Gadling

I sold my home in Asheville, North Carolina this week. With housing values gone to crap, who needs the burden of a mortgage anyway? After all, as a friend told me recently, “You never really own your home; the government does.”

Not mine. My home is a box. No more mortgage, no onerous property taxes, no lawn to mow. I put all of my stuff – the mountain of junk I had accumulated in my life – in boxes and put those boxes in a larger box, a container stored in a lot somewhere in Asheville. If I never see it again I won’t care.

I didn’t need a home or all that stuff anyway. For the past 20 years, I’ve spent my life on cruise ships and in destinations that cruise ships touch. I am the Avid Cruiser, not known to you perhaps but known within the cruise industry.

I live a life of luxury. As I write these words, I am in a suite on a luxury cruise ship, the owner’s suite no less. I was born to a poor family, but I adapted quickly to the cruising lifestyle. My arm instinctively knows just the right arc to align itself to grab a glass of champagne without breaking the rhythm of my stride. I could, if I desired, live on caviar and champagne, except I don’t like caviar.

I live the luckiest of lives in that I get paid to take vacations and write about them. Of course, I realize that this raises issues of credibility, but as I suspect you will soon see, I consider myself to be a consumer advocate and my goal is to provide people like you with the resources they need to make informed cruise vacation decisions.

I don’t want you to be confused, happy or ripped off. I am here, champagne in hand, to help you make the best decisions for you – and if it applies – for your family.

You should know that I engineered my life to cruise avidly. Long ago, I figured out that cruising can take you nearly anywhere on the globe. If a destination is without a shoreline, you can bet a cruise company offers what are called “overland” programs. Moreover, though you won’t get to know destinations intimately on a cruise, it is refreshing to be able to pack and unpack only once while visiting several destinations.

You should also know that not all cruises are for those seeking luxury. And champagne is offered free of charge on only the priciest of cruises. Cruise vacations, in fact, come in many flavors and for all ages. In coming posts, my goal is to help you understand the flavor that you may appreciate most.

Return here for some good advice from someone who is homeless – by choice.

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.