Hitchhiker's Guide to the Planet

"Human beings are great adaptors, and by lunchtime life in the environs of Arthur's house had settled into a daily routine."---From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

That quote, taken out of the context of a guy making a stand against having his house demolished by blue collar bureaucrats following orders for the "Public Good," doesn't seem to resonate with quite the same amplitude as it did while reading the novel, but hopefully it sinks in.

We humans truly do adapt quickly to changing circumstances. It's hard to imagine life before computers, cell phones, video recorders, color television and freeways became common place. We embrace change and then settle into routines adapted to the breakthroughs, soon taking them for granted.

When I was a child, a vacation was getting in the car and driving to places like Yosemite, Alabama, Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon, sometimes stopping at a Motel 6 (a new phenomenon that got its name by charging $6 per night) along the way. The idea of getting on a cruise to visit foreign lands, much less enjoying all of the amazing onboard entertainment of the ship itself on the voyage, never occurred to me. In fact, it never occurred to most people.

That's because in the years before the Beatles became the internationally acclaimed Fab Four, cruising was only a method of transportation between continents. In fact, memories of the Beatles walking down stairs from a plane heralded in a new age: the age of the jumbo jet that should have made cruising obsolete.



After all, why would someone take a week crossing the ocean from New York to London when he could now make the trip in a few hours at a much lower price? The world was suddenly a much smaller place, with that cliche becoming true because of the human ability to adapt to the changing circumstances.

I had been listening to my album Beatles '65 for a year when Knut Knoster and Ted Arison of Norwegian Cruise Lines decided to try something new: low cost cruises to the Caribbean.

As unbelievable as it seems, that gamble in 1966 burgeoned into the remarkable cruise industry we have today. After a blush of success, the two partners split, and Ted Arison opened a little cruise company called Carnival, which grew to become the largest cruise line in the world and came to own other lines including Holland America, which got its name by offering transatlantic service between Holland and America, Cunard, which of course is still famous for doing transatlantic cruises, and the original Love Boat, Princess.

Cruising exploded into the public consciousness after The Love Boat found a big audience on television in the 1970s.

As Milton Friedman delivered his seminal message in Free to Choose in 1980, the cruise lines seemed to be listening, and the cruise industry delivered amazing choices as the industry continued to grow. Despite all the ups and downs in the economy, from 1980 until now, the cruise industry has experienced a compound growth rate of 7.2% per year. Between 2010 and 2012, 26 new cruise ships are scheduled for delivery, so the growth will continue.

Who are all these rich people going on cruises? If you are asking that question, then you must be among the 85% of Americans who have not cruised yet. You may be surprised to learn that most people who cruise are no richer than you. It's just that they have different priorities. You don't have to be rich to cruise. You just have to want to travel enough to break out of your habitual routines and discover your greater self.

Despite recent financial turmoil and 24-hour news cycles telling us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, the fact is that we are still among the freest and wealthiest people in the history of the world. Embrace this relatively new reality. Take a cruise and see the planet. It's a wonderful time to be alive.