Uploaded December 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Watch this oral history with former board president and longtime member of SSHSA, Ted Scull. Ted is happiest near water, over water or better still on a conveyance moving through water. When he and his brother Sandy were deemed old enough, their mother took them to Europe by ship. Foreign travel soon became a cherished part of his life and living abroad in Paris and London only added to the opportunities.
Over these many decades, he has spent more than five years of his life on overnight vessels of all types — ocean liners, cruise ships, riverboats, night boats, coastal vessels, expedition ships, sailing ships and even a couple of freighters, while traveling to over 120 countries on seven continents.
After working for Holland America Line, his first full-time job, and a decade of teaching with the summers to travel, he took up travel writing with an emphasis on the cruise industry, initially for newspapers and the travel industry, then shifting to magazines, websites, and lecturing. Ted also wrote a cruise guide —“One Hundred Best Cruise Vacations” — that ran to four editions, covering the waterfront with the best of every type of ship available.
Watch this oral history with former board president and longtime member of SSHSA, Ted Scull. Ted is happiest near water, over water or better still on a conveyance moving through water. When he and his brother Sandy were deemed old enough, their mother took them to Europe by ship. Foreign travel soon became a cherished part of his life and living abroad in Paris and London only added to the opportunities.
Over these many decades, he has spent more than five years of his life on overnight vessels of all types — ocean liners, cruise ships, riverboats, night boats, coastal vessels, expedition ships, sailing ships and even a couple of freighters, while traveling to over 120 countries on seven continents.
After working for Holland America Line, his first full-time job, and a decade of teaching with the summers to travel, he took up travel writing with an emphasis on the cruise industry, initially for newspapers and the travel industry, then shifting to magazines, websites, and lecturing. Ted also wrote a cruise guide —“One Hundred Best Cruise Vacations” — that ran to four editions, covering the waterfront with the best of every type of ship available.
