Have you ever dreamed of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and penning your own Hemingway-style reflection? Or, kayaking the fjords of Norway while learning from locals how to catch your meals along the way? Or, gather your whole extended family together for a visit to your ancestral village on a remote Greek isle? You're not alone.

"The number of travelers who are asking us for trips that deliver meaningful life experiences has tripled in the past two years," says Wendy Perrin, longtime travel advice columnist whose trip-planning site delivers transformative trips. "These travelers want to achieve a long-held goal (say, learning to cook the perfect tiramisu, or seeing their seventh continent); celebrate a milestone anniversary or birthday via a multigenerational family activity (say, hiking to the top of a famous waterfall together, or finding their ancestral village); explore foreign cultures through food and drink (via cooking lessons in the homes of locals, for instance). These travelers are not just looking for R&R; they're looking for a trip of a lifetime where they return home newly inspired or with a new world view."

You can turn to a qualified travel counselor -- or your cruise line -- to organize these once-in-a-lifetime experiences. At Crystal for one, there are "boutique adventures," in which passengers have private experiences, such as a lunch at a family-run winery in Funchal, your own viewing of the Contini Bonacossi Collection at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence or a cooking lesson and village stroll with a Michelin-starred chef in Taormina.

With more than 2,000 different tour options and experiences offered, no request is too demanding for the cruise line. Whether its camel riding through the desert followed by a meal with the Bedouins, catching a glimpse of the penguins of Antarctica at play, helping to rescue marine animals off the coast of Spain or getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the Vatican, the experience you've always dreamed about can be yours.

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