Have you ever wondered who took the first pleasure

Well, historically speaking, the most famous historical figure, and one of the first to be mentioned as sailing for pleasure, was Cleopatra.

Here’s what Enobarbus, who actually saw her pleasure craft, had to say about it: The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Amazingly enough, the Vikings also took paying passengers on their raiding longships - while it might not seem like the most pleasurable experience to be sailing around with a bunch of crazed, sword-wielding, rape and slaughter specialists, there is evidence to suggest that both merchants and craftsmen travelled with the war gangs, paying for passage by providing food for the attacking hordes, and using the Vikings as a way to create business: the merchants bought loot from the soldiers and sold it on at a profit and the craftsmen would set up in business after the Vikings had passed through and charge the already pillaged communities a high price to build new houses or stockades.