Can't decide between a hot and a cold cruise? We're here to help

Comparing hot and cold cruises is like choosing between fire and ice. Both have their upsides and downsides. Warm-weather cruising unwinds the body and mind. Cool-climate cruises are for the soul.

If I want to relax, sunshine calls my name. If I want to go deeper, a brisk and bracing environment awakens something primal in me.

Summer cruising is the fun crowd-pleaser. Taking it slow, cocktail in hand, drifting with the breeze through Greece or Fiji.

South-east Asia takes tropical cruising to another level. The Mekong is humid as hell, but the riverside scenes and cultural experience are worth the sweat.

Sometimes it's unbearably hot in summer, especially on a riverboat without a pool. Never again will I do France or Egypt in August. That's a better time to take a Kimberley cruise in a dry heat.

At the opposite end of the thermometer, a chill factor promises pure, untamed drama. And I don't just mean the wildlife and the weather. In the glacial silence, you're left alone with your thoughts, pondering your life amid the grandeur of nature.

To reach "the end of the world", the only way is polar. And the only way to get there is by cruising.

In Antarctica, in early November, our ship arrived on the same day that thousands of penguins were returning after months at sea. The snow was immaculate, not a single footprint from human nor animal, as the Gentoo parade commenced uphill from the shore. This rarely witnessed spectacle - the first day of penguins establishing a colony - was the most unforgettable sight of my life.

In the Arctic, I saw the northern lights, fed (and ate) reindeer, and devoured king crabs fished out of a chain-sawed hole in a frozen lake. As an Australian city dweller, I love the novelty of wintery things that we don't have at home.

I'll always remember my first bear in Alaska and hearing an iceberg's thunderous crack as it calved into the ocean.