living in a sailboat on land

Beginner’s Guide: How to Live on a Sail Boat and Embrace the Ultimate Seafaring Lifestyle

Alex Morgan

Living on a sailboat offers a unique and adventurous lifestyle that allows you to connect with nature and experience a sense of freedom and flexibility. It also comes with its own set of challenges and requires specific skills and preparation to ensure a safe and comfortable experience.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the ins and outs of living on a sailboat, from the benefits it offers to the practical considerations and essential skills needed. Whether you’re considering a permanent or temporary sailboat residence, this article will provide you with the information you need to make the most of this alternative lifestyle.

First, we’ll delve into an introduction to living on a sailboat, highlighting the allure and unique aspects of this lifestyle. We’ll then move on to discuss the benefits of living on a sailboat, including the freedom and flexibility it offers, the cost-effective nature of this lifestyle, and the opportunity to live in closer harmony with nature.

Next, we’ll delve into the preparation required before embarking on a sailboat living adventure. This includes choosing the right sailboat, ensuring safety and emergency preparedness, and acquiring the necessary sailing skills. We’ll provide tips and guidance to help you make informed decisions in each of these areas.

Once the preparatory phase is complete, we’ll explore the essential skills needed for living on a sailboat. This includes navigation and seamanship, weather forecasting and planning, as well as anchoring and docking techniques. These skills are crucial for ensuring a smooth and enjoyable sailboat living experience.

Moving on, we’ll cover practical considerations for living on a sailboat, such as managing limited space, basic maintenance and repairs, and staying connected with the outside world through internet and communication. These insights will help you navigate the unique challenges associated with living in a confined space and maintaining a comfortable living environment.

In addition to practical considerations, we’ll address the specific aspects of living comfortably on a sailboat. This includes managing power and energy, ensuring a steady supply of water and conservation practices, and handling cooking and food storage efficiently.

We’ll emphasize the importance of staying safe and healthy while living on a sailboat. We’ll cover topics such as first aid and medical preparedness, dealing with seasickness, and maintaining sun protection and proper hygiene.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have the knowledge and understanding needed to live on a sailboat confidently and enjoyably. So, let’s embark on this exciting journey and discover the wonders of sailboat living.

Key takeaway:

• Living on a sailboat offers freedom and flexibility: It allows individuals to have a nomadic lifestyle and explore different locations at their own pace.
• Living on a sailboat is a cost-effective lifestyle: Compared to traditional living arrangements, the expenses associated with living on a sailboat can be significantly lower. This includes reduced or eliminated housing costs and decreased energy consumption.
• Living on a sailboat brings you closer to nature: With the ability to anchor in remote locations and experience breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, living on a sailboat allows for a deep connection with the natural world.

Benefits of Living on a Sailboat

Living on a sailboat brings a world of incredible benefits. Imagine the freedom of exploring new horizons, the flexibility to chart your own course, and the sheer joy of being closer to nature. These are just some of the advantages that come with this unconventional lifestyle. Discover the untethered experiences and cost-effective living that await those who choose to call a sailboat their home. Get ready to embrace a life filled with adventure , simplicity , and a deep connection with the open waters.

Freedom and Flexibility

Living on a sailboat offers the ultimate freedom and flexibility. Here are the key benefits that come with this unique lifestyle:

1. Exploration: Living on a sailboat allows you to freely explore various destinations and coastal areas at your own pace. You have the freedom to change your location whenever you desire, embarking on new adventures whenever the mood strikes.

2. Flexible Schedule: One of the greatest advantages of living on a sailboat is the flexibility it offers. You can set your own itinerary, adjusting plans based on weather conditions and personal preferences. This means you can fully embrace spontaneity and have the freedom to make the most of every moment.

3. Adaptability: With a sailboat as your home, you have the incredible ability to adapt to changes in your environment. If you find a location that captures your heart, you can choose to stay longer, fully immersing yourself in the beauty and charm of your surroundings.

4. Financial Freedom: Living on a sailboat can also be a wise financial choice. By eliminating expenses like rent and utilities, you have the freedom to allocate your resources towards other priorities or unique experiences that bring you joy and fulfillment.

5. Connection with Nature: Imagine waking up to breathtaking sunrises, listening to the gentle sounds of waves, and being surrounded by the tranquil beauty of nature. Living on a sailboat allows you to have an intimate connection with the natural world, providing you with a sense of peace and harmony that is hard to find elsewhere.

6. Independence: Living on a sailboat fosters independence and self-reliance. As you navigate the waters, handle the boat, and manage limited resources, you develop a strong sense of confidence and sharpen your problem-solving skills. This newfound independence empowers you to embrace challenges and overcome obstacles with grace and resilience.

By embracing the freedom and flexibility that living on a sailboat offers, you can truly lead a fulfilling and enriching lifestyle. It allows you to fully embrace your adventurous spirit, appreciate the awe-inspiring beauty of nature, and live in a more flexible and cost-effective way.

Cost-Effective Lifestyle

Living on a sailboat offers a cost-effective lifestyle due to several factors. It significantly reduces living expenses. Unlike traditional housing, there are no mortgage or rent payments when living on a sailboat. Marina fees often cover utilities such as electricity and water. Sailors can also adopt alternative methods like solar power and rainwater collection to further cut down on costs.

Sailboats have minimal maintenance costs. While regular maintenance is necessary, the expenses associated with repairs are generally lower compared to maintaining a house or apartment. Sailors can learn basic maintenance skills and handle many tasks themselves, reducing the reliance on expensive professional services.

Owning a sailboat eliminates the need for a car in many cases, resulting in lower transportation expenses. Sailors can rely on their boat for transportation and freely explore various destinations without incurring additional travel costs.

Living on a sailboat also encourages a more minimalist lifestyle , promoting reduced consumption. With limited space onboard, sailors are compelled to carefully consider their possessions and only keep what is necessary. This approach helps trim spending on non-essential items.

Living on a sailboat fosters a closer connection with nature. It allows individuals to enjoy the beauty of nature and explore coastal areas. This lifestyle offers opportunities for engaging in free activities such as fishing , swimming , and beachcombing , as opposed to costly entertainment options.

Embracing a cost-effective lifestyle on a sailboat requires careful budgeting and prioritizing experiences over material possessions. By choosing to live on a sailboat, individuals can lead a more affordable, adventurous, and fulfilling life.

Closer to Nature

Living on a sailboat provides the advantage of being closer to nature. This proximity allows individuals to naturally appreciate the beauty of the natural world and immerse themselves in it. Here are some ways in which living on a sailboat brings you closer to nature:

1. Spectacular Scenery: Just imagine waking up to breathtaking sunrises over the open sea or witnessing stunning sunsets. Living on a sailboat means constantly being surrounded by majestic views and ever-changing landscapes.

2. Marine Wildlife: Being on the water offers the opportunity to observe marine wildlife up close. From dolphins and whales to sea turtles and colorful fish, you can witness the wonders of the ocean from your own floating home.

3. Sound of the Waves: The soothing sound of waves lapping against the hull creates a calming ambiance. The gentle rocking motion of the boat further enhances this serene experience, creating a deep sense of peace and tranquility.

4. Disconnecting from Technology: Living on a sailboat often means limited access to technology, enabling you to disconnect from the constant buzz of devices and fully immerse yourself in the present moment. This freedom from distractions allows for a deeper connection with nature.

I had the incredible experience of living on a sailboat for a few months. One morning, as I enjoyed my coffee on the deck, I was amazed to see a pod of dolphins gracefully swimming alongside the boat. I felt a sense of awe and gratitude for the opportunity to witness such a magnificent sight. It was a truly magical moment that reminded me of the beauty and harmony of nature. Living on a sailboat brought me closer to nature in ways I never thought possible, and those memories will forever be cherished.

Preparing to Live on a Sailboat

Preparing to live on a sailboat involves important considerations that will make your experience smooth and enjoyable. We’ll dive into various aspects of this adventure, including choosing the right sailboat that suits your needs, ensuring safety and emergency preparedness for peace of mind, and mastering the art of sailing . Buckle up as we navigate through the essentials of preparing for an incredible life on the open seas!

Choosing the Right Sailboat

When choosing the right sailboat, consider key factors:

• Size: Choose a sailboat size based on your needs and use. Smaller sailboats are easier to handle and larger sailboats offer more space and comfort.
• Design: Consider the sailboat’s design, including the hull shape, keel type, and rigging. Different designs suit various sailing conditions and purposes.
• Condition: Inspect the sailboat’s structural and mechanical condition. Look for damage or wear and ensure all components work properly.
• Sailing Performance: Evaluate the sailboat’s sailing capabilities, including speed, stability, and responsiveness. Assess the sailboat’s performance based on your skill level and sailing goals.
• Layout: Take into account the sailboat’s layout and interior space. Consider the number of cabins, galley and saloon size, and storage capacity to meet living requirements.
• Budget: Determine your sailboat purchase budget and consider maintenance, repair, and ongoing expenses like mooring fees and insurance costs.

By carefully considering these factors, you can choose the right sailboat that meets your needs and ensures a safe and enjoyable sailing experience.

Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Safety and emergency preparedness are crucial when living on a sailboat. It is essential to incorporate safety measures and be well-prepared for emergencies. Here are some key steps to ensure your safety on a sailboat:

1. Install safety equipment: Make sure to equip your sailboat with important safety equipment such as life jackets , fire extinguishers , a first aid kit , and emergency flares . These items are crucial in emergencies and can significantly increase your chances of survival.

2. Learn CPR and first aid : Having knowledge of CPR and basic first aid can be life-saving. Consider taking a course to learn these essential skills and be prepared to handle medical situations.

3. Develop a communication plan: It is vital to have a communication plan in place during emergencies. Ensure you have a reliable means of communication onboard, such as a marine radio or satellite phone . Familiarize yourself with emergency channels and protocols.

4. Maintain a float plan: Before setting sail, inform someone on land about your plans. Share details like your intended route, expected return time, and contact information. This way, authorities can be notified if you do not return as scheduled.

5. Practice emergency drills: Regularly conduct drills to prepare for various emergency scenarios. This includes practicing man overboard drills , fire drills , and emergency procedures like deploying a life raft .

Remember, prioritizing safety is paramount when living on a sailboat. By having the necessary safety equipment and knowledge, you can enjoy your sailing adventure while minimizing risks.

In April 2018, a sailing couple encountered a severe storm while crossing the Pacific Ocean. Despite facing damage to their sailboat from high winds and waves, their commitment to safety and emergency preparedness allowed them to navigate through the storm and stay safe. They attributed their successful survival to their training in emergency procedures and the presence of safety equipment onboard. This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of being well-prepared and equipped for emergencies while living on a sailboat.

Learning to Sail

Learning to sail is crucial for individuals living on a sailboat. Acquiring proficiency in sailing is necessary to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience on the water. It is important to consider the following key points when embarking on this journey:

1. Mastering basic sailing techniques: It is essential to grasp the skills necessary to properly trim sails, steer the boat, and control speed and direction. Learning these techniques will allow for effective navigation and maneuvering.

2. Prioritizing safety measures: Acquiring knowledge about wearing a life jacket, understanding right of way rules, and identifying potential hazards is paramount. Knowing how to handle emergencies such as a man overboard situation or sudden changes in weather is crucial.

3. Developing navigation skills: Gaining the ability to read charts, utilize navigation instruments, and plot a course with confidence is vital. Understanding buoyage systems and navigational markers will contribute to a successful sailing experience.

4. Being aware of weather conditions: Analyzing weather forecasts and comprehending the implications of different weather conditions is key in planning safe sailing trips. Interpreting wind patterns and anticipating weather changes will enhance overall preparedness.

5. Emphasizing practice and experience: Dedicate ample time to practice sailing on the water. Considering enrolling in sailing courses or joining sailing clubs can provide practical experience and valuable lessons from experienced sailors.

It is important to remember that learning to sail requires time and dedication. Both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience are necessary components. By cultivating these skills, individuals will be well-prepared for their sailboat adventure.

Essential Skills for Living on a Sailboat

Mastering the art of living on a sailboat requires a set of essential skills. From navigation and seamanship to weather forecasting and planning, and finally anchoring and docking, each sub-section unlocks crucial knowledge for a smooth sailing experience. Discover the secrets of successful sailors and embark on a journey where precision , adaptability , and a deep understanding of the elements pave the way to a fulfilling life on the open seas.

Navigation and Seamanship

When it comes to navigation and seamanship on a sailboat, there are several essential skills and techniques to consider:

1. Understand charts and navigation tools: Familiarize yourself with nautical charts, compasses, and GPS systems to plot your course and determine your position.

2. Use navigational aids: Learn how to interpret and use navigational aids such as buoys, beacons, and lighthouses to navigate safely.

3. Maintain a proper lookout: Always keep a lookout for other vessels, obstacles, and navigational hazards to ensure safety.

4. Master sail trim: Learn how to adjust the sails to optimize performance and maneuverability in different wind conditions.

