(MONEY Magazine) – Now voyager, here's your choice: You can set sail on a cruise liner with a thousand people you don't have much in common with and tax your mind sunbathing and shuffleboarding. Or you can sail to special places with no more than 150 others who share your interest in nature, history, archaeology or art and learn more about the subject along the way from scholars. Academic travel may not yet be the most popular form of journeying, but ''it's one of the fastest-growing markets in travel,'' says Maria DelliPriscoli, director of sales at Academic Travel Abroad, a Washington, D.C. company that organizes such trips for art museums, universities and other education-oriented institutions. As DelliPriscoli notes: ''People want to do something that is fun but has a focus.'' Study-group cruises sail year round, exploring all seven seas, including the Antarctic. Most often, however, they follow the sun to temperate climates. ''They make ideal winter trips because so many have warm-weather destinations,'' says Vasos Papagapitos of Travel Dynamics, which charters two vessels, the Illiria and Sea Cloud. While academic travel may be enriching, it will leave you poorer in pocket. A four-week cruise in the South Pacific next month aboard the Royal Viking Star will cost members of a lecture group $5,442 each; regular passage is $4,572. And the only tax-deductible part of such a tab is a $200 or $400 donation to some sponsoring organizations, among them the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Alumni associations often run university-sponsored trips as fund raisers and promote them only to alumni through the mail and alumni magazines. But friends and relatives can usually sign on. Being surrounded by fellow travelers who share a special passion tends to bring together even those who might be rivals elsewhere. For example, Harvard and Yale alumni groups are merging in December for the first time for a cruise of old spice routes on the Indian Ocean. The best way to get involved is to shop for cruises devoted to subjects that interest you. Then find out about joining organizations that specialize in those fields and offer trips; you can call the nearest museum or a travel agent. You or the agent can also telephone the few companies that sponsor academic cruises on their own. They include Lindblad Travel (800-243-5657) and Society Expeditions (800-426-7794). Or you can call one of the agencies that specialize in organizing cruises for museums and universities. They include Academic Arrangements Abroad (212-514-8921), Academic Travel Abroad (202-333-3355), Raymond & Whitcomb (212-759-3960) and Travel Dynamics (212-517-7555). If you are not in the mood for too much education, you might try the Cunard Line (800-528-6273). Cunard often invites well-known authorities to give a few on-board lectures in their chosen fields, be it Craig Claiborne on cooking or Dr. Ruth Westheimer on sex. The celebs, at least, love it. Jeff Greenfield, commentator on the press for ABC-TV, still salivates remembering his two weeks from San Juan to Los Angeles through the Panama Canal as a speaker on politics and the press: ''We were given two staterooms for my family, and all I did was make three appearances. It's a great audience because they are hungry for it . . . and they rarely walk out . . . at least not very far.'' If you are looking to travel and learn simultaneously, here is a list of lecture cruises over the next several months. Prices are per person, including approximate air fare to foreign points of departure. Some fares vary widely according to stateroom size and location. ATLANTIC CROSSING Nov. 29 to Dec. 14 This nonstop cruise is for lovers of tall ships. After flying from Miami to the Canary Islands, you spend two weeks at sea aboard the 316-foot Sea Cloud, a four-masted bark. The voyage is limited to 45 passengers, who will attend lectures by marine biologists and maritime historians. If you are really gung- ho, you can help polish brass. Says the Smithsonian's Barbara Tuceling, program manager of foreign-study tours: ''In this case the ship itself is the reason for your being there.'' For Smithsonian members ($20 dues): $4,277 to $7,177. (For further information, call 202-357-4700.) ANTARCTICA Dec. 9 to Dec. 30 The 140-passenger World Discoverer begins this voyage in Puerto Williams, Chile. En route to Antarctica, scientists and naturalists will lecture on oceanography, ornithology and the history of the area. Ashore you visit the huts of South Pole