After 27 years of being main land and air travelers, our recent interest in cruising has sparked a lot of questions from friends. “Do you feel trapped on a ship?” “Is it better than a road trip?” “Is it full of old people?” The truth is, it’s not about which is better; it’s about what kind of experience you want this time.
Traditional land travel offers depth. When we stay in a city for a week, we find “our” bakery, we learn the shortcut to the metro, and we settle into a local rhythm. It’s gritty, it’s immersive, and it’s active. Much of our land based travel – especially in Europe – will often focus on where our extended family, our “exchange sons” are located. Always factoring in time with one of the guys on our travels has created a more full, and fulfilling experience.
Cruising, on the other hand, offers breadth and ease. You fall asleep in Monaco and wake up in Spain. There’s no lugging suitcases through train stations or arguing over a GPS in a foreign language. It’s a “sampler platter” of the world. This last point is most important, as cruising can give you a glimpse of places that you can decide to return to at a later time. We have done this before, and will continue to do this in the future.
In this collage, we were in Rome at the Coliseum and then the next day in Florence, standing in front of the Statue of David. At that time, I would have been okay not going back to Rome, but couldn’t wait until we could plan a return trip to Florence.
Some may argue that when you are on a cruise, and stopping at a port and then participating in a tour, that you are getting a sanitized version of the place you are visiting, and this is true. We have both become quite good at seeing past the “tourist version of life” presented in the ports that we visit, and quickly agreeing on future re-visits versus not planning to return. The trick is to look at the space between the tour sites. What does the area between stops look like? How do the people react to the tour buses that pass through their towns?
We try to be mindful of always stopping at a local store or cafe and spending money, so we contribute a little to the local community, rather than just invade a space and use local resources without giving something back.
Cruising is not just about the ease of getting there, it is about being present in the places you visit, experiencing the food and culture, and appreciating the window of opportunity that you get for a brief moment in time.
We’ve realized that at this stage in our lives, we love both forms of travel, and in 2025, we combined both for an extended period (more on that later). We still love the deep dive of a city stay, but we’ve learned to value the effortless luxury of the sea.
Which team are you on: Team Land or Team Sea?