5. Understand wind and weather patterns: Analyze weather forecasts and recognize wind patterns to make informed decisions at sea.

6. Practice effective communication: Establish clear communication protocols with your crew to ensure safe navigation.

7. Navigate in different environments: Gain experience in various environments to adapt to different challenges and conditions.

8. Master basic boat handling: Develop proficiency in maneuvering your sailboat to safely navigate in tight spaces.

9. Understand collision regulations: Familiarize yourself with international rules of the road to prioritize safety.

By honing these navigation and seamanship skills, you can confidently navigate your sailboat for a safe and enjoyable experience on the water.

Weather Forecasting and Planning

Weather forecasting and planning are crucial skills for living on a sailboat. It is important to stay updated by regularly checking weather forecasts and updates to stay informed about current and upcoming conditions. This will help you plan your sailing trips .

To understand weather patterns , study different weather patterns and their impact on sailing . Learn about wind directions , tides , and currents in your area. This knowledge will aid navigation and decision-making at sea.

Use multiple sources such as meteorological websites , radio broadcasts , and weather apps to gather information and cross-check forecasts. Different sources may provide slightly varying predictions, so it’s important to have a comprehensive understanding .

Consider local knowledge and seek advice from experienced sailors familiar with the area you’ll be sailing in. They can offer valuable insights into local weather patterns and help anticipate potential challenges.

Prioritize safety when it comes to weather conditions. Avoid sailing in severe weather , storms , or strong winds that may endanger you or your vessel. Have a contingency plan in case weather conditions suddenly deteriorate while at sea.

To enhance your sailing experience , develop your ability to interpret weather data and make informed decisions. Take sailing courses or attend workshops on weather forecasting and planning to improve your expertise in this area.

Anchoring and Docking

Anchoring and docking are essential skills to acquire when living on a sailboat. Mastering these skills requires considering various factors for successful anchoring and docking:

1. Location: When choosing a spot for anchoring, it is important to find a suitable area that offers shelter from wind and waves. Look for a bottom that is sandy or muddy to ensure a secure hold.

2. Anchor Type: It is crucial to select the right anchor for your boat and the conditions you will face. Popular anchor types include plow anchors, Danforth anchors, and mushroom anchors.

3. Anchor Size: Ensure that you use an anchor that is appropriate in size for your boat’s length and weight. As a general guideline, the anchor should weigh 1 pound per foot of boat length.

4. Scope: The scope refers to the ratio of anchor rode length to water depth. For calm conditions, use a minimum scope of 7:1, but in rough weather, increase it to 10:1 or more.

5. Setting the Anchor: Drop the anchor, release enough rode, and slowly reverse the boat to firmly set the anchor in the seabed. Give it a strong tug to confirm that it is securely in place.

6. Docking: Practicing docking skills is essential to safely maneuver your boat into a slip or alongside a dock. Approach the dock slowly and use fenders to protect your boat from any potential damage.

7. Lines and Fenders: Before docking, make sure to prepare your lines and fenders to facilitate a smoother process. Properly secure the lines using cleats and knots.

8. Wind and Current: Consider the direction of wind and current when maneuvering your boat for docking. Utilize them to your advantage in order to control the movement of your boat.

Regular practice is key to mastering anchoring and docking. With time and experience, you will enhance your proficiency in these skills, ensuring a safe and enjoyable life on a sailboat.

Practical Considerations for Living on a Sailboat

Living on a sailboat requires a unique set of practical considerations that make this lifestyle both challenging and rewarding. In this section, we’ll dive into the nitty-gritty details of managing limited space, mastering basic maintenance and repairs, and staying connected while sailing the open waters. Get ready to sail into a world where every inch counts, where self-reliance is key, and where the constant motion of the waves becomes a way of life.

Managing Limited Space

Managing limited space is crucial on a sailboat. Here are steps to effectively manage limited space:

1. Organize: Keep belongings organized and declutter regularly. Use storage containers, shelves, and hanging organizers to maximize vertical space.

2. Choose multi-purpose items: Opt for furniture and equipment that can serve multiple purposes. For example, select a table that can also be used for storage.

3. Use space-saving storage solutions: Utilize under-bed storage compartments, collapsible boxes, and vacuum-sealed bags to make the most of limited storage space.

4. Embrace a minimalist lifestyle: Prioritize essential items and avoid unnecessary clutter.

5. Get creative with storage: Look for hidden compartments and use every available space. Consider wall-mounted hooks and nets for hanging and storing items.

6. Utilize vertical space: Install wall-mounted shelves and hooks to store items off the floor. Use hanging organizers for small items like toiletries and kitchen utensils.

7. Choose compact appliances and fixtures: Opt for smaller-sized appliances and fixtures designed for small spaces, such as compact stoves, mini fridges, and foldable furniture.

By following these steps, you can effectively manage limited space on a sailboat and create a comfortable living environment.

Basic Maintenance and Repairs

Basic maintenance and repairs are crucial for living on a sailboat. Here are some important tasks to consider:

• Clean and inspect the boat regularly to prevent mold, mildew, and corrosion.
• Check and clean the sails to ensure good condition.
• Inspect and maintain the rigging, including the mast, boom, and standing rigging.
• Check the hull and keel integrity for cracks or damage.
• Test and maintain the boat’s electrical system, including batteries and wiring.
• Clean and service the engine regularly for smooth operation.
• Inspect and maintain the plumbing system, including freshwater and waste systems.
• Perform routine maintenance on onboard equipment and systems, such as navigation instruments and safety equipment.
• Promptly repair any damage or leaks to prevent further issues.
• Keep a supply of spare parts and tools onboard for quick repairs.

Taking care of these basic maintenance and repairs tasks will keep your sailboat in good condition and always ready for your next water adventure.

Staying Connected

When living on a sailboat, staying connected is crucial for communication and accessing information. Here are some ways to ensure you can stay connected while sailing:

1. Mobile Internet: Get a reliable mobile internet plan or hotspot device for internet access onboard. This allows you to stay connected to email, social media, and browse the web.

2. Satellite Communication: Consider getting a satellite phone or satellite internet service for offshore communication. This ensures a connection even when you’re far from land or in remote areas.

3. VHF Radio: A VHF radio is essential for marine communication. It lets you communicate with other boats, marinas, and emergency services. Make sure you know how to use it properly.

4. Wi-Fi Boosters: Install a Wi-Fi booster antenna on your sailboat to amplify Wi-Fi signals from nearby marinas or hotspots. This can help you stay connected when you’re close to shore.

5. Weather Updates: Stay updated with weather forecasts for safe sailing. Use weather apps or listen to weather broadcasts on marine radios to plan your routes.

Staying connected is important for safety and convenience on a sailboat. By using the right tools and technology, you can maintain communication and access information wherever your sailing adventures take you.

Fun fact: Sailboats have been used for transportation and exploration for thousands of years. Ancient sailors used the wind’s power to navigate and explore the seas.

Living Comfortably on a Sailboat

Transitioning to a life at sea can be an exciting adventure, but how can you ensure a comfortable living on a sailboat? In this section, we’ll be exploring key aspects of living comfortably on a sailboat, including managing power and energy , water supply and conservation , as well as cooking and food storage . So, get ready to dive into practical tips and strategies that will enhance your sailboat living experience, making it a smooth journey all the way!

Managing Power and Energy

Managing power and energy on a sailboat is crucial for a comfortable and efficient living experience. Consider the following to effectively manage power and energy:

1. Invest in solar panels or wind generators to harness renewable energy and reduce reliance on fuel-powered generators. This sustainable approach promotes eco-friendly practices while ensuring a continuous power supply.

2. Utilize LED lights to minimize power consumption while providing bright illumination. LEDs are energy-efficient and contribute to a more sustainable power usage on board.

3. Opt for energy-efficient appliances , such as marine-specific refrigerators and fans. These appliances are designed to consume less power while still meeting your needs on the sailboat.

4. Implement smart battery management strategies by turning off lights and electronic devices when not in use. Consider utilizing a battery monitoring system to effectively keep track of battery usage and ensure a steady power supply.

5. Incorporate energy-saving techniques for heating and cooling , such as insulation and natural ventilation. These measures help minimize energy wastage and maintain a comfortable onboard environment.

To illustrate the effectiveness of these methods, let’s consider the experience of John , an experienced sailor. John installed a combination of solar panels and wind generators on his sailboat, allowing him to meet his energy needs sustainably. By also using LED lights and energy-efficient appliances, he successfully minimized power consumption. John implemented smart battery usage practices, which ensured a consistent power supply throughout his journey. With these measures in place, John was able to enjoy a comfortable and sustainable lifestyle on his sailboat, significantly reducing his environmental impact while embarking on his adventure.

Water Supply and Conservation

Living on a sailboat requires careful consideration of water supply and conservation. Water supply and conservation are crucial factors to keep in mind when living on a sailboat. Here are some important factors to consider in order to prioritize water supply and conservation:

1. Water storage: Sailboats have limited space, so it is important to plan for adequate water storage capacity. It is recommended to install additional water tanks or collapsible containers to maximize storage capacity.

2. Monitoring water usage: Being mindful of water consumption is essential. It is important to keep track of the water used for various activities such as dishes, personal hygiene, and others to avoid wastage.

3. Water filtration systems: Investing in a reliable water filtration system is highly recommended to ensure clean and safe water. Look for systems that can effectively remove impurities and harmful elements.

4. Rainwater harvesting: Utilizing rainwater is a great way to conserve water. Installing a collection system on the boat can help in collecting rainwater and using it for non-potable purposes like rinsing equipment or cleaning the deck.

5. Desalination: Installing a desalination system can provide a sustainable source of drinking and cooking water on longer journeys. This system can convert seawater into freshwater, ensuring a constant supply of water.

6. Conservation techniques: Implementing water conservation techniques is vital. Save water by taking quick showers, turning off faucets when not in use, and reusing water whenever possible. These simple practices can make a significant difference in conserving water.

7. Educating crew members: It is important to ensure that everyone on board understands the importance of water conservation and actively promotes responsible water usage. Educating crew members about the significance of water conservation can go a long way in achieving sustainable water supply.

By prioritizing water supply and conservation, sailors can maintain a steady and sustainable source of water while minimizing their environmental impact. Always remember, every drop counts!

Cooking and Food Storage

When living on a sailboat, cooking and food storage are essential considerations. Here are some important factors to keep in mind:

1. Storage Space:

Efficiently organize food storage on a sailboat using bins, baskets, and containers.

2. Non-Perishable Food:

Stock up on canned foods, dried fruits, nuts, and grains with longer shelf lives.

3. Meal Planning:

Plan meals in advance to avoid wastage and ensure you have enough provisions. Create a menu and shopping list to stay organized.

4. Galley Equipment:

Equip the sailboat’s kitchen with essential cooking tools such as pots, pans, cutlery, and utensils. Choose compact and multi-purpose items.

5. Fresh Produce:

Include fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet. Opt for produce that can be stored without refrigeration, like apples, potatoes, and onions.

6. Cooling Options:

Invest in a reliable cooler or refrigerator to keep perishable items fresh. Consider energy-efficient options or portable ice chests powered by solar panels.

By considering these factors, you can enjoy an efficient and enjoyable cooking and food storage experience while living on a sailboat.

Throughout history, sailors have mastered cooking and food storage to sustain themselves during voyages. They stock up on non-perishable items, utilize clever storage solutions, incorporate fresh produce, and invest in cooling options. By following these practices, you can enjoy delicious meals and ensure your food remains fresh and accessible during your sailboat adventure.

Staying Safe and Healthy on a Sailboat

Navigating the high seas and living on a sailboat is an exhilarating adventure, but it’s essential to prioritize your safety and well-being. In this section, we will explore some crucial aspects of staying safe and healthy on a sailboat. From first aid and medical preparedness to tackling seasickness and ensuring sun protection and hygiene, we’ll provide you with invaluable tips to keep you in top shape while exploring life on the water. So, get ready to set sail with confidence and peace of mind!

First Aid and Medical Preparedness

Living on a sailboat requires being prepared for medical emergencies. First aid and medical preparedness are vital for the well-being and safety of everyone on board.

• Knowledge and Training: Basic knowledge of first aid techniques and procedures is essential. This includes CPR, wound care, and handling common injuries on a sailboat.
• First Aid Kit: A well-stocked first aid kit is imperative. It should include bandages, antiseptic solution, adhesive tape, pain relievers, and necessary prescription medications.
• Emergency Communication: Reliable communication with onshore medical professionals is crucial. This could involve a satellite phone, a VHF radio, or access to a nearby marina’s communication system.
• Medical Evacuation Plan: Have a plan for medical emergencies that may require evacuation to a hospital or medical facility. Familiarize yourself with local emergency services and understand their response time and capabilities.
• Seasickness Prevention: Seasickness can be debilitating for some individuals. Have remedies on board and know how to prevent and manage this common condition.

