In the coming days, weeks and months, I’ll be filing stories from cruise ships and from destinations that cruise ships touch. I am the Avid Cruiser, someone who not only has purposely chosen to live a life at sea but also has been fortunate enough to fulfill that dream.
I haven’t always cruised. I began my journalistic career at the age of 32, following the conclusion of my “sabbatical decade” (read: loafing). From 1980 through 1990, I bicycled across America, pedaled through Europe and island-hopped the South Pacific.
After backpacking through Bali, bussing through Java, hopping a boat to Singapore and crossing Malaysia to Thailand, I flew into (then) Burma, tramped to Dhaka and endured a 32-hour train ride from calamitous Calcutta to bustling Bombay.
From there, I hopped a plane for Greece and traveled to Switzerland before returning home, where I settled, quite naturally, into a career of travel writing.
My work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Porthole Cruise Magazine and numerous other consumer magazines. The North American Travel Journalism Association, awarded my article, Ship Shape, which appeared in Hemispheres (United Airlines’ in-flight magazine), in the category of “Best Cruise Writing.”
I am the author of four books, including Remembering Charles Kuralt, a biography that Publisher’s Weekly called “a sweet and lovely homage, a welcome commemoration.”
I own and operate The Avid Cruiser website, a trusted resource for cruise reviews.
As you’ll read later on, I don’t have a real home. I do have a PO Box in Asheville, North Carolina, and I share an apartment in Helsingborg, Sweden, near Copenhagen, Denmark. But most of the time I am on ships and in destinations where ships are docked or anchored.
I enjoy mountain biking, hiking, lingering in coffee shops and spending time with my kids, little avid cruisers. I speak very little Swedish (how can you learn a language where seven is spelled sju?) but I understand quite a lot. So if you’re Swedish, be careful what you say around me.
But enough about wonderful me. My mission is to provide you with content that engages you and compels you to return often. I hope you will welcome me to this space. I look forward to making a home here with the many other fine writers at Gadling.