Geek Cruises

By Rebecca Hernandez

While I tried really hard to stick with a pure science theme with this top 10 list, this geeky holiday was just too good to ignore. Heck, the name of the holiday itself contains the word “geek”.

Geek Cruises are operated by the company Insight Cruises, which operates a number of educational cruises with such titles as ‘MacMania’, ‘Photoshop Fling’ and my personal favourite ‘Chess Moves’.

For us science nerds there is a cruise co-produced by Scientific American called ‘Bright Horizons’ which covers such topics as archaeology, astrophysics, evolution and even cognitive psychology.

Don’t let the themes fool you, these are top notch cruise ships which operate services in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Hawaii and Alaska and have all of the amenities you’d expect from a non-geeky cruise ship.

My favourite part of the website for Geek Cruises has got to be the tab entitled ‘Convince Your Spouse’. Just in case your other half isn’t too keen on going on the ‘Linux Lunacy’ cruise, you can read testimonials from previous customers who had the time of their lives on the Geek Cruise.

Expect to pay the same amount for a Geek Cruise as you would for any other cruise, plus a few hundred pounds for the conference fee (waived for partners who do not attend the seminars of course!) One of these days I’ll get myself on the Chess Moves cruise…though part of me shudders to think of what happens when you get a bunch of poolside chess geeks drinking margaritas…

Time required: a week upwards

Money: ££££

More information: GeekCruises.com

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