Your point about textiles vs Chinese trinkets is well taken. I lived on a small Caribbean island for about 6 months and that is in many ways what happened. It was very difficult to find fish to eat there unless you fished yourself because all those with boats prefer to ferry tourists around instead of driving out for an hour to sit all day in the sun.

On the other hand, the people there made their living with tourists and much as tourism has eaten into the island culture, it supports it as well.

I’m also curious about the waste management aspect of things. Waste management on this same island consisted of collecting garbage then dumping it in a pit on another part of the island. Some areas have septic systems, others have little outhouses over the water. Certainly not equipped to handle 6K people.
It would be of best to provide more efficient waste management processes in these islands.

Exactly.

If your concerns are cultural, I think it’s generally safe to say that smaller is better. But even then, cruises tend to be short (10 days or less) and to hop from one destination to the next, which tends to sensationalize certain aspects of a local culture and ignore others.

That said, I don’t think working on a big cruise line is automatically akin to selling your traveler’s soul. Being there gives you the opportunity to spread a different message, to encourage ship-goers to learn more, to be more culturally and environmentally sensitive, to think about the impact they are having.

Here’s a link: http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf

Really great literary journalism piece published in Harper’s by Wallace– such a tragically great writer and dissecter of life.

However. I’ve never been on a cruise. Years ago I was mildly interested. Lately, not so much. I realized awhile ago it wasn’t the kind of travel I’m interested in. I do think it’s nice for people who work tough jobs and save up to have a luxurious week/weekend sailing around. But this type of excess is troublesome, for sure.

Are there any small, more environmentally-conscious cruise lines out there? I’m all about people partying and having a good time, but not at such a high cost to local cultures and the environment. It’d be nice to see some other options.