Visiting Singapore is the highlight of many voyages in the South China Sea, including Grand Asia sailings, and it has been a marquee stop for our world cruises including our current one on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner. This affluent and independent Asian city-state is notable for its awesome sights and heights as well as its world-famous Singapore Sling cocktails made with gin, cherry liqueur, Bénédictine, Cointreau, pineapple juice, lime juice, grenadine, Angostura bitters and topped with soda water.

In 1958, Ian Fleming, of James Bond fame, came to Victoria, Mahe in the Seychelles, a beautiful archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean often referred to as “Africa’s paradise.” He had come reportedly to cure a case of writer’s block. And if so, it worked, as shortly after he wrote the short story The Hildebrand Rarity and his collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only, both appearing in print in 1960.

We had been dreaming of a return to Africa for a few years, so my husband Humberto and I were glad our 2026 world cruise on Regent’s Seven Seas Mariner spent quite a bit of time there – particularly because it called in Madagascar, a bucket list destination for us in the Indian Ocean.