Smiling Kodiak Takes a Cruise

There’s much to be said for cruising, not that Smiling Kodiak has ever said any of it. To see the Greek Islands in a short time, he discovers having a boat helps. As an American, Smiling Kodiak knows how to squeeze too much into a short vacation. A Mediterranean cruise is a marvel of efficiency, like having a mobile floating second-rate Las Vegas casino hotel magically deliver you to a new world every morning. The disadvantage is that you wake up in a mobile floating second-rate Las Vegas casino hotel. In Smiling Kodiak Takes a Cruise, Smiling Kodiak leaves his Australian home to experience the wonders of the Middle East, Rome, the Greek Islands, and Turkey — with 3,500 other passengers expecting the time of their lives. As with casinos, there will be more losers than winners. Smiling Kodiak Takes a Cruise is no guidebook. It provides insights and anecdotes that you may find hilarious, shocking, offensive, poignant, bizarre – perhaps all of the above. But travel isn’t about where you go or how you get there, it’s about what unfolds.

There’s much to be said for cruising, not that Smiling Kodiak has ever said any of it. To see the Greek Islands in a short time, he discovers having a boat helps. As an American, Smiling Kodiak knows how to squeeze too much into a short vacation. A Mediterranean cruise is a marvel of efficiency, like having a mobile floating second-rate Las Vegas casino hotel magically deliver you to a new world every morning. The disadvantage is that you wake up in a mobile floating second-rate Las Vegas casino hotel. In Smiling Kodiak Takes a Cruise, Smiling Kodiak leaves his Australian home to experience the wonders of the Middle East, Rome, the Greek Islands, and Turkey — with 3,500 other passengers expecting the time of their lives. As with casinos, there will be more losers than winners. Smiling Kodiak Takes a Cruise is no guidebook. It provides insights and anecdotes that you may find hilarious, shocking, offensive, poignant, bizarre – perhaps all of the above. But travel isn’t about where you go or how you get there, it’s about what unfolds.

A blogging pioneer, Drew Grant began sharing his travelogues electronically in 1995, using the nascent web to shrink the world, keeping one foot on each continent as he migrated from the USA to Australia. Born and raised in Boston, Drew Grant was the youngest of a large and loud Catholic family. His unorthodox tendencies were recognized early when at the age of four he was named “Best All-Around Camper” at St Agnes despite never having been molested by a priest. His Catholicism lapsed at age eight in favor of Sunday morning candlepin bowling. An award-winning marching band Sousaphonist, Drew was a self-taught professional jazz pianist by the time he entered Boston College. There the Jesuits introduced him to the dark arts of accounting on which he would depend for decades to support his travel habits. An unconventional but highly effective management and advisory professional, Drew has a healthy disrespect for all professionals, noting that the essence of professionalism is to get paid. Drew now lives with his partner of 30 years at St Kilda Beach outside Melbourne, Australia.