By being prepared and equipped with necessary knowledge and supplies, you can handle any medical situation that may arise while living on a sailboat.

Dealing with Seasickness

– Stay hydrated: To deal with seasickness, stay hydrated. Drink enough water to prevent dehydration, as it can worsen symptoms.

– Choose your position wisely: Position yourself in the middle of the boat where the motion is least pronounced to minimize motion sickness.

– Focus on the horizon: Fix your gaze on a stable point in the distance, like the horizon, to reorient your senses and reduce seasickness.

– Get fresh air: Step outside onto the deck and breathe in fresh air. Being in an open area with good ventilation can alleviate seasickness.

– Acupressure: Apply pressure to specific points on your body, such as the wrist or inner forearm, to relieve seasickness symptoms. You can use acupressure bands or try massaging these points.

Fact: About 60% of individuals experience some level of seasickness when exposed to boat or ship motion. It is a common condition that can be managed with the right strategies and preparation.

Sun Protection and Hygiene

Living on a sailboat requires prioritizing sun protection and hygiene for a safe and comfortable experience.

• Wear sunscreen: Prioritize sun protection by using broad-spectrum sunscreen with a high SPF to safeguard your skin from harmful UV rays. Apply generously and reapply every few hours, especially on deck.
• Protective clothing: Ensure sun protection by wearing lightweight, long-sleeved shirts, pants, and hats to shield your skin from direct sun exposure. Look for clothing with built-in UV protection for added defense.
• Sunglasses: Invest in sunglasses that provide UV protection to safeguard your eyes from glare and prevent eye strain.
• Keep clean: Maintain good hygiene in close quarters by regularly washing your hands with soap and water to prevent the spread of bacteria and germs.
• Shower facilities: Check for onboard shower facilities. If unavailable, plan for regular visits to marinas or other facilities for your personal hygiene.
• Proper waste disposal: Follow responsible waste disposal practices to keep the environment clean. Use designated areas for waste disposal and opt for biodegradable toiletries when possible.
• Water conservation: Conserve water onboard by taking shorter showers and using water-saving techniques for dishes and laundry. This ensures an adequate freshwater supply.
• Stay hydrated: Prioritize sun protection by drinking plenty of water to prevent heat-related illnesses and stay hydrated in the sun.

Prioritizing sun protection and maintaining good hygiene practices enables a safe and healthy life on a sailboat.

Additional Resources

Here is a list of resources for living on a sailboat:

• Books: Highly recommended titles include “ The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat ” by Mark Nicholas, “ The Cruising Life: A Commonsense Guide for the Would-Be Voyager ” by Jim Trefethen, and “ The Boat Galley Cookbook ” by Carolyn Shearlock and Jan Irons.
• Websites: SailNet , CruisersForum , and The Liveaboard Life provide resources, advice, and support for liveaboard sailors.
• YouTube Channels: Sailing La Vagabonde , Sailing Uma , and SV Delos offer entertainment, educational content, and real-life experiences related to living on a sailboat.
• Sailing Courses: The American Sailing Association and the Royal Yachting Association offer courses for all levels of sailors.

When I decided to live on a sailboat, I found a wealth of resources that provided guidance and support. Books, websites, and online communities gave valuable tips and insights from experienced sailors. Sailing courses helped me develop necessary skills. Now, I live my dream, sailing to new destinations and enjoying the freedom of living on a sailboat.

Some Facts About How To Live On A Sail Boat:

• ✅ Living on a sailboat can be a more affordable option for those who want to live on the water without paying coastal house prices. (Source: Atomictunayachts)
• ✅ It is important to avoid buying a fixer-upper boat as it can be costly and time-consuming to fix any problems. (Source: Atomictunayachts)
• ✅ Choosing a smaller boat can be beneficial as it is easier to handle, cheaper to buy, and can fit in more marinas. (Source: Atomictunayachts)
• ✅ Renting a slip in a marina is cheaper than coastal rent, but there can be a long waiting time for a slip in popular areas. (Source: Atomictunayachts)
• ✅ It is essential to have sailing experience and knowledge before moving onto a boat, including taking courses and being comfortable with the boat. (Source: Atomictunayachts)

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i reduce my living expenses by living on a sailboat.

Living on a sailboat can be a more affordable option compared to coastal house prices. It allows you to minimize your lifestyle, reduce monthly rent costs, and save on utilities by being mindful of water and electricity usage.

What should I consider when choosing a sailboat to live aboard?

When choosing a sailboat for liveaboard purposes, consider factors such as the size of the boat, its accommodations, and its condition. A smaller boat may be easier to handle and fit in more marinas. Buying a used sailboat in good condition can also help reduce costs.

What utilities do I need on a liveaboard sailboat?

On a liveaboard sailboat, you will need power, water, and sewage systems. Most liveaboards hook their sailboats up to shore power and water, while storing water and sewage in tanks. It’s also possible to install alternative energy sources like solar panels or wind turbines to reduce dependence on shore power.

How long is the waiting time for a slip in popular marinas?

The waiting time for a slip in popular marinas can vary, but it is not uncommon for there to be a long waiting time. It is recommended to inquire about slip availability and visit marinas in person to get a better understanding of the waiting times in your desired area.

What maintenance tasks are involved in living on a sailboat?

Living on a sailboat requires staying on top of maintenance tasks. This includes regularly checking for leaks and repairing them promptly, as well as conducting routine maintenance on safety equipment, electronic systems, and the overall condition of the boat. It’s important to be prepared for the ongoing maintenance involved.

Can I make money while living on a sailboat?

Yes, it’s possible to make money while living on a sailboat. Many liveaboards engage in remote work, freelancing, or even boat repair to support their lifestyle. Finding ways to work remotely or within the sailing community can provide financial stability while living aboard a sailboat.

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Yup, you're in the right place. This blog is about life aboard---that is, life aboard a sailboat. While A Way Abroad generally focuses on living, well, abroad, we're really all about the unique lifestyles and all the wonderful opportunities there are out there.

Including living on a sailboat.

Things I always get asked about living on a boat are:

• Can you go to the bathroom?
• Can you take a shower on the boat?
• Is there WiFi?
• Does the boat always rock?

And I answer, yes, yes, yes, and sometimes!

Let's dive more into those details and everything you'll want to know about living on a sailboat, even for people like me who had no sailing experience prior to hopping onboard!

Short on time? Here’s the cheat sheet:

💭Living on a sailboat isn’t for everyone but for the right person it’s everything.

⛵There’s a strong learning curve but if you throw yourself in head first, you’ll get the hang of it and have freedom at your sails.

🤑Just be sure to prepare yourself ahead of time for the added costs of fixes, materials, and docking it at marinas.

🛍️Your space will be small, from storage space to fridge space, shower space to a closet but…

☀️It’ll teach you to be intentional with your purchases, the things that make you happy, and your day-to-day choices.

We’re not a regular travel blog; we’re a collection of women living around the world, all with different backgrounds, jobs, desires, & nationalities. What do we have in common? A passion for life abroad. Each article is written from the 1st-hand perspective of a woman who has actually done or experienced what she writes about. Learn more about the author by clicking her bio pic at the start or end of each article.

Dream of moving abroad but need a helping hand? I got you. This e-book isn't a regular book, it's also a workbook geared to helping you make some big decisions regarding the life abroad you want to build. Everyone's way abroad is different. This book is all about helping you find yours.

My Life Aboard

Living on a boat is quite nomadic and different from land life, but really, adjustments can be made to make it feel quite familiar. Before we dive into what it is like to live aboard a sailboat, let’s take it back a few nautical miles to how I found myself in this sort of nomadic life to begin with.

In September 2018, it was my first time sailing and I went with complete strangers to a remote island in the Pacific. It was actually a first date of sorts with a guy I had a big crush on. Our trip would take us on a 10-day sail from Oahu to Molokai, Lanai, and Maui.

The journey we embarked on soon led to a huge change in my life. But before I skip ahead, back to the trip.

I had no expectations or idea of what I was in for. Barely an hour in and the seas were consistently getting more and more choppy. We quite literally survived 14ft seas crossing the channel to Molokai.

“ This is normal ,” I thought, “ This is what sailing is. ” We endured the waves for 6 hours straight, and I did not find myself seasick once. I wasn’t even fully impressed with how the boat was handling the sea because I thought, “ This is probably how it always is. ”

It most certainly is not always like that.

We sailed into the night and the following morning I woke to the most beautiful sight I had ever seen--- land, all the way out in the middle of the ocean, with the sun peeking out over it. We dropped anchor close to shore and prepared the dinghy. As we made our way to land via the motorized dinghy, dolphins began to sort of ‘escort’ us.

Another moment where I just could not believe this was real life.

We explored the island, did some spearfishing, and went back ‘home’ to the boat to prepare fresh fish tacos. Not only did this experience hook us fresh fish, but it hooked me on this lifestyle altogether. 

For the rest of the trip, we walked around pretty remote islands, we laid on the deck and gazed at the stars, and we slept in a hammock hanging from the boom over the ocean.

By the end of those 10 days, I fell in love—with the man, and with sailing.

The Realities of Sailboat Ownership

The following year, I purchased my first sailboat which would also become my home. Honestly, I went into boat ownership with such naivety. If I could talk to myself then with what I know now, I’d have a lot to say (which is why I am writing this article for you aspiring liveaboards), but the bottom line is this: I have no regrets. 

Even today, I am still a novice, but I am less scared, and way more patient. If boats teach you anything, it is to be patient. Well, that and be adaptable.

Living aboard a sailboat has a lot of ups and downs that come in waves (see what I did there?). After getting over the constant rocking of the boat, there comes an endless list of boat projects that spring up.

In just my couple of short years of boat ownership, I have had to:

• Replace the head (toilet)
• Redo the back deck because of core rot
• Learn how to deal with fiberglass and epoxy
• Troubleshoot a finicky fridge
• And fuss with a temperamental a/c unit

Also, just to note, boat work is expensive-- like crazy expensive. A bolt that you could find for a house at Home Depot is probably 3x as much at West Marine because now it has to be stainless steel, aka rust-proof.

I also found out how hard it is to find help for boat work, which basically means that a lot of the work you have to do yourself. I never ever had any idea how to do electrical work, and while I may ‘understand’ how it sort of kind of works at this point, I still need YouTube (it’s my best boat life friend). I still am a novice when it comes to engine work…. I should get better at that one for sure but one step at a time. 

The Logistics of Buying a Boat

So, what should you know before jumping into the deep end of boat life? Let me tell you.

Financing a boat to live on can be a challenge

Really consider your budget and then tack on probably 30-40% of it for monthly maintenance and boat repairs. It’s not easy to find a bank that will give you a sort of ‘home mortgage’ for a boat so you often will either take out a boat loan OR a personal loan--- know the term differences before signing.

But, maybe you have the cash to buy outright and that’s a much better idea!

When you do go looking for a boat, consider its length.

What harbors can accommodate such boats? Do the harbors have availability?

Expect to pay a certain amount per foot of your boat, and this price is also contingent on whether you are a ‘transient’ (only there for a few months at a time) or a permanent slip holder.

Typically there is an extra charge for LIVING on the boat, so make sure and ask that as well.

Talk to an insurance company BEFORE buying a boat.

What rates can you get? Boat insurance is mandatory for getting a slip at a marina in order to protect not only you but also the harbor itself.

Ask yourself, will I be able to clean the bottom of the boat myself or will I need to pay someone to do it?

Check with local bottom cleaners for prices. Yep, even the bottom of the boat needs a solid scrub from time to time.

Get mentally prepared for the costs of boats and boat goods

And lastly, in preparation, go take a walk around West Marine or a local boat supply store and take a look at the prices. Price out projects you may think will come up.

Sticker shock? Yea, me too. 

A Sailboat vs. A Yacht

Before buying your own liveaboard sailboat, be aware of the differences between owning a sailboat and owning a yacht. For argument's sake, I'm speaking about a small yacht that doesn't require a crew to sail.

Because while you might crave a sea-worthy lifestyle, you might be better suited for a yacht or strictly motorized boat.

A few differences between living on a sailboat and a yacht are:

• A yacht is typically larger. While that will mean a more spacious living area, it will also take up more space at marinas.
• A yacht is typically more expensive. This is due to the material and technology on the boat. So if sailboat prices wow you, yacht prices will leave you stunned.
• A yacht requires an engine to run. One of the coolest things about living on a sailboat is that so long as the wind is favorable, you can sail for free. Set the sails and enjoy cruising without spending a cent on gas. On a yacht, you'll always have to pay to play.
• Driving a yacht has a smaller learning curve to it. To make a sailboat work for you, you're going to need to understand the intricacies of the sails. That's something you don't have to deal with, although, if you have engine trouble, the engine on a yacht is far more complex than that of a sailboat.

Land Life vs. Sea Life

There also is a major difference between land life and sea life, as you most likely already guessed.

While living in a house and living on a sailboat, you'll most likely get faced with unexpected costs and home repair, the day-to-day quirks of living full-time on a sailboat greatly outweigh those of "normal" land life.