explorers, penguin colonies and other sights. By air from Miami to Santiago and then to Puerto Williams: $9,320 to $19,175, for the owner's suite (800-426-7794). SOUTHEAST ASIA AND AUSTRALIA Dec. 12 to Jan. 8 This one starts with two nights in Singapore and ends with three nights in Sydney. The National Trust for Historic Preservation ($15 dues) has reserved staterooms for 50 members on the 750-passenger Royal Viking Star. Lectures focus on the anthropology, architecture and history of Bali, Krakatoa, Tasmania and other cruise stops: $5,442 to $15,816 (202-673-4138). MONTEGO BAY TO COZUMEL Dec. 22 to Jan. 5 Here the Sea Cloud sails from Jamaica to Caribbean islands and the Yucatan. Lecturers from the staff of the sponsoring American Museum of Natural History in New York City ($20 dues) cover ancient Mayan civilizations and the history, geology and wildlife of the Caribbean. For a closeup, you can snorkel off the great barrier reef of Belize. By air from Miami and including a trip inland to Chichen Itza: $6,260 to $10,060 (800-367-6766). GALAPAGOS Jan. 7 to Jan. 21 and later dates Kurt Vonnegut wrote a best-selling book about them. Now, after one week touring Ecuador, you can travel with 15 others aboard the yacht Isabela to see these remote Ecuadoran islands. An accompanying naturalist fills you in on history and wildlife. By air from Miami: $3,740 (800-426-7794). INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA Jan. 18 to Feb. 7 After a daytime stopover in London, you fly to Delhi for a six-day India land tour, then board the 140-passenger Illiria in Madras. The ship calls at Paradip on the Bay of Bengal, Rangoon, Phuket, Belawan, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Lecturers from one of the sponsors, the University of Texas, are specialists on the arts and culture of India and Southeast Asia. Co-sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: $5,348 to $8,048 from New York City (800-367-6766). SOUTH AMERICA Jan. 23 to Feb. 17 On this Smithsonian offering, you fly to Rio de Janeiro, board the 300- passenger Greek liner Jason and follow the wake of Magellan, Drake and Darwin around Cape Horn, through the Beagle Channel and archipelagic Chile, passing the southern extremity of the awesome Andes. The Jason puts in at Buenos Aires and nine other ports. Five scholars lecture on cultural and natural history. From Miami: $5,060 to $7,055 (202-357-4700). INDONESIAN ODYSSEY Feb. 3 to Feb. 28 Aboard the Illiria, you cruise from Singapore to Java, Bali, Sulawesi (where graves are chisled out of the volcanic hillside) and Irian Jaya, the western half of New Guinea. Four specialists will come along to hold forth on primitive art, cultural history and marine ecology. Sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History: $9,575 to $12,574 from San Francisco (800-367-6766). ASIAN ODYSSEY Feb. 14 to March 11 Supporters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will fill 150 berths on the Norwegian liner Royal Viking Sky for this cruise from Hong Kong down the South China Sea to Bangkok, Singapore and Malaysia. The subject is temples and works of art. From New York or Los Angeles: $6,885 to $19,410 including a tax- deductible $300 contribution (212-759-3960). BAJA WHALE WATCH Feb. 23 to March 3 March 3 to March 11 With room for 35 Smithsonian members and their study leaders, the Royal Polaris calls at two islands off the Baja on the way to San Ignacio Lagoon, where pods of gray whales mate and calve at this time each year. The return voyage takes in Cedros Island, with its pine forest flourishing in a desert, and San Martin Island, site of an extinct volcano. From San Diego: $1,265 to $1,305 (202-357-4700). SOUTH PACIFIC March 15 to March 31 Sponsored by the University of Chicago, Tufts and Duke alumni associations, this island tour aboard the Illiria begins in Port Moresby, New Guinea and visits the Trobriand, Solomon and Santa Cruz islands, ending in Fiji. Three lecturers fill you in on the customs of the islanders and the history of an area not often traveled. From Los Angeles to Sydney and, two days later, to New Guinea: $4,875 to $7,875 (800-367-3766). CANADIAN FJORDS Aug. 24 to Aug. 31 View whales, bald eagles and the settlements and artwork of Pacific Northwest Indians on the islands that dot the coastline and fjords of British Columbia. Lecturers are on board the 100-passenger Society Explorer, which sails from Seattle. After traveling through the Canadian wilds, you stop in civilized Vancouver: $1,190 to $3,590 (800-426-7794).