Think expedition cruising and your thoughts might wander to the polar regions. Perhaps to daring journeys, undertaken by a niche market of single travellers, avid photographers or expedition aficionados. Conversely, they might drift to luxury travellers drawn to luxury ships. But expedition cruising is so much more than that.
Take Lindblad Expeditions. One of the pioneers of expedition cruising, Lindblad takes its passengers to nearly every corner of the globe – from the warm waters of the South Pacific and Mediterranean to the Amazon and Nile rivers.
Then there’s Japan and Central America, not to mention Australia. The list goes on … all the way back to, of course, the frigid waters of the Arctic and Antarctica.
“From our start, it has not just been about that [polar travel]. For us, it’s been about cultures and people, even down to the music, with our resident musicologist on board,” Lindblad Expeditions Vice President of Sales North America Lesa Bain told guests at a Lindblad-National Geographic (with whom the company has a long-term and extensive partnership) event in Sydney this week.
“So for us, it’s all seven continents. It’s where the water touches the land, where we have the opportunity to educate and change and protect.”
Family-friendly
Casting such a wide net, Lindblad is sure to pull in a variety of customers.
For instance, speaking to Karryon at the event, Bain flagged the popularity of cruises among families and multi-generational travellers.
Often driven by a simple desire to learn more about the planet and the impact of its people (and their nasty microplastics, for example), she said families especially loved places like Baja California, the Galapagos and “surprisingly”, the most popular destination among families, Antarctica.
And Lindblad’s vessels are every bit as welcoming to families as any ocean mega-liners. They just do family activities differently, probably with more purpose.
“We actually have our Lindblad-National Geographic Global Explorers program,” Bain told attendees at the event, which was held at the Australian Museum, with which Lindblad has had a long association.
“That is an amazing program designed for our young guests under 18 – in Alaska, Galapagos, Baja and Antarctica. And it is designed so they understand what they’re seeing.
“They get to take plankton samples; they get to have this amazing field notebook where they keep the lists of the different species they see; they can write their feelings and thoughts down, what they’re experiencing.”
They can also learn to drive a Zodiac “which if you’re in the boat with them, is the scariest thing on the planet”, she joked.
At the other end of the scale, Bain told Karryon the company has guests who have had 50 to 60 journeys with them. And they’re still as curious as ever. It seems expedition cruising, and Lindblad Expeditions, will do that to you.
And if you think expedition journeys are all about luxury, think again. We don’t use the word luxury, Bain says, preferring the term “luxury of experiences”.
Eco-friendly
Meanwhile, underpinning all of this is Lindblad’s commitment to more sustainable travel.
“Sustainability is at the very core of everything we do,” she remarks.
“We are a company that is 100 per cent carbon neutral. We have no single-use consumer plastics on our ships. We focus on sustainable cuisine. We have started farm-to-ship programs, so we’re not bringing in food. We’re financially supporting local farmers.
“We’re sustainable, but every year we work harder to be better at what we do.”
Key to this commitment is a continual investment in its vessels.
In 2021, Lindblad Expeditions launched its first new polar builds, the National Geographic Endurance and National Geographic Resolution.
“In the last five years we’ve spent half a billion dollars on new ships. That’s a huge investment,” Bain says.
“But it’s ensuring that we keep up to date with launching ships that are safe and environmentally friendly. We use ultra-low sulphur gas on our ships – it’s the cleanest burning gas used in the places that we go.”
Lindblad is also researching “things that can move us forward like biodiesel… because we don’t stand still”. Nor should people’s perceptions of expedition cruising.
For more information on Lindblad Expeditions, click here.