When I lived in a house, I didn’t think about refilling the water tank or propane. I didn’t chant in my head, “ No TP in the toilet, no TP in the toilet ,” while peeing in fear of a major thru hull blockage. I didn’t double-check to make sure my house wouldn’t sink when I went on vacation. I also didn’t pick things up in Target and say, “ Hm, but where would I put this? ”

All this to say, living on a boat makes you much more conscious of literally everything. Your water use, your propane levels, your battery charge, the functioning of your pumps, and the things (or clutter) you bring into your life.

And this is a great thing---- we should be more conscious of our resource use and space management. But it still can come at a high learning curve if you're not ready for such a small space and the intricacies that come along with it.

Things to Know About Living on a Sailboat

Okay, so we are past some of the questions you should ponder as you go through the process of actually buying a boat. If you’ve come this far, I’d say you are interested in it, or at least morbidly curious about boat life.

Here are some things you need to know about actually LIVING on the boat.

Wifi Can Be Spotty

We work online from the boat so our wifi is quite necessary. We have had luck with Sprint as a provider and a small hotspot device. We're based in Oahu though, so Sprint might not be the best option, unless you're planning to be based nearby, too.

The Closets Are Often Really Small

I have had to downsize A LOT due to closet space so my wardrobe is full of basic items that can be mixed and matched. Capsule wardrobes will become your best friend here.

I also have a subscription to Nuuly, a clothing rental company, where I plan out outfits I would need for events and content creation. This subscription helps liven my wardrobe without actually taking up space.

The Head (Toilet) Is Weird

Oh, the head-- probably the weirdest thing about boat life. It can be daunting to do your business on a boat.

No TP (or other non-biodegradable) materials in the head ever unless you have a super fancy boat and this is not an issue for your plumbing system. And if you're wondering where your waste goes, it goes into a tank and every month or so gets pumped out at a pump-out station.

You will either have to use a hand pump or an electric button, depending on your head type. Honestly, having a head that is both electric and manual is the best thing ever in the event the electric part fails...speaking from experience.

The Fridge Space Is Tiny

Fridge space is limited. If you are a cruiser, you will know that most of your food will be nonperishable, but if you are coastal and can make stops frequently, you will be able to have more fresh items as well.

Galley (kitchen) space is often small-ish, but you can pretty much make most things you would make in a land home in a boat home.

We cook everything. We have a two-burner gas stove and oven. You can catch us making anything from enchiladas to stir fry, oftentimes we eat lots of “bowls”-- think quinoa, goat cheese, arugula, and red onion. Sometimes you just need to get creative! 

While a lot of people worry over this, once you get the hang of it, you'll learn you really can do a lot with this amount of storage space.

And So Is the Shower

Although we even have hot water in our shower, it's tiny, so I fit fine but my 6ft partner has difficulty.

Since we spend most of our time docked at the marina, we do have a reciprocal yacht club membership so we can shower there, or at other yacht clubs we get to.

And of course, there are always dock/deck showers! 

What I Wish I Knew Before Moving onto a Sailboat

Even with all of the information above, there are still a few things I wish I knew years ago before jumping aboard that should help you get a more realistic idea about what living on a sailboat full-time really entails.

If I could go back in time, I would give myself these tips and pieces of advice:

• Don’t buy a boat thinking you can stick to a timeline-- finding people to work on boats, having time yourself, and just, sheesh the money component, all extend the timeline.
• Know what you want to get out of it early on-- I remember saying, I want to sail around the world, and I still do, but it was unrealistic to think I would do that on my first boat. Remember there is so much to learn about sailing: electrical, provisioning, plumbing, engines, and the list goes on. I am grateful my project boat has been the best teacher.
• The boat rocks depending on when you are docked or anchored and also on the weather. Sometimes it is really peaceful, and sometimes it feels like you are on a mechanical bull. 

Are You Ready to Live on a Sailboat Full-Time?

You see, boat life is similar to how “normal” people live but with weird words like bilge, boom, head, and helm. It’s also pretty cool to live life like a honu (Hawaiian word for turtle) and take your home with you to other places. 

It's a lot like vanlife , just ya know, changing the road for sea.

My move from land to water felt like jumping all in, and in a lot of ways, it was. My life is so different from what I thought it would be, so different from many of my friends and family, but really, it is exactly perfect for me. 

To me living on a sailboat full-time has been an absolute dream, but what about for you? Interested in learning more? Follow @sammiealoha for a peek into boat life!

Hero photo by Anna Om/shutterstock.com

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Life on a Sailboat: Everything You Need to Know About Living on a Sailboat Full-Time

Living on a sailboat full-time is often romanticized as a life of endless sunsets, gentle waves, and freedom on the open sea. Many dream of casting off the lines and setting sail for a horizon of adventure and tranquility. However, the reality of life aboard a sailboat can be as challenging as it is rewarding, as frustrating as it is relaxing, and, more often than not, as mundane as it is exciting.

This blog post aims to peel back the curtain on the picturesque scenes to reveal what daily life is really like when you call a sailboat home. We will dive into the motivations, preparations, joys, and challenges of living on a sailboat full-time, providing a realistic glimpse into a lifestyle that is far from ordinary.

Our Live-Aboard Life

Our dream of living on a sailboat was a distant one for many years. But as we watched plans and dreams fall by the wayside in the wake of COVID, we made the decision to make our dream a reality. Once the borders opened up, we made a beeline for the Mediterranean and have since spent each summer living aboard our little 29-foot sailboat Whisper. Without any experience sailing or living on a sailboat, we have taught ourselves to sail and manage life on the boat along the way.

Before we took up sail life, we had been living “van life,” and we’ve come to realize there are lots of similarities but quite a few differences between the two . However, on the whole, learning to live van life first put us in good stead to take on life on a sailboat. Unlike most people, we up-sized when we moved onto a boat.

Despite the upgrade in living quarters, the learning curve and the adjustment to living on the sea were no less challenging. Nevertheless, the shift was not as scary as we thought it might be, and the reality of living on a sailboat full-time quickly became our new normal.

Initially, our plan was to buy a boat and spend one season aboard sailing the Mediterranean before selling the boat and settling down. Instead, it’s safe to say we have fallen in love with life on a sailboat. Now, as we enter our third season, we aren’t sure when we will be ready to furl the sails for good…

Get a Taste of Life on a SailBoat

We document some of the realities of living on a sailboat full-time on our YouTube Channel in our The Vanabond Sails series.

Deciding to Live on a Sailboat

The journey to becoming a full-time live aboard often starts with the desire for change.

Some people are transitioning from one stage of life to the next as careers wind up or children move out. Some yearn for adventure and excitement, while others seek a simpler way of life. Many are drawn to the promise of freedom, the allure of the sea, and the appeal of living more closely with nature. However, the decision to live on a sailboat full-time is not one to be taken lightly. It requires thoughtful consideration and planning.

For us, it was a long-held dream to sail and live aboard a sailboat. It was also a natural progression, having spent several years living and traveling by van . We were ready for a new challenge. 

It began with a conversation, then a plan, and then trawling classifieds for second-hand boat sales. Before long, the decision was set in stone, and we were on our way to Croatia to buy a boat , learn to sail it, and move aboard. 

Choosing the Right Sailboat

The type of sailboat you choose is critical and depends on your budget, sailing skills, and the kind of sailing you plan to do (coastal cruising, bluewater voyaging, etc.).

Will you prefer the size and stability of a catamaran, or will you prioritize the sailing experience of a monohull? Are you looking for something small that’s easily controlled and maneuvered by a limited (and potentially inexperienced) crew, or do you require the space of a larger vessel? Are you interested in the clean lines and comforts of modern boat designs, or do you prefer the style of older boats? There are a thousand decisions to be made when choosing a boat, and your own aspirations for boat life and, of course, your budget will be critical when it comes to making this decision. 

Spend as much time researching boats that are available in your price range, ask questions of sailors you know or on sailing forums, and, if possible, spend time aboard different types of sailboats to get a clearer picture of what life is really like on board before making a purchase.

Check out our full article on buying boat .

Emotional and Practical Considerations for Sail Life

Living on a sailboat means embracing minimalism and being comfortable with the idea of having less space and possessions.

You’ll need to consider the impact of such a lifestyle on relationships with family and friends, as it can mean spending long periods away from loved ones.

The decision also involves considering how to manage work or income while living at sea , which might include remote work, seasonal jobs, or living off savings.

There are plenty of options for those planning on working remotely while sailing. With the rise of remote work , there has never been more opportunity to work and sail.

All of these considerations represent potential challenges to adjusting to life at sea, but they are certainly not insurmountable. You just need to be honest with yourself and decide if your love of the open water and the freedom of living aboard a sailboat will be greater than the inconveniences.

Preparations and Adjustments

Transitioning to life on a sailboat involves a series of preparations and adjustments, both practical and psychological, to ensure a smooth and sustainable living experience.

Training and Skills

If you are thinking about taking up sailing, you should, of course, invest time in learning to sail, navigate, and understand weather patterns. While this may seem like a daunting task, it’s not an insurmountable one. Time on the water is the most important thing, so it’s time to sign up for sailing courses, start planning trips with sailing friends, join a local sailing club, or seek out opportunities to crew for other sailors.

Learning basic boat maintenance and repair is essential to manage the myriad challenges that come with life at sea.

Safety courses, such as first aid, sea survival, and radio operation, are also crucial for handling emergencies.

These skills are important for safe and comfortable sailing and are often legally required. Make sure you are aware of the licensing and registration requirements for sailors in the region you are preparing to sail.

In our case, I had experience sailing small dinghies as a child and thus some understanding of the fundamentals, while Kelli had zero experience. My existing marine license issued in Australia was recognized in Croatia, where we bought our boat. I only needed to acquire a VHF radio license to become adequately certified for inshore sailing in the Mediterranean. 

We paid some local sailors to come aboard and teach us both the fundamentals of our new boat (lots of docking and anchoring practice).

Downsizing and Adapting to Limited Space and Resources

As mentioned, moving onto a boat was actually upsizing for us. With a second cabin, a flushing toilet, and a large indoor table, our relatively small 29-foot monohull seemed luxurious compared to the vans we had been living in until this point. 

However, for most, moving onto a sailboat often means significant downsizing, and space becomes a premium commodity. The process of downsizing for sail life involves prioritizing essential items and learning to live without the comforts of a traditional home.

Space isn’t the only limitation on a boat. Reliance on water tanks (if you don’t have a watermaker) and solar, wind, or generator electricity often means a downshift in access to creature comforts we take for granted in a house on the grid.

Creativity in organizing and making the most of limited space and resources becomes a daily practice, requiring innovative storage solutions and multi-functional furniture. Most modern sailboats are well-designed with endless space-saving measures and designs. Nevertheless, an adjustment will likely be necessary.

Financial Planning

Financial considerations are paramount, as the cost of living on a sailboat can vary widely depending on factors like marina fees, maintenance costs, and lifestyle choices.

Setting a realistic budget that includes regular maintenance, unexpected repairs, and living expenses is essential for sustaining life at sea.

Depending on your personal aspirations for boat life, this lifestyle can be as affordable or as expensive as you want to be. For us, as a couple in our thirties still in the building and saving part of our lives and careers, we are able to live on a boat in the Mediterranean affordably and comfortably for far less than we (estimate) we would spend living a more stationary lifestyle.

Check out our full article on the Costs of Living on Sail Boat Full-Time

Overall, adjusting to the confines and challenges of sailboat living demands not only physical preparation but also mental resilience and adaptability. The transition from land to sea is a profound shift, requiring a willingness to embrace simplicity, flexibility, and a sense of adventure.

Daily Life Aboard

While there is no typical day aboard, and experiences will differ wildly from person to person and day to day, we can describe what many of our days do look like.

As we work from the boat, our weeks are generally divided into work days, Monday to Friday morning and weekends. The truth is that the novelty does wear off, and many days, especially during the working week, become just as mundane as any other lifestyle. However it never stays mundane for long, one exhilarating sail, a dolphin sighting, a picture perfect anchorage or even surviving an impromptu weather event and the thrill of living on a sailboat quickly returns.

A typical workday for us living on a sailboat often starts with the sunrise (or a little bit before if we have a lot on). Ideally, we are well rested after a still night without rolling swell or, worse, strong wind, but that isn’t always assured at sea. Mornings involve checking the weather first and foremost, all plans revolve around the direction and strength of the wind and waves. 

If the weather is calm, we usually try to work in the mornings when we are fresh and focused.

We travel slowly, often spending a few days in a quiet, well-protected anchorage, on a town quay, or in a marina before moving on a short distance along the coast. On sailing days, we often sail in the afternoon when the winds are a bit stronger in the Mediterranean. On days we are staying put, the afternoon might be spent exploring a new town, getting provisions, swimming, or finding a beach to lie on and read a book. In the evening, we will cook dinner onboard and get some more work done or watch some TV. 

