I love traveling by water, without the crowds to off-beat places. Over the past 25 years, I’ve been enjoying small-ship cruises all over the world, from Vietnam to Maine, France, Tennessee, Laos, Sweden and many other corners of the globe. I’ve done more than 125 cruises aboard ships, boats and barges carrying just a few dozen passengers to rarely more than 200. Reviews of these amazing small-ship cruises have a place to live on QuirkyCruise.com. I hope others can be inspired to sail on some of these wonderfully quirky adventures I’ve been fortunate to experience.
So far, I’ve explored 78 countries around the world by boat, road, plane, foot, bicycle and camel. My first big journey was a six-month trip around the world back in the days when Pan Am sold a 16-leg flight package for a song. My future husband and I hit 20 countries on six continents with memorable adventures including a three-day “cruise” down the Amazon aboard a rickety fishing boat held together with a combination of luck and rust.
Not too surprisingly, after this trip and armed with a master’s degree in American and English Lit, I landed a job at a travel magazine. A cruise magazine to be precise. A few years later, I left to become a freelance writer and as fate would have it, have spent most of my career penning travel articles and guidebooks, many about cruises. I’m a member of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers, and proud to have won several Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism awards.
Check out my CV for more details!
My credits over my long career include co-authoring Secret Singapore, a book about Singapore’s hidden heritage; Frommer’s Cruises and Ports of Call for a decade; plus several editions of Frommer’s European Cruises and Cruise Vacations for Dummies. A stack of newspaper, magazine and web credits includes everything from CNBC.com, Conde Nast Traveler, CNN.com, Afar.com, USA Today and ForbesTraveler.com to the Star Ledger, International Herald Tribune and Singapore’s Straits Times. Throw in hundreds of stories for Frommers.com, along with The Points Guy, Porthole, Travel Weekly, Cruise Travel and Singapore’s Expat Living, and you should get the picture. I’ve written a lot about cruises and travel, based on my experiences globetrotting aboard more than 125 ships large and small, and it’s those small ones that have always been my favorites.
Up-close and personal Alaska cruises on the small Cruise West ships and crazy Caribbean adventures aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises pirate-y schooners got me hooked on small ships many moons ago, and though both those lines are now, sadly, defunct, their legacy lives on in QuirkyCruise.
I met Ted Scull in the early 1990s while living in New York, and we became colleagues and fast friends. From 2006 – 2023, before moving back to the US to the DC area, I was based in Singapore with my husband and twin sons, loving the awesome travel ops and even the heat and those dramatic tropical downpours. Spending much of my adult life in two of the world’s busiest ports has been a quirky coincidence professionally, but collaborating on this site with one of the world’s most respected ship authorities and travel writers seems to be my destiny — and an absolute honor. Thank you Ted!
Mar 16, 2023 • 36:05
Sep 21, 2023 • 24:47
OnTravel.com hosted by travel journalists Paul Lasley & Elizabeth Harryman
Sep 21, 2023 • 22:34
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Sep 21, 2023 • 59:25
DCL Duo Podcast hosted by Brian & Samantha Flock
American Cruise Lines Maine Coast Cruise By Heidi Sarna Stepping out on our small ship's private...
UnCruise Adventures Alaska Review By Heidi Sarna After a short skiff ride to the mudflats at the...
Belgium & Netherlands River Cruise By Heidi Sarna Pedaling to the magnificent Castle de Haar...
European River Cruise Cycling Tips By Heidi Sarna Last fall I spent a week aboard the 156-pax AMA...
Heidi’s No Nonsense Cruise Packing Tips By Heidi Sarna I travel for pleasure and I also travel for...
My Luciole French Canal Barge Cruise Review I Love Luciole! By Heidi Sarna Was it the first...
Sweden's Göta Canal. By Heidi Sarna. Updated Oct 2022 Our family summer trip aboard the historic...
Maine Windjammer Cruise aboard the J. & E. Riggin By Heidi Sarna Maine with its gorgeous...
Rhine River Family Cruises By Heidi Sarna. Aug 2024 Update: The River Empress is no longer with...
Vietnam Red River Cruise with Pandaw By Heidi Sarna. I recently returned from a wonderfully quirky...
Star Clippers in Thailand By Heidi Sarna. Update September 2024 — There is reliable insider talk...
Myanmar's Irrawaddy River by Heidi Sarna. I finally managed my first visit to Myanmar and its...
Star Clippers Greek Isles Cruise By Heidi Sarna. After 30 some cruises on the megas enjoying the...
If you can imagine it, we’ve cruised it! With reviews, articles and destination overviews, we’ve got you covered.
Mississippi River Cruise By John and Sandra Nowlan Our first glance of our Mississippi riverboat was from atop a levee in Memphis. We headed down the steep ramp to board the American Melody through its unusual flipped-up bow. Riverboats on the Mississippi have a...
Eastern Europe Viking Cruise By Judi Cohen The moment our Viking longship, Viking Ullur, arrived in Budapest, I felt like I was “home.” Here, in the heart of Hungary on the Danube River, I was surrounded by the flavours and scents that defined my childhood. This...
American Cruise Lines New England By Cele and Lynn Seldon As we’ve mentioned before in some of our other QuirkyCruise.com coverage, we often escape the heat and humidity of our South Carolina Lowcountry home in the summer and head to cooler temperatures. This year was...
Viking Eastern Seaboard Explorer Cruise By Peter Knego It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Viking and have been since first laying eyes on a rendering of the soon-to-be Viking Star at a cruise industry preview event in 2013. I was thrilled to see a new ocean-going...
Murray River Cruise By Ted Scull For Australia, the mention of river cruises would probably result in blank stares from most people, leaving them in the dark. Such cruises are plentiful in Europe, North America, Asia, and to a lesser extent in South America (Amazon,...
Variety Cruises Galileo Reviewer Jay Katz from USA. Cruise Line Variety Cruises. Ship The 49-passenger Galileo. Destination Greece. # of Nights 8. Departure Port Athens, Greece. Date of Cruise Oct 18, 2024. Ratings (5=excellent, 4=very good, 3=good, 2=poor,...
Victory Cruise Lines Return By Peter Barnes As an occasional Quirky Cruise contributor, I was invited to a memorable dinner held at the Chef’s Dinner Table in Lower Manhattan last week to celebrate the launch of Victory Cruise Lines. John Waggoner, CEO of Victory and...
Majestic's Glen Etive By Robin McKelvie When The Majestic Line launched their first purpose-built vessel, the MV Glen Etive, in 2016 she set a new standard for the growing flotilla of Scottish small ships that sleep a maximum of a dozen passengers. I was privileged to...
New Owners for The Majestic Line By Robin McKelvie It’s hard to overemphasize the role that The Majestic Line have played in the massive success and growth of small ship cruising in Scotland. Over the last two decades they have proved all the doubters — who couldn’t...
Inside Windstar Cruises' New Star Seeker By Anne Kalosh Bookings are open for Windstar Cruises' new ship, the 224-passenger Star Seeker that will debut in late 2025. It's going to first sail in the Caribbean, then will operate Windstar's popular Alaska and Japan...
Europe River Cruise Packing Tips By Heidi Sarna I've taken more than 125 cruises all over the world. Many on river boats and canal barges in Europe. I got to tell you, in large part, I know what to pack based on how many times I didn't bring the right stuff — good ole...
