Norway Is Alaska WITH Balls!

The Arctic Circle: Sailing on Top of the World

Western Norway and Hardangerfjord

Posted by Hotel @nyware on June 29, 2015

“We shall not cease from exploration, / and the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started / and know the place for the first time.”

- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Norway is Alaska with balls.

At 20 years old — the "Old Age of Youth" — I could only accept this bold statement on blind faith, as I had yet to experience the truth behind the words. Home, as I saw it, was a place I wanted to leave as soon as possible, a place to escape in pursuit of new horizons.

There is something deeply human about the impulse to explore, to break free from the familiar. This urge to sail away is ancient, persistent, and universal.

Voyages trigger something called "psychological distance." The act of leaving familiar ground creates a jolt, an awakening that floods the brain with fresh ideas and perspectives. It's like wiring new neurons—neurons that fire together, wire together. And now that I have my dreamer-pilot's license, I am certain I will be "flying" once again.

For me, this shift in perspective begins the moment I board a cruise ship. Ships have always been an oddly lucid part of my life. Every journey I take aboard one seems to shift me in some way, and Norway has done it again.

As Karen Blixen so eloquently put it:

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.”