Weekends look different, and we will take advantage of not needing to be close to reliable network services, completing longer passages along the coast, or visiting islands. 

Daily Differences in Sail Life

Living spaces on a sailboat are compact and multifunctional, necessitating an organized and tidy approach to prevent clutter and ensure safety. Cooking in a small galley kitchen presents its challenges, from securing pots and pans on a constantly moving boat to managing limited ingredients and storage.

Meals often need to be simple yet nutritious, requiring creativity and planning. Our approach is to cook simple, one-pot, vegetarian meals like dal or vegetable curry two or three times during the workweek and eat leftovers for lunch and dinner. On the weekend, we like to get more creative with our meals, seeking out local produce or fresh seafood and taking our time to prepare something special.

As mentioned, resource management is a critical aspect of daily sailboat life, especially when it comes to conserving water, fuel, and electricity. Efficient use of these resources is vital, whether it involves careful water usage, monitoring power consumption, or planning the next opportunity to resupply. For us, an electricity supply is mainly dependent on the sun when we are not under motor or plugged into shore power. Extended periods of cloud can alter our plans. Similarly, if we are not careful with water, more frequent visits to refill are required, which can be limiting. 

Personal hygiene and privacy take on a new meaning in the confined space of a sailboat. Showers may be quick and infrequent. In our case, we generally rinse off after a swim to bathe and take proper showers during marina stops. Personal space is limited on a sailboat and managing personal relationships can have extra challenges.

Sleeping on the boat can take some getting used to, especially when on anchor. Even on a calm day, the constant rocking of the water can be disruptive at first, and novice sailors may find they get seasick, although these symptoms usually go away after a few days. When it’s windy, or there is some swell, the noise, movement, and the ever-present worry that the boat may pull off its anchor with the movement can make it very difficult to get a good night’s sleep. 

Unforecast storms, gear failure, or some other emergency can occasionally create scary and challenging scenarios, especially if disaster strikes late at night. These situations are part of the adventure but can certainly be stressful.

Despite the challenges, daily life on a sailboat is interspersed with moments of profound beauty and peace. Whether watching dolphins play in the bow wave, enjoying a sunset over the ocean, or stargazing on a clear night, these experiences often make the hardships worthwhile, offering a sense of freedom and connection to nature that is hard to find elsewhere.

The Pros and Cons of Living on a Sailboat Full-Time

Pros: the joys of sailboat living.

Living on a sailboat brings a unique set of joys and rewards that can make the challenges seem insignificant.

+ One of the most significant benefits is the sense of freedom and adventure. Sailboat dwellers have the luxury of exploring new destinations, anchoring in secluded bays, and experiencing different cultures in a way that most people never will. The ability to call a variety of picturesque locations home, even if only temporarily, is a remarkable aspect of this lifestyle. Even compared to other forms of nomadic lifestyle, waking up in your own private bay or cove is hard to re-create. 

+ The connection with nature is unparalleled in sailboat living. Being surrounded by the vastness of the ocean, witnessing marine life up close, and experiencing the rhythms of the sea create a deep sense of harmony and peace. The simplicity of life on a boat can lead to a greater appreciation for the small things, like the beauty of a sunset, the changing colors of the sea, or the silence of a night watch under the stars.

+ Community and camaraderie are also central to the sailboat lifestyle. The sailing community is known for its close-knit, supportive nature, with fellow sailors often ready to lend a hand, share advice, or offer companionship. This sense of community extends across harbors and anchorages around the world, creating a global network of friends and contacts.

+ The personal growth and self-reliance developed through sailboat living are profound. Navigating the challenges and unpredictability of the sea fosters resilience, problem-solving skills, and a strong sense of self-confidence. The lifestyle encourages continuous learning, from mastering sailing and navigational skills to understanding weather patterns and marine ecosystems.

The Cons: The Challenges and Hardships of Liveaboard Life

While the joys of living on a sailboat are plentiful, the lifestyle also comes with its fair share of challenges and hardships. These difficulties test the resilience and adaptability of those who choose this way of life.

– One of the most significant challenges is dealing with bad weather. Storms, high winds, and rough seas can be terrifying and dangerous, requiring skill, experience (which you can only get by …experiencing it), and a calm demeanor to navigate safely (perhaps the trickiest thing to achieve). The stress from poor weather can be mentally draining, disrupt work, and put a strain on relationships.

– The learning curve required to become a confident and comfortable sailor is not small and can take many seasons while mastering sailing can take a lifetime.

– The constant exposure to the elements also means that maintenance is a never-ending task, with saltwater and sun causing wear and tear that must be regularly addressed to keep the boat functional and safe. Especially on an older boat like ours, fixing and maintaining gear and rigging is an endless cycle. Most systems and hardware on the boat are essential, and when they fail, there is often no one around to help. Constantly sorting out jammed anchors, engine or electrical issues can quickly become tiresome and (if you are trying to work) quite disruptive. It can also be quite stressful when critical systems fail.

– Isolation is another aspect of sailboat living that can be challenging. Long periods at sea or anchored in remote locations can lead to feelings of loneliness and disconnection from land-based communities. The confined space of a sailboat can strain relationships, making it essential for the crew, be it a couple, a family, or friends, to communicate effectively and give each other personal space.

– The financial aspect of sailboat living can also be a hardship. Unexpected repairs and maintenance can quickly drain savings, and the cost of mooring, fuel, and supplies can add up. Sailors must be adept at budgeting and often need to be resourceful in finding ways to sustain their lifestyle, which might include picking up temporary jobs or remote work.

– The physical demands of managing a sailboat should not be underestimated. It requires strength, stamina, and a willingness to tackle everything from sail repairs to engine troubleshooting. The learning curve can be steep, and the responsibility of keeping the boat and its occupants safe is a constant pressure.

Despite these challenges, many sailboat dwellers find that the hardships are part of what makes the lifestyle rewarding. Overcoming difficulties and learning to live in harmony with the sea can provide a profound sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Final Thoughts About Life on a Sailboat

Living on a sailboat full-time is a journey that encompasses the full spectrum of human experience, blending moments of sheer joy and beauty with times of challenge and adversity. It’s a lifestyle that demands resilience, adaptability, and a willingness to embrace the unknown. While the romantic allure of sailing the high seas is undeniable, the realities of daily life on a sailboat are grounded in practical challenges and the necessity of continual learning and personal growth.

The decision to live on a sailboat should not be made lightly, as it involves significant changes in lifestyle, mindset, and social dynamics. However, for those who choose to embark on this adventure, it offers unparalleled opportunities for freedom, exploration, and connection with nature. The hardships encountered along the way are not just obstacles but also catalysts for growth, leading to a deeper understanding of oneself and the world.

If you have a question about living on a sailboat full-time, let us know in the comments below or shoot us an email anytime!

Fair winds and following seas!

In 2016, I had been dumped by my girlfriend, fired from my job, and the lease on my house was running out. Facing moving back in with my parents, 26, jobless and alone I decided to listen to the message the universe was trying to send me. I took off on my first solo backpacking trip, with a one-way ticket to Bangkok and a well-thumbed Lonely Planet guide. From there I wandered Southeast and Central Asia, traveled the Great Steppe, and made my way across Russia and throughout Europe.

In Estonia I met Kelli, who, despite having a less frantic travel style, shared my my restless spirit and passion for exploration. Together, we embarked on a new journey, van life. Over four years we travelled across three different continents with three different vans.

In 2022, as the world began to re-open post COVID we took an opportunity to realise a long held dream, to live aboard a sailboat. Since then we have spent two summers in the Mediterranean, sailing and living aboard our little sail boat Whisper. When we aren't sailing we continue to live our nomadic lifestyle, guided by a philosophy of slow travel and self directed adventure be it by van or backpacking.

We find excitement through our journey into the unknown, stillness and content in the beauty of the places we discover and we find ourselves in the vastness of our world.

Hopefully, we can help you find what you're looking for too. Get lost with us and find your own path.

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clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

What it’s like to live full time on a 400-square-foot sailboat

Living on a boat has a way of shifting your perspective, say those who do it, by freeing you from excess stuff and forcing you to exist in the moment

A previous version of this story misidentified Karen Audette as Carolyn. This version has been corrected.

Bruises are unavoidable when you live on a sailboat. You get banged around using the bathroom, cooking dinner, feeding the dog — and then you struggle to put each contusion together with a specific incident. Where did this one on my shin come from? There’s often no telling.

Ballet is required to live in about 400 square feet: My boat Pelican measures 40 feet from stem to stern and 12 feet at its widest. My wife, Perry, and I lived aboard it full time for six months during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, before buying a house in New Bern, N.C. Along the way, we met various other people who’d also opted for the floating life. Like us, they found that the benefits of making a sailboat your home often outweigh the sacrifices (of space, possessions and small comforts like long showers). Plus, much of what sailing teaches you is just as applicable on land.

How to make a small space feel happier, according to mental-health pros

“When I moved aboard Obelix, I had one bag,” says Mads Dahlke, a former IT professional from Denmark who now sails full time, of his first boat. “That was scary, to downsize to that extent. But it was also a very liberating feeling.”

‘A large-scale balancing act’

Unlike a van or a tiny house, a sailboat moves almost constantly. While under sail, the vessel can heel — meaning lean — for hours at a time, and sometimes violently surge in one direction or the other. Everything in the galley is designed not to fall onto the floor. Even so, my wife and I have had whole pots of coffee slide off the stove.

Your house serves as your transportation as well as your protection from the wild sea around you. Steve Audette, who lives aboard a 45-foot sailboat named Angelfish with his wife, Karen, likens it to camping — you’re in the elements and attempting to carry as little as possible, while ensuring everything you need is close at hand. “Living on a boat is a large-scale balancing act,” he says.

The confines of a sailboat have a way of showing you how little you actually need to be content. Seats and bunks overlay lockers where food and tools are kept; many sailors tuck away canned goods and bottles of wine beneath the cabin floor. Balancing what you take to sea requires a lot of editing, since there is no room for the extraneous items that tend to sit unused in closets and basements on land.

Heath Phillips has lived aboard boats for four years. His current home is Philyria, a 35-foot, 1967 Alberg — which is spacious compared to his first vessel, a 25-foot Catalina. “I have always liked the idea of living in small spaces that were a little unusual,” he says. “I find living on a boat really makes me feel like a kid in some ways. Almost like Peter Pan or Tom Sawyer. It is my home and also my gateway to adventures.”

Phillips keeps three pairs of shoes (deck boots, flip flops and sneakers) and two drawers’ worth of clothing. “Even your clothes have to serve multiple purposes,” he says. “Possessions are a funny thing onboard.”

‘I thought the only plan was buying a house, having a mortgage’

Dahlke, the sailor from Denmark, ended up living on a sailboat after a fall caused severe damage to his back. “I started thinking that I could have died from falling down those stairs, and was I doing what I wanted to do?” he says. “After much contemplation, I concluded that I wanted to go sailing.”

He lived on his first boat for two years before undertaking the refit of a 38-foot Warrior named Athena about five years ago. His fiancee, Ava Corrado, joined him last year. “For a long time, I thought the only plan was buying a house, having a mortgage, getting a job, and that was it,” she says. “But now, we get to enjoy the freedom.” (Dahlke makes enough money through his YouTube channel, Sail Life , that they can afford to cruise full time.)

When we spoke, Dahlke and Corrado were stuck in Spain, awaiting favorable winds to Portugal. Being at the mercy of the elements can be frustrating, but relinquishing some control is part of the allure of sailing. A motor provides some surety if you need to hurry into port before dark or outrun a storm, but for the most part, sailing forces you to go with the flow.

Audette and his wife decided to take to the sea after the death of a son and the confines of pandemic living. “We had a very materialistic life in a kind of semi-upscale town, and all was going well, but we sort of in the back of our mind said, ‘You know, maybe at some point in our lives we want to go on one more adventure, one more lifestyle change where we are not experts, where we grow and learn and adapt and re-challenge ourselves,’” he says.

The pair — retired from lucrative-but-sedentary office jobs in Massachusetts — sold their house, gave away most of their possessions and bought Angelfish. Audette invested $100,000 into the vessel above what he paid for it, but for good reason: “It has to be working as well as it can be to keep you and your family afloat and alive.”

Indeed, when you live on a cruising sailboat, your senses become tuned to notice the slightest change. My boat is outfitted with an autopilot, which will keep it relatively on course but isn’t totally reliable. That means my wife or I must always be at the wheel, looking out for obstructions. Even when anchored or tied to a dock, we subconsciously listen through the white noise of the boat’s groaning for the odd sound that might indicate trouble.

“Living on a boat, you start learning to live in the present,” says Audette. “A couple of nights ago, our anchor dragged during a big windstorm, and I had to get up at four o’clock in the morning to reset our anchor. As we were doing that, I happened to notice that the moon was a quarter full and when I saw it earlier, it was a full moon.” He realized he was witnessing a lunar eclipse: “So we just stayed up … and watched the rest of [it]. You can’t imagine having an experience like that if you weren’t living in the moment.”

