Cruising to the end of the Earth.

"Cruising? Really?" I exclaimed as my fiancé floated the idea of doing some of our honeymoon on a boat. Now it wasn't that I was totally against cruising, simply that my travel preferences had previously always been on the less static and more fluid kind of focus. Just rocking up in a place and seeing what there was before moving on, I always preferred to immerse myself a little in the place something which I always felt would be difficult with 1000's of other passengers disembarking at the same point into the same place.

But what my now wife (yes, the cruising thing didn't get in the way of us actually getting married) was referring too was not an ocean liner, cruising the more popular Med or Caribbean, she wanted us to do an expedition cruise. Navigating the waterways, fjords and inlets of Patagonia and specifically Tierra Del Feugo and Cabo Dos Hornos, the most southerly tip of South America.

This was more my kind of thing and while I still had my reservations, I was willing to give it a go and see what it was all about. Given my reservations we planned a detailed itinerary around Argentina, sipping coffee and watching the beautiful people of Buenos Aires mooch about, getting on our bikes and cycling through the vineyards of Mendoza and its mountainous surrounds before finally donning our hiking wear and walking away through Torres Del Paine and Fitzroy National Parks, before finishing on the Australis, our home for the next five days. The whole reason I mention this is to move away from the kind of holiday where clients just fly in, stay in a random hotel for a night, do the cruise and fly home after a day hanging about transport hubs. Tailoring the entire holiday makes for a more rounded experience and a more relaxing experience so you don't feel to rushed but also get to see some of the rest of a place away from the ports.

Our trip began in Punta Arenas and we cruised down through the Straits of Magellan and part of the Drake Passage, happily sitting in the aptly named roaring 40s. This is a wild place at times and even though we went at the best time to visit it was, at times, still bitterly cold and windy (understatement of the year), but again you are travelling in an extreme place and the reward of doing so far outweighs any minor inconvenience of having to put an extra scarf on.

Part of my reservation with cruising was being deposited somewhere with 1000's of others but with expedition cruising we had only 100 guests as well as 50 staff, so the activities felt personal and specific to people’s interests. We did Zodiac trips (small motorized dinghies) to Elephant Seal colonies in inaccessible bays which the ship couldn't reach. We sipped whisky and watched glaciers carve into the turquoise waters around us, and did treks with the Captain, where he pointed out nameless peaks where no human had ever climbed. The desolation and space and fundamentally lack of people was something enticing to me and I will never forget sitting on a hillside staring down at our vessel in the bay below just in awe of the size of the world around me, and at my own insignificance, quite humbling to say the least.

Another area I always relish on any trip I've done is to learn about the place I visit so that I have a head start when it comes to trying to understand a place and get beyond the basic tourist facts. When we were introduced to our "experts" on board this was something I looked forward to every day. On Australis there is a daily lecture by one of the leaders in their field who were on board, we had Miguel who was a world leading academic on all the flora of the region, Klaus a swede who knew everything there was to know about penguins (and every other living thing in this part of the world) and also Anita who was a descendent from the local people of Tierra Del Fuego who educated us on the culture and traditions of the area. As well as daily briefings from the Captain and the crew on the route, possible changes with weather or simply when whales had been sited somewhere and so we'd want to have a look. This kind of flexibility was very appealing to me and didn't feel like I was locked to my cabin each day but had the fluidity to be able to explore, learn and enjoy the whole cruise.

It is still one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done and will be something I'll be looking to repeat in the future, hopefully with a trip down to Antarctica if I can save some pennies. But although I've highlighted a trip to the frozen extremities of the earth, expedition cruising does not have to be the sole exercise of woolly hats and gloves. You can sail around the Philippines or Maldives perhaps, what about Tahiti and its outlying islands, or cruising down the Amazon? And this is what I'm here to help with, tailoring the trip so you get the most out of your experience and have a truly unforgettable holiday.

So where's your next adventure going to take you?