PONANT's Curated Voyages: Smithsonian Journeys, Explorers Club and More
Updated: 1 day ago
One of the things that first made me genuinely excited about PONANT was its approach to curated voyages. It is easy for a cruise company to put a guest speaker on a program and call the experience educational. That is not what interests me.
What I find interesting about PONANT is the possibility of bringing the right people, the right subject and the right destination together, and then allowing the relationship to continue beyond the scheduled lecture.
For travelers who are genuinely curious about culture, history, science, art or exploration, that can change the entire experience of a voyage.
Curation Is About the Right Expert and the Right Place
Guides and experts are everywhere. Unique destinations are not. If you put someone who is an expert in the South Pole on a North Pole expedition, you are obviously not getting the right information. The same would be true of taking an Egyptologist on a rainforest journey through Central America. The expert has to belong to the destination.
What I want is someone who has spent decades surrounded by a particular subject or region and has developed a genuine passion and curiosity for it. That person can open your eyes to things you would otherwise simply pass.
This is where I think PONANT does something particularly interesting. Its curated programs bring together specialists from different fields with particular voyages and destinations. The value is not simply that the person has impressive credentials. It is that their knowledge can flourish in that specific place. The destination gives the expert something to interpret, and the expert gives the destination another dimension.
The Best Conversation May Happen Outside the Lecture
A formal lecture has obvious value, but one of my favourite aspects of these programs is what can happen afterward. The experts are actually onboard.
That means there can be informal conversations in addition to the scheduled presentations. You might ask a question that occurred to you during the lecture, talk about something you saw during an excursion, or simply have a one-to-one conversation about the subject.
For me, one conversation can sometimes say more than a forty-five-minute lecture. It can also stay with you differently. That is particularly valuable on a small ship. You are not attending one presentation and watching the speaker disappear into a huge passenger population. The possibility of repeated encounters makes the relationship more personal. The educational element therefore becomes part of the atmosphere of the voyage rather than an isolated activity on the daily schedule.
From Observing a Destination to Understanding It
Sicily is a good example of why this matters.
You can sail along Sicily, look at the coastline and the extraordinary remains visible from the sea, and still understand very little about what you are seeing. But introduce the history of the Mediterranean, the movement of peoples, trade, wars, dynasties and cultures, and suddenly the landscape becomes much more legible.
You are no longer simply observing but reflecting as well.
That distinction is important to me. Expert guidance gives you both understanding and reflection, and having those two things with you throughout a voyage makes the experience considerably richer.
This is also why I would not choose a curated voyage simply because the subject sounds impressive. I would ask whether the subject actually interests the traveler, whether the destination suits it and whether the experts are the right people for that particular journey. That is where our role as travel advisors becomes important.
Smithsonian, Explorers Club and the Art of Matching
At DeSalvio Travel, we describe ourselves as matchmakers. We listen to our clients before we recommend anything. We want to understand who they are, what they are interested in and what kind of experience they actually want.
Everything is possible in travel if you find the right match.
That is why collaborations such as PONANT's relationships with Smithsonian Journeys and The Explorers Club are important to us. Smithsonian brings an extraordinary depth of knowledge in culture and history. For me, its status as one of the world's most important cultural and historical institutions makes an association with PONANT a significant statement about the level of intellectual content the company wants to bring to its voyages.
The Explorers Club brings a different dimension, particularly around exploration, science and firsthand experience. PONANT's dedicated Explorers Club sailings place travelers alongside people who have genuine experience in the environments and subjects being explored. That combination is very close to my own interests. I would personally be drawn to a Smithsonian or Explorers Club polar voyage because culture, arts, history and expedition travel all come together there.
Ultimately, however, the right curated voyage is not necessarily the one with the most famous institution or the most impressive speaker. It is the one where everything fits. The destination, the subject, the experts and the traveler should all make sense together. That is what curation means to me, and it is one of the reasons PONANT has earned such a strong place in our portfolio.
Read more about PONANT's Curated Voyages: Smithsonian Journeys, Explorers Club and More
Read here about the my classical music playlists, which I recorded just for voyages on the DeSalvio Travel website:
Is a Curated PONANT Voyage Right for You?
A great itinerary becomes even more compelling when the people and ideas surrounding it speak to your interests. Sarasota Cruise Agency, the cruise-specialist sister brand of DeSalvio Travel, a Virtuoso-affiliated agency and a PONANT and Paul Gauguin Cruises Certified Expert, can help you explore PONANT's curated voyages and find the right combination of destination, expertise and enrichment.
Contact us when you feel ready, and we will begin, calmly and thoughtfully, exactly where you are in the process.
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