‘You develop a rhythm’

Not every moment has been so beautiful, of course. Even for a couple as long- and happily married as Audette and Karen, cohabitating in such a tight space took some getting used to. “Our living room is also our dining room which is right next to our kitchen, which is also right next to the bathroom,” says Audette. But eventually “you develop a rhythm of working around each other.”

He says the “boat yoga” required to maintain the vessel, and simply for daily life, keeps them young: “The boat has actually given me better health. In my previous materialistic land-based life, I had a very sedentary job where I would sit for 10 to 12 hours a day.”

My wife and I can relate. During those six months aboard the Pelican, we — along with our 22-pound dog, Rackham (who’s named after an 18th-century pirate) — grew accustomed to the boat ballet, figuring out how to cook, clean and even just sit and read comfortably, while respecting each other’s space.

For now, we’re weekend pirates. Pelican lives at a marina about a half-hour from our house. As two working journalists, we couldn’t keep up with the rigors of full-time sailing (or of hunting for a WiFi signal in the middle of the ocean). But from my front door, I can look down the street at the blue water of the Neuse River and dream of cutting lines for good some day.

Dan Parsons is a freelance writer in New Bern, N.C.

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Living on a Sailboat: Pros and Cons

Living on a sailboat can be an exciting and unconventional lifestyle choice, but it’s not for everyone. If you’re pondering this lifestyle change, it’s essential to weigh the pros and cons.

Whether you’re a seasoned sailor or a newcomer to the boating world, there are a variety of things to take into account before setting sail. 

On the plus side, life on a sailboat offers an unparalleled sense of freedom and adventure. You have the opportunity to visit new places and take in the breathtaking beauty of the sea, all while living amongst a tight-knit group of like-minded individuals.

Furthermore, living on a sailboat can be more budget-friendly, as you don’t have to worry about rent or utility bills and can even grow your own food.

However, along with the pros and cons of living on a sailboat, there are also a set of challenges. One of these is adapting to close quarters, especially if you’re used to more space.

There’s also the ongoing risk of weather-related issues and the need to keep the boat in good condition. And let’s not forget about the actual lack of privacy and shaky personal space. In tight quarters, it’s crucial to maintain healthy relationships with your shipmates and be able to cope with the emotional and psychological aspects of them.

In this article, we’ll dive into these factors, exploring the key pros and cons of a sailboat life. Whether you’re thinking about making the switch or simply curious about this unique lifestyle, keep reading to learn more about what living on a sailboat has to offer.

Pros of Living on a Sailboat

Financial freedom.

Living on a sailboat can offer a unique type of financial freedom and flexibility that you just can’t get from a traditional lifestyle on land. If you’re looking to minimize your expenses, live a debt-free life, and enjoy a simpler way of life, then this might be just the ticket for you.

With a modest investment in a sailboat and a focus on a minimalist lifestyle, you can keep your expenses low and focus on the things that matter most to you, as you won’t have to wonder how much it costs to live on a sailboat.

One of the standout benefits of a sailboat life is the ability to travel the world without the expense of hotels, restaurants, and other land-based costs.

Instead of shelling out big bucks for these things, misguided in thinking the sailing life is a costly life, you’ll have everything you need right on your boat. You can sleep comfortably, cook your own meals, and take in your surroundings, all while seeing new places and experiencing different cultures.

Another major perk of living on a sailing boat is that you can dodge the costs that come with traditional housing. Rent, utilities, and other taxes can quickly add up, but when you’re living on a sailboat, you don’t have to worry about such expenses.

With a bit of elbow grease and regular maintenance, you can keep your sailboat in tip-top shape and enjoy a comfortable, low-cost lifestyle. 

Whether you’re looking to live a minimalist lifestyle or simply want to reduce your expenses, sailing into life on a sailboat can bring a sense of financial freedom and peace of mind.

Community & Friendships

One of the best things included in sailboat life is the delicious opportunity to join a tight-knit community of fellow sailors or enthusiasts to share your passion for the adventurous spirit of sailing.

Whether you’re part of a cruising group or simply connecting with other boaters as a normal individual, you’ll find the opportunity to discover new people with whom you might have the chance to form strong relationships and worthy lifelong friendships.

More often, living on a sailboat also gives you a chance to broaden your horizons and meet people from all over the world, each of them bringing over a spicy set of cultural perspectives.

You won’t need to travel to New Delhi to find spiritual people, and you won’t need to stop by Greece to entertain innovative dialogue. You’ll have all that on your sailing boat. Besides that, you’ll have the opportunity to meet people when stopping in new ports or hanging out in different marinas. 

The sailboat life is especially enriching for those who have a thirst for adventure and new experiences, but it goes on a deeper level for those looking to form deep human connections.

Setting sail is a natural form of shared hardship, and it comes with a sense of community and support. When you’re out in the waters, and you need help with a repair, someone will be there for you.

Or maybe you’ll just need someone to chat with, and as was covered before, you’ll find lots of potential companions. The sense of belonging and support that you find adhering to the sailing lifestyle it’s truly special.

Culture & Adventure

Living on a sailboat brings a daily schedule full of adventure and discovery, with opportunities for a wide range of exciting activities and experiences.

For those enamored with water sports, sailboat life is a dream come true. Paddleboarding, kayaking, windsurfing, snorkeling, you name it—there’s a vast array of water-based activities to enjoy. Whether you possess the experience of a water sports enthusiast or just looking to spice things up by trying something new, the opportunities for adventure are close to endless.

Another parallel aspect that encourages adventure when living on a sailing boat is the ability to explore new countries and destinations, new marinas, and new stories.

Whether you’re traveling to tropical paradises, or maybe rugged coastlines, or even charming Mediterranean towns, each new stop brings a chance to experience new cultures, new mentalities, and phenomenal sights. As it is often said, the sky is the limit, you can visit historic landmarks, and museums, or even sample local Italian cuisine. Do what motivates you.

Additionally, by living on a sailboat, you will be able to escape the daily routine that dragged the hell out of you on land. Disconnecting with the mundane and reconnecting with nature will follow.

You’ll be able to take charge of your life and set sail, adventuring in time to gaze upon stunning vistas, staggering sunrises, and marvelous sunsets. You’ll have the chance to immerse yourself in the beauty of the sea by giving ear to the sound of the waves crashing against the apparent immortal hull. Endless novelty.

Cons of Living on a Sailboat

Limited space.

The question of limited space can serve as one of the biggest challenges of living on a sailboat. In such an enclosed place, every inch counts and you’ll find out soon enough that you’ll need to get creative with storage solutions.

After all, you’ll have to make the most of the space that you possess. You’ll need to be comfortable with close quarters and embrace a minimalist lifestyle, whether you look out to store food, supplies, and gear or find a quiet place to sleep.

This can be especially challenging if you look forward to setting sail with your family.

However, living in close quarters could also be a unique opportunity for bonding with your shipmates or your family. In the context of sharing a small space, you’ll be quick to learn how to work together, support each other and appreciate the simplest and finest things in life.

If you found yourself in too much clutter on land, be sure that living on a sailboat will force train you to prioritize your belongings and keep only what’s truly necessary. As such, you’ll be free to experience a more intentional and meaningful life. 

The limited space that a sailboat life brings requires a special type of dedication and, more often than not, a certain level of adaptation and flexibility. It’s certainly not for everyone and you’ll have to analyze yourself and see if you’re a great fit for a life on the waters.

If you do think that you have a great capacity to adapt and also show openness to experience, nothing should limit you. If you can adjust to become a minimalist boater, bound to compact living quarters, you’ll find that living on a sailboat can truly be an enriching experience. 

Physical Demands

Living on a sailboat can be physically demanding, as you’ll need not only to handle the sails or steer the boat but also maintain the vessel, to keep it seaworthy.

There’s always something to do on a sailboat, from trimming the sails to cleaning the deck, there’s certainly no tolerance for sedentarism.

This can be especially challenging if you’re not accustomed to a more active lifestyle, or if the weather conditions happen to be harsh. You’ll need to be alert, quick, and physically fit to keep the boat safe and keep any sort of danger away.

In addition to handling the boat, you’ll also need to be prepared to handle any repairs or form of maintenance that may be required, as previously stated.

You don’t need to be extremely handy, but you have to possess a basic familiarity with tools and fundamental boating procedures. After all, what would you do if nobody else knows how to fix a leaky hatch or tighten a loose bolt?

This can serve as a fantastic learning opportunity, allowing you to gain new skills and develop further knowledge, with a goal in mind: keeping your sailboat life in top condition.

The actual physical work, which is demanding, can also be a source of satisfaction and accomplishment when taking into account life on a sailboat. You’ll feel a sense of pride and self-reliance when you successfully manage to navigate through rough waters or when you’d make a timely repair.

If you’re keen on calisthenics or overall fitness activity, physical exertion should serve as a great workout, helping you maintain your health and stay in shape. Always keep in mind that living on a sailboat requires a constant level of physical activity. 

Isolation and Loneliness

While life on a sailboat can foster close relationships and connections with other boaters, it can also bring feelings of isolation and loneliness. You may find that living on a sailboat can be lonely at times, as it herds limited opportunities for stereotypical socializing and limited access to modern conveniences.

If you used to live in a bustling city or if you constantly cherish the company of your friends and family, life on the waters will be tough and especially challenging.

However, there are always ways to combat isolation and loneliness on a sailboat. For example, you can join a sailing community and attend boating events in the ports and marinas that you’ll visit during your time on a boat.

You can also stay connected with your loved ones through the means of the internet and your mobile devices, as you’ll be able to use data service or install a Wi-Fi router on your boat. The internet would not be always reliable, but with patience, you will manage.

After all, you don’t need to be constantly glued and addicted to digital screens. Pure living on a sailboat brings more enjoyment. 

The quiet life you find on a sailboat and the associated solitude can be welcomed as a healthy change of pace. You’ll have the opportunity to focus on your personal growth, meditate and find your inner peace, without having your mind poisoned by distraction.

This feeling can be incredibly liberating. As such, you’ll be able to practice mindfulness, read your favorite books, or simply enjoy the maritime views without distraction and disturbance. Basically, if you’re looking for a chance to connect with your inner self and escape the stress of routine, living on a sailboat provides the perfect environment.

Last Thoughts on the Pros and Cons of Living on a Sailboat

Living on a sailboat can be an incredible adventure, but keep in mind that it is important to carefully weigh the pros and cons before setting sail.

There is an unlimited number of factors to consider if you want to choose this lifestyle or not, including financial freedom, living in a close-knit community, being limited by space, or stress-free time coupled with physically demanding work. 

Ultimately, the decision to live on a sailboat should come down to your list of priorities, needs, preferences, and wants. 

Research, consider every aspect, and enjoy the sailboat life on the adventurous waters.

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Living on a Boat: Beginner's Guide for Liveaboards

It’s easy to romanticize the idea of living on a boat full-time; however, it's an alternative lifestyle like that takes preparation, organization and an ability to roll with changes. When you commit to moving aboard, make checklists of necessities and talk to your partner about deal-breakers. Prepare the boat for life aboard well before you make the move.

Factors to Consider Before Living Aboard

Before moving onboard your boat, you should ask yourself some questions:

• Is this just for a period of time before you go cruising or is this a lifestyle choice?
• Are you comfortable with repeatedly defending your choice to your friends and family?
• Are you living in a climate that is boat-friendly year-round?
• Are you handy and a good problem solver?
• Who will accept your Amazon deliveries and are you ready to grocery shop frequently since there won’t be room to stow much?
• Are you ready to become your own maid?
• Will you feel comfortable with your kids being in this new environment?
• What’s Plan B if it doesn’t work?

After moving aboard, you may be hauling the laundry to the laundromat or groceries from the parking lot with no dock cart nearby. You’ll need to go to the pump-out station regularly as well as to the post office for your mail. Small doesn’t translate to easy so mentally run through a typical week and write down solutions to the issues.

Essentials: Stowage, Comfort & Connectivity

When you move from a 2,000-square foot house to a 40-foot boat, all the closets are smaller, the cupboards are fewer and there’s no two-car garage. In preparation, you’ll need to de-clutter kitchen gadgets, tools, mementos and clothing. Keep winter clothes in off-boat storage and your business attire at the office if possible.

Make sure the boat is warm and dry with plenty of ventilation. Mildew and condensation will become a part of life and you’ll need a whole new set of cleaners and tools.

Plan your connectivity needs. Whether a dish for TV or high-speed internet access via the marina WiFi, you’ll need a connectivity solution so you’re not cut off from work, friends, family and entertainment.

Beneficial Skills to Have for Living Onboard

Maintenance on a boat may be worse than in a house in terms of frequency and specificity. Basic plumbing, electrical and mechanical skills will be needed because boat systems are generally less reliable than their household counterparts. The alternative is calling a contractor for every issue.

