Idyllic Iberia

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the October 9, 2023 edition of Global Golf Post. BARCELONA, SPAIN | In a lifetime of teeing it up, I have heard more than one person lament that it was not possible to be both a golfer and a sailor. Each sport was too time consuming, they invariably averred, and attempting to enjoy them concurrently would drain a bank account faster than a Nigerian “prince” with a stolen Social Security number. But as my wife, Cynthia, and I recently discovered on a 1,100-mile cruise from the seafaring city of Lisbon, Portugal, to the Mediterranean metropolis of Barcelona, Spain, the two actually go quite well together, provided one leaves ownership and upkeep of the vessel to someone else and relies on a first-rate tour operator to handle trip logistics. For our voyage, we turned to Kalos Golf, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina, outfit that has been conducting golf cruises since 1994 on what it describes as “boutique ships.” And the Iberian Peninsula expedition it organized included rounds on some of the f...