take, but the destination list was at least narrowed down. Yes, we will probably miss some places we were hoping to see (such as Venice or Egypt) but we are going to some amazing places we might not have considered if we were choosing our full itinerary. Plus, we can always plan a later trip to hit those missed locations (and we will).
2. In addition to knowing where we’re going, we also know when and for how long. If we were choosing our own itinerary, it would likely be the case that for many places we would say “oh, we’ll need more than a day for there!” or “if it took us that long to get there we should stay longer” or the like. Having a pre-established itinerary allows us to instead focus on what we most want to do in those places. Knowing exact dates even allows us to look for specific shows and events when in port. Of course, yes, there will be times that the dates aren’t perfect and you wish you could shift it by a day or two to be in a destination on a slightly different day to accommodate an event. For us, we are missing the Songkran festival in Bangkok and the Cartagena Music Festival by mere days. For the vast majority of places, however, the set itinerary is perfectly fine.
3. The first of the 3 L’s: lodging. Not having to find a place to sleep every night is magical. Don’t get me wrong, we have found some incredible places to stay in our travels, from the ice hotel in Sweden to the buubble in Iceland to the train hostel in Zagreb, Croatia. We have stayed in pubs, former prisons, castles, tree houses, and so forth. And I wouldn’t trade those experiences – and would highly recommend them to others as well. However, the travel in between those places can get exhausting. Knowing where we’re staying and having the same place to call ‘home’ while on this long voyage is a big plus for us. We are contemplating staying on shore a few times during the trip when we’re at a single port for a couple days, but we don’t feel it’s necessary.
4. The second of the 3 L’s: luggage. Traversing cities with huge backpacks, trying to pull roller bags over cobble streets or find luggage storage in between check-out and check-in times can be a pain. If we had to carry everything to every location, I’m certain we’d limit our packing list far more than what we’re doing. As it is, we will have plenty of clothes for the various temperatures and activities, our own snorkel gear, some games, and other things that might have seemed to bulky to take if we had to lug them around all the various sites. On top of this, we’re using a luggage transportation service that picks up our bags and delivers them to our ship for us so we don’t even have to worry about them for our flight to Miami. And the bags themselves will be stored elsewhere in the ship to not take up room in our cabins. Really, this is a great situation.
5. The last of the 3 L’s: lumbar. Oh goodness, I’m not as young as I once was and my back likes to remind me of that fact. Even well-fitted backpacks can take their toll. Basically, a cruise allows us to bypass these nuisances. We know where we’re sleeping, and you can leave everything in our room that we won’t need for the day. And we’re able to go back to the ship if/as needed, just like we would a hotel room. On many days, we will likely only have a small backpack for the four of us, which is magical.
6. You can’t have a list like this without mentioning food. Not only is it delicious, plentiful, and included in the cruise price, it’s also safe if you have somebody with an allergy. Travelling to places where you don’t speak the language can be scary when it comes to navigating life-threatening things such as a peanut allergy, so knowing that no matter where we were, we would have immediate access to food that is safe is paramount to us being able to relax. Plus, meals can really add up pricewise, especially if you have big eaters. Oftentimes when we travel, we will look for a place with a kitchen so we can make some meals on our own to save money. Even then, our largest expense outside of accommodations winds up being food – and it requires us to spend time grocery shopping, doing meal prep, and cooking, leaving little time for downtime. The cruise takes care of all of this. Of course, we will still spend money on food and drinks. We just get to be more strategic about it. Rather than trying to find places to provide full meals, we can locate places with specific things we would want to try (such as a scorpion on a stick in Bangkok or pavlova in New Zealand) and only get those. We can buy a pint of beer, a cup of coffee, a boba tea, etc. when we stop for a breather and some “quality internet time.” But we can also choose to save money and just eat on the ship since there is a buffet, specialty restaurants, and so forth available to us in our included price.
7.  I’m excited about arriving at destinations without the dreaded jet lag. Since we’re taking the slow boat the China – literally – we aren’t going to have the dreaded jet lag that accompanies so many long trips. When I went to Singapore years ago I found that I felt worthless when I first got there. It took me a while for my body to adjust to the time zone difference. Thankfully, I had a week to explore so losing a little time for the adjustment was fine, but it’s not ideal when what you really want is to explore a new land. So, for us, getting to arrive at places like Australia, China, India, and more without feeling completely wiped out is exciting. Rather, we’re going to simply go to bed and wake up in different locations, a bit more naturally. My hope is that this makes the trip all the more enjoyable.
8. We get to cross both the equator and the International Date line while at sea. This might not seem like a big deal, but at one time these were considered celebratory rites of passage for sailors. For the equator, the story goes that prior to crossing the equator you’re a “pollywog” and afterwards you’re a “shellback”, or a trusted subject of Neptune (the Roman god of water and sea). Crossing the equator was commemorated in “crossing the line” ceremonies and supposedly there was even some hazing that occurred aboard Captain Cook’s fleet as they dunked the pollywogs in the ocean so they would emerge as shellbacks. The International Date Line – or the 180^th Meridian – has its own celebration. The story here is that when you cross here by sailing west, you’re crossing into the Domain of the Golden Dragon. This passage was also celebrated with ceremonies and hazing rituals, though less so as it became more common and less monumental. But to us it’s monumental, and you can bet we’re going to celebrate both crossings on our trip!
9. I’m going to sound like such an old person for this one, but it’s a big one so here it is: medications. Some of the countries we’re going to wouldn’t care much for some of our medications. I won’t divulge what medications we take, but if you consider things like pseudoephedrine – found in many cold medicines – is banned in many countries, Japan doesn’t allow amphetamines of any kind, the UAE frowns on medications for sleep disorders, and so forth, it can become confusing and problematic when crossing borders with medications. With the ship, we can leave all our medications safely locked up in our cabin along with our prescription details and medical documentation. It never becomes an issue regardless of where we go, as we can take our medicine within our cabin and go about our days per usual. That’s a big relief for us. Really, epi-pens are the only things we anticipate will need to go with us when we leave the ship, and that’s only if Matthew may be eating something while we’re on land. When in doubt, we will leave it on the ship and just plan to eat when we’re back on board. No problem.
10.  The final reason for “why a ship” is that we get to have some alone time. I love my family. They love me. We enjoy each other’s company. But there is a limit to that, as you can imagine. If we were traveling the world without the ship, we would have far fewer opportunities for alone time. Since our travel in between locations occurs on the ship, we can spread out. Somebody can go to the library, another can go to the gym, another can head to the lido deck, and another can head to a café. We have two cabins, so people can head to one of those and potentially have true alone time. I can relax knowing the kids are safe even if they’re out of my sight. I wouldn’t be able to do that in a random airport or train station. We would be forced to remain in a cramped space (bus, train, plane) and likely be quite irritable upon arrival at our destinations. We can get exercise, study, read, swim, leisurely eat, and so much more in between locations. Plus, there will be entertainment on the ship as well as things like art classes, cultural enrichment activities, and afternoon tea time. This daily life will not only allow for relaxation, but provide the necessary time to work (school, writing, research) so that we can enjoy the rest of our adventure with much less stress than would otherwise be the case.

So, there you go. Looking at these reasons, I can’t even imagine doing this trip any other way. Let’s hope it lives up to the hype, eh?