Cost of Living on a Boat

Don’t assume that you’ll save money by moving aboard. Here's some expenses you may incur by living on your boat:

• Boat mortgage payment
• Boat insurance
• Waste management
• Food and water

The best way to manage expenses is by making a budget and sticking to it. Depending on the size and value of the vessel, boat insurance may be just as expensive as house insurance. Property taxes will usually be less as will electricity since you’ll not be heating/cooling/lighting as big a space. You’ll probably save money on waste management, gas and water as well.

Where costs rise dramatically is maintenance . Marine parts and labor are usually more expensive—sometimes 20% more, than typical household counterparts. If you take on the tasks yourself and you’re self-employed, every hour you spend working on your boat is an hour you don’t make money.

Learn More in our Boat Insurance Guide

Safety & Security

You’ll need to decide whether to invite strangers inside, and if kids and pets will be safe around the docks. Install CO2 and smoke alarms and a propane sniffer, check the fire extinguishers periodically, and keep an eye on the basics like bilge and battery levels. You may also want to consider the following:

• Will you be safe walking from the parking lot to the slip at night?
• Will your nice car be okay outside the garage 24/7?
• Who will call you if your boat starts to list when you’re on vacation?

There aren’t really more or fewer safety issues, just different kinds.

Daily Life & Socialization

Socializing is easier in a marina than in a neighborhood. Neighbors help neighbors in marinas but it’s a two-way street so be ready to lend a hand when needed. If you’d rather live anonymously, consider an end tie in the forgotten corner of the marina. Although there are challenges to living on a boat, if you’re prepared, you may find it a perfect fit.

I already have a boat in a slip in a marina, so can I just move aboard?

Most marinas require an application for you to move aboard permanently. In some areas, liveaboards aren’t permitted or there are long waiting lists. Liveaboard slip fees are usually higher and your insurance rates may increase if your boat becomes your primary residence.

How do I live aboard a boat with a pet?

Dogs, cats and other pets need to acclimate to their new environments. They need exercise, private space and easy access to food and a potty. Make sure stairs and docks are safe for them and that they know how to get on the boat or dock if they fall in the water. Be careful of small spaces where they can get trapped and wires they can chew. Teach them about their new environment and be patient.

Learn more in Boating with Pets and Tips for Taking Your Dog Boating .

Read Next: Boat Owner's Guide

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• Boat Owner's Guide
• Costs of Boat Ownership
• Boat Maintenance Guide
• Insuring Your Boat
• Boat Safety Guide

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Sailboat Life

Sailboat Cruising and Lifestyle Magazine.

How to Live on a Sailboat for Beginners

This is a guide for how to live on a sailboat – but be warned, if you have any desire for the liveaboard lifestyle, you might quickly become on of us! Living aboard a sailboat requires an enjoyment of water, being okay with small living, and a sense of adventure. It’s not hard to begin living on a sailboat, but a few tips can help.

Let’s consider a few basic liveaboard questions first:

Is it living on a sailboat a good idea?

Living aboard a sailboat give you freedom that you won’t find in any other lifestyle. A suburban house can not be moved from place to place. But living on a sailboat gives you the options to live anywhere – literally in any country in the world! Living aboard a sailboat offers such a unique feeling of freedom to explore that you won’t find anywhere else.

Is living on a sailboat hard?

It is tough to live on a sailboat in a place like San Francisco where everyone is trying to escape super-high rent. In resort areas, many marinas have years-long waitlists for a liveaboard slip, and these slips cost double than a regular slip. However, not all places, in fact most places are easy to liveaboard.

Are you thinking about living aboard? Well, it takes time, planning, and preparation to being living on a sailboat. Here are a few videos to help you make a few calculations.

Adjusting to Liveaboard Life

Today, Emily sits down with 3 other female friends in the harbor to chat about how they transitioned from being landlubbers to liveaboard sailors in recent years. We’ll let you in on the conversation, and 4 different perspectives (though there are MANY others in the world).

• Emily, 34, aboard Temptress – liveaboard for 5 years
• Kris, 57, aboard Sixth Girl – liveaboard for 1 year
• Meredith, 44, aboard Tla Hla – liveaboard for 3 years
• Hannah, 26, aboard Sojourner – liveaboard for 2 years

How to Afford and Start Living Aboard

Your dream is to become a liveaboard? You want to know more about sailboat life, and what it means to live on a sailboat? You want to know how to afford living on a sailboat and how to afford staying liveaboards? How it feels to daily hoist the sail and follow the wind?

Start Small, Start Now

One philosophy in getting started living aboard a sailboat is to start small, start now. That doesn’t mean you have to buy a major refit project of a sailboat. You can get started in a small 24 foot single cabin boat for less than $10,000 or a mid-size 36 foot sailboat (see video below) for less than $60,000. Or grab a 1980s fixer upper that’s 42 feet in length that costs $25,000 – but beware, a fixer upper is a major expense even when you do it yourself.

Is Living Aboard for You?

No one can answer this question except you. However, if you enjoy freedom, have a sense of adventure, and love the water, then you might enjoy living aboard a sailboat.

We hope you enjoyed this how to guide for life on a sailboat for beginners. Leave us a comment or question a below.

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Home » Blog » Live on a boat » Guide to living on a boat

Guide to living on a boat

By Author Fiona McGlynn

Posted on Last updated: March 27, 2019

Everything you need to know to go from landlubber to full-time liveaboard

Ready to live on a boat year-round? You might be surprised to know that there are several steps to moving onto a boat, the last of which is actually buying a boat! Robin and I moved onto our Dufour 35 and have lived on it for 5 years. We were lucky enough to have some knowledgeable people guide us through the process, and we’d like to pass some of that wisdom onto you!

1. Decide if living on a boat right for you

With real estate prices blasting into the stratosphere, living on a boat and paying a fraction of market rental rates is a pretty sweet deal. Still, there are plenty of things to consider before uprooting your life and moving aboard. What does it cost? Will my partner hate it? Where will I shower? Check out our post  Is living on a boat right for you – 10 things you should know  to answer some of those all important questions.

2. Decide where you’ll keep your boat

The #1 mistake people make when moving aboard is buying a boat before knowing where they will keep it. This is because in most cities, there’s a large supply of boats, and limited liveaboard space. The lack of moorage is usually due to city regulations that limit the number of liveaboard slips and year-round anchorages. So, the first thing to decide is where you will keep your boat while dwelling on it. You have three options: a liveaboard slip in a marina , a mooring ball, or anchoring. These options differ in terms of ease and expense and we cover all the costs, pros, cons, and considerations in our post  “Where to Live on a Boat”.

If you’re new to boating, you’ll definitely want to start by moving into a marina, by far your easiest and most comfortable option. However the lists for liveaboard marinas can stretch upwards of 10 years! Fortunately we found a work-around. Here are three different ways to  find a liveaboard marina and skip the wait list .

3. Try before you buy

Before you take the plunge, we recommend that you try living on a boat before making the commitment and moving aboard full time (especially if you have a partner who’s not totally sold on the idea). Often people move aboard and find that it’s not what they expected and are then stuck living on land and paying moorage on a big boat. Fortunately there are lots of ways to try before you buy, like airbnbing a boat through Boatsetter , or boat-sitting. Read our 5 ways to test drive the liveaboard life here.

4. Know what a boat costs to own

If you’re thinking of living aboard a boat you’ve probably realized that you can save some money by doing so. While you can save a bundle (Robin and I saved $12,000 or $500 a month in rent over 2 years), your actual savings will depend on a variety of factors including what type of boat you buy, where you store it, and how much maintenance is required. To better understand what it will cost to liveaboard, read our post What does a boat cost to own ?

5. Know what to look for in a liveaboard boat

So you’re cruising craigslist and the classifieds for your liveaboard boat, but not sure what too look for?  There are special considerations when looking for a liveaboard boat in particular: space, cost, layout, performance, etc. Here we lay out all the important attributes to look for in a liveaboard boat and provide a list of boat designs that are well suited to living aboard.

6. Buy a boat

If you’re actively searching for a boat, check out our series with everything you ever wanted to know about buying a boat. It includes how to choose the right boat , where to look to get a deal , the ultimate boat survey checklist , how boat pricing and values work ,  negotiation strategy and more.

We hope you find something here to help you transition to the liveaboard life. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Good luck!

Fiona McGlynn is an award-winning boating writer who created Waterborne as a place to learn about living aboard and traveling the world by sailboat. She has written for boating magazines including BoatUS, SAIL, Cruising World, and Good Old Boat. She’s also a contributing editor at Good Old Boat and BoatUS Magazine. In 2017, Fiona and her husband completed a 3-year, 13,000-mile voyage from Vancouver to Mexico to Australia on their 35-foot sailboat.

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Living & working on a sailing boat: the pros and cons

Updated On 3rd January, 2022

There is something about the idea of living and working on a sailing boat that is so romantic. Moving from marina to marina, coast to coast, country to country, all while simultaneously travelling and working sounds like bliss. If you’re wondering what it’s like to live on a boat or to work on a boat, or if you’re considering living on a boat or working on a boat, this is the post for you.

It’s not all glamorous, but it can be fun! If you’re ready for a huge adventure, full of highlights, compromises and challenges and everything in between, living on a sailing boat could be just what you need. Learning to expect the unexpected, to prepare for anything and everything, and to embrace spontaneity are just some of the things you’ll get out of working on a sailing boat. It’s a unique way of life, and it’s not for everyone, but if you’ve made it to this post and you’re thinking of living on a sailing boat, you might be ready to take the leap.

I have lived and worked on boats all over the world so I’m obviously biased in thinking living on the water is a fantastic experience! However it’s not all plain sailing and I’ll talk you through some of the pro’s and con’s of living and working on a sailing boat for me. Spoiler alert: I definitely think that the benefits outweigh any inconveniences, but keep reading to find out why!

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Living and working on a sailing boat: the pros and cons...

Pros of living and working on a sailing boat, 1. the freedom to choose where you want to be and where you want to go next..

This is an obvious starting point and is probably one of the key motivating factors for most people when they choose this lifestyle. The world is your oyster and your travel plans are only limited by your imagination (and both you and your boat’s capabilities!). This is definitely one of the biggest pros of living on a sailing boat for me. 

2. Living in the moment.

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. It can be challenging to be present in our busy and chaotic lives. We can also be tempted to constantly worry about the future and dedicate so much energy to our plans that we forget to focus on the present moment. Life is fairly unpredictable when you’re living on a sailing boat and appreciating the small things and being flexible with any future plans is so important. 

3. You bring your home with you.

You might think you have to leave a lot behind when living and working on a sailing boat, but that’s not necessarily the case. Sailing away can be the ultimate form of escapism but you also have the luxury of bringing your little home with you on your travels. 

You make the call whether you want to sail off into the horizon by yourself or share the experience with people close to you or furry friends. I’ve sailed with a little dog who would constantly be on the lookout for dolphins to chat to and would be too excited to sleep once she had spotted them! Another friend has a cat as his crew who can paddle board to the beach (assisted by his captain) and wander around onshore with his GPS tracker before making his way back on board. 

4. Every day is an adventure.

When you’re living on a sailing boat, nothing is as easy as living on land but it’s also more exciting! Even going to the shops can involve an unexpected hike to find civilisation and trying not to sink the dinghy if you have been over ambitious with your purchases.

5. Home is where the anchor drops.

Wherever you want to go, you can find a good location on the water, and if you change your mind, you can change and go wherever the wind takes you! Launching the dinghy and arriving somewhere ashore for the first time never gets old and watching your home bobbing around on the water waiting for you is also very special.

6. You meet like-minded people from all over the world.

Sailors tend to be very friendly people and living on a boat throws you into a worldwide community of all sorts of different people with something in common. I also think it’s quite entertaining how quickly you start to spot people who live on boats by the telltale signs of being tanned, sun-bleached clothes, waterproof bags (you never know if you might have a mishap on your way to shore) and the fact that they’ve probably already introduced themselves to you. 

See more top tips for making friends when travelling here.

7. You can work on board with the Internet.

Even relatively recently it was difficult to imagine how queuing at internet cafes or walking around a town scanning for any potential WiFi networks would become less and less common. There are much cheaper and more reliable mobile internet options now which make being connected whilst on a boat a reality and living and working on a sailing boat much more feasible. Remote working in general is much more widespread and makes this lifestyle more compatible with a ‘normal’ job.

CONS OF LIVING AND WORKING ON A SAILING BOAT

1. the weather can change all your plans..

It takes a bit of getting used to when you first start living on a boat that any ideas you might have about what you want to do need to be run past the weather gods first! If the conditions aren’t right, you won’t be going anywhere and you need to have a Plan B, C and even D to hand. 

2. Supplies are limited.

Living on a boat means being aware that you are working with limited resources especially in terms of water, fuel, electricity and food. The more luxurious the boat the less obvious this might be but the point still stands that if you turn on the tap it’s coming from your supply not the mains. This can be a bit tricky to get across to guests who could happily use up a whole water tank with one shower! It can be quite eye-opening how much we use or how little we can consume if we are careful.

See more sustainable travel tips here.

3. Lack of space.

Space could be seen as your ultimate limited resource to which the only solution would be a bigger boat, but the harsh reality is there will never be a big enough boat if you don’t adapt your mindset. Living with less is definitely a challenge as you try to predict what you might need most. The small space doesn’t just affect material things; think carefully about who you choose to have onboard too!

4. Keeping your boat afloat isn't easy.

It may look like you are living the dream and let’s be honest, most of the time you probably are. Especially as you are less likely to share with your friends an update on a very glamorous morning spent fixing a toilet than a beautiful sunset photo. So you can’t blame anyone who underestimates how much time you will need to spend maintaining your boat. Keeping your boat afloat is a bigger challenge than you may initially imagine; cruising is described by many as fixing your boat in exotic locations, and this is something you should definitely consider before you start living on a boat!

5. Saying goodbye is hard.

It can be difficult feeling transient and although you are definitely part of a wider community, frequently saying goodbye to friends is a reality when you’re living on a sailing boat. The flip side of meeting so many fantastic people is that they will be on the move too but your paths may cross again sooner than you think! You can also choose to move around slowly or base yourself for long periods of time in the same area to feel like you’re creating more of a base. 

6. Working on a boat with the Internet is easier than before, but not easy.

Internet becomes another factor to consider in your plans as to when you need to be connected and when you can be sailing without any signal. For remote working on a boat this could mean planning any longer passages for the weekends if you’re trying to work a traditional 9-5 Monday to Friday schedule, or making sure you have a certain amount of control over when you work.

I think if you’re looking for an easy life sipping cocktails and watching the sunset, it’s probably better just to have a holiday on the water and not to spoil the illusion! But if you’re up for an adventure, and a steep learning curve, you’ll realise that your sundowner in your unusual home is priceless. 

Have you ever thought about living on a sailing boat?

Have you got any top tips for working on a sailing boat ? Anything you’d add?

I’ve lived and worked on boats all over the world, and I’m based in Barcelona when on land. My latest adventure is living on the water full time whilst working as a Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach. I’ll be exploring as much as possible along the way.

Did you find this post helpful? I’d love you to share it for me.

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IT’S LOVELY TO MEET YOU

I’M MOLLIE AND I STARTED THIS BLOG BACK IN 2013 WHEN I HEADED OUT ON MY FIRST BACKPACKING ADVENTURE. 

I’D LOVE TO SHARE THE JOURNEY WITH YOU, WE’VE GROWN A LOT SINCE THEN!

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Sailboat Living: 10 Things To Know Before Moving On Board

Sailboat living can sound like the dream life, and in many ways it is.

Beautiful sunsets, the freedom to travel with your home, dolphins and crystal clear seas are all a huge part of the sailboat lifestyle , but anyone who tells you it’s an easy life has obviously never really lived on a sailboat!

There are times when sailboat living can feel more like a nightmare than a dream, and no matter how much you prepare there will always be a few troublesome scenarios that you just can’t predict.

However, with a little forethought and a lot of planning, there is a lot you can do to make the transition of moving from a house to a sailboat a relatively easy one.

If you’re prepared to put in the hard work now then we promise you will reap the rewards in the future. As we learnt the hard way, we’ve put together the top 10 things that everyone should know before they move onto a sailboat so that sailboat living for you can be 98% dream and only 2% nightmare!

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#1 A Sailboat Is Never Complete

Learn this lesson fast!

Don’t expect to finish boatyard work and stop working. A sailboat breaks. Constantly. Some days it will feel as though your to-do list is endless because unfortunately, it is.

This was one of the things Adam and I were prepared for before we moved onboard our sailboat. After living on a boat in the UK we understood the crazy amount of work that has to go into maintaining something that’s constantly working.

I think a good way of looking at it would be to think of it as a house and a car combined. It has all the working parts of a house – the pipework, the electricity, the leaky windows etc.

It also has all the working parts of a car like an engine, the tires could be the sails, the lines, and all that goes along with them.

Add to that the fact that you’re putting it under huge amounts of stress at all times, in some extreme weather conditions, and you can see why things constantly fail!

Adam and I spent the first few months of living aboard feeling as though we were just sailing from anchorage to anchorage to find chandlers so we could fix things. We made friends with some full-time cruisers who quickly put a stop to that!

They explained how if we actually wanted to enjoy time on board then we had to give ourselves time off the boat work. The broken things we could live with could wait a few days while we enjoyed a new destination.

Find out how much new sails cost

We now try to only do one or two days of boat work a week, which leaves us with a weekend ‘off’ when we’re working our jobs for three days. This suits us perfectly, but you’ll need to find a pattern that works for you to make sailboat living more enjoyable!

A bonus of living onboard is that you do have the extra time to dedicate to keeping the sailboat in tip-top condition.

Many weekend sailors find themselves with a long list of jobs at the end of the season, but (depending on how cheap/how lucky you get when you buy your boat!) if you get some jobs done every now and again through the season you’ll keep the long stints to a minimum.

#2 Sailboat Living = Tiny Space Living

Think of sailboat living as living in a glorified tent and you’ll be (partly) prepared! There is nothing glamorous about sailboat living!

You’ll be getting changed in tiny spaces where you may or may not be able to stand. You’ll be squeezing into the toilet or squeezing past people to use the kettle. It’s a juggling act, even when all your belongings are stashed away neatly.

Add to that the fact you’ll probably be ripping open cupboards every other day to find that essential item that was placed under all the other essential items and it becomes pretty hard to manage!

Our top tips for managing space onboard your sailboat are to downsize before you move in and to prioritise sailboat storage. It might be a hard thing to do to start with, but you’ll be so thankful you gave up all nonessential items before you even moved aboard.

It’s amazing how quickly you can fill a boat when you live on it! We have loads of handy tips on how to maximise limited space in our post on sailboat storage ideas – check it out before you start sailboat living!

#3 Water, Water, Everywhere But Not A Drop To Wash In

Get used to living frugally. We don’t necessarily mean your finances (though it is possible to live on a budget on a sailboat, check out what we spend monthly here).

Things like water and electricity are limited on a sailboat, especially if you’re spending the majority of your time at anchor.

Unless you have a sailboat watermaker (which we highly recommend splashing out on!) you need to get used to using as little water as possible . It’s not always easy to find when you live on the sea.

Get used to taking sea showers and washing dishes in saltwater. You can always rinse in freshwater, and washing in the sea really isn’t too hard once you’re used to it!

Set your sailboat up with a good way of making electricity as soon as you move aboard. You’ll want decent amounts of solar power and possibly a wind generator too, especially if you’re planning on spending time in countries that don’t see very much sunshine or spending winters at anchor.

You’ll also want to make sure you have a good battery bank for storing it over night, and you may even want to consider getting a small generator if you rely on power for things like charging laptops to work from.

#4 The People You Meet Will Be A True Highlight

The sailing community is what makes sailboat living. They are the most giving and generous community of people we have ever met and the best memories we have are the ones we spent with other cruisers.

It’s not always easy to meet other sailors while you’re living at anchor, so our advice is to make the effort and say hi where ever possible. People are always happy to share a drink or dinner, and a salty tale or two!

Meeting other sailors is also the very best way to learn more about sailing life. No matter how long people have cruised for they always have an experience worth sharing and learning from.

#5 The Weather Controls Your Life In Sailboat Living

We check the weather twice a day, every day. It may seem obvious that the weather is important on a sailboat, but until we moved aboard we didn’t realise quite how much it would affect our lives.

You might be desperate to move the boat and explore somewhere new but find you have no wind to sail. Or you might fall in love with an anchorage and want to stay but be forced to move because of a change in the direction of the wind.

We’ve had to leave beautiful anchorages in the middle of the night because an unpredicted storm had blown through, or been stuck in places we don’t like because the wind has meant it’s the only safe place to be.

The positives of being governed by the weather is that you’re so much more in tune with it. You get up when the sun rises, you notice subtle changes in the temperature and you learn to read the wind and clouds.

Before you move on board you should start checking the weather and anchorages around where you plan on sailing. It makes life easier if you’ve scouted out the best places to be in different weather conditions.

Check things like whether there are safe anchorages for different wind directions or whether you’ll need to use marinas (and how much they’ll be!), and check if there are any ‘bolt holes’ you can use as safe havens in the event of unexpected storms.

You’ll feel more confident and comfortable if you have all this information to hand when you start sailboat living.

#6 Sailboat Living Means Leaving Your Privacy On The Dockside

You’ll be sharing a tiny space with your crew and they will quickly learn literally everything there is to learn about you. And you them.

Before you move onto a sailboat make sure that you’re happy with sharing everything with the people you’re sailing with. I don’t mean you have to tell them about your childhood (though night passages can be pretty dull!) but be prepared to share what you eat, when you toilet, potentially what you throw up.

Expect to be walked in on while you’re changing or showering. Understand that boat toilets break – a lot – so no matter how careful you are you might well end up elbow deep in someone else’s last nights dinner!

#7 Learn To Work As A Team – Quickly

Sailboat living requires a huge amount of team work (unless you’re planning on living alone of course). You need get into a very different mindset when you live and work with the same person or people day in, day out, and when you depend on them (quite literally) to survive.

One of the biggest reasons that people quit at sailboat living is because they fall out with their partners, or call it a day before they do. Sailboat living is hard on relationships, but it can also make your relationship better and stronger if you’re prepared to work at it.

There are lots of things you can do to prepare for this change and I’ve put together a whole range of tips to help you with spending too much time with your partner .

Ultimately, one of the best things you can do is know that this isn’t going to be easy, no matter how strong your relationship is on land. Be prepared for this as a couple, and be prepared to work hard on your relationship when the tough patches come!

#8 Nature Is Incredible

I know, I know, we all know nature is incredible. But sailboat living brings you so much closer to it in so many different ways.

You see things you’d never get a chance to see on land. Every time you jump in the sea you find new sea creatures, either from snorkeling or finding them clinging on to your hull, or washed up on deck.

You see turtles, whales and rays. Birds come to find rest on your boat while you’re on long passages and dolphins swim beside you as you make waves for them to play in.

Then there’s the sunrises and sunsets, and the endless starlit skies. The thunderstorms that you’re suddenly a part of, when before you could hide inside brick walls. The constantly changing sea and sky, and the sun and wind. You become part of it, and you depend on it, and you’re terrified of it.

Sailboat living makes you feel like you’re part of the nature around you rather than just a lucky spectator. It’s certainly changed the way I see the ocean and the weather for the better and I have a new found respect and healthy fear of it’s power and awe.

#9 Prepare For Sleepless Nights

Before we set off cruising full time I had no idea how little sleep I would get. There are so many different things trying their hardest to ruin a good nights sleep on a sailboat.

Firstly, the weather. If it’s windy, you’ll be half awake all night just watching the anchor and wondering if this will be the night it pulls out and you drag into some rocks.

You’ll be waiting for the wind to shift slightly so that you’re no longer protected from the sea. And even if you’re super happy with your anchoring set up, the wind through the halyards makes a very disconcerting noise!

If the weather is calm that doesn’t mean the sea will be. You can never predict whether the anchorage you arrive in will be the rollyest place on the island, so you’ll spend a good few nights just rolling around all over the place trying your hardest to stay in your berth.

Then there’s the heat (or the cold, depending on where you sail). It can be unbearably hot inside a sailboat, so consider buying a decent hammock and sleep under the stars instead.

But if you decide to sleep outside you’re going to want a mosquito net, because those things are FIERCE. Never have I ever experienced so many sleepless nights due to a buzzing in my ears and painful bites all over my legs.

If you can find a comfortable set up with your hammock and mozzie net then sleeping outside on a sailboat is one of the most magical things ever. The stars are brighter than you could ever imagine, and there are shooting stars a plenty. The stillness of a calm night at anchor is one of the very best things about sailboat living.

If you’re sailing with a baby you can expect even less sleep – make sure you’re prepared for that!

#10 Sailboat Living Is More Difficult Than You Could Imagine (But Totally Worth It)

Difficult sounds bad, but that would be inaccurate when describing sailboat living. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the best. And part of what makes it the best is that it’s the hardest. Does that make sense?!

Sailboat living can feel like a constant battle at times. You have to trek for an hour to find the gas to light your oven to make a cup of tea in the morning. You then have to go back again because you forgot the tea bags. Things break and need fixing. You can’t sleep because of a storm. You can’t leave the boat for days because the winds up and you’re scared the anchor might pull out.

I think people run away to sea to find freedom, but like everything freedom can be defined in so many different ways.

Sailboat living takes away your freedom of easy access to food and water. It takes away your freedom to step out of your front door into relative safety. At times it even takes away your freedom to run and walk.

What it does give you is freedom from monotony. Freedom from daily routine. It gives you the freedom to travel where you want (if not when you want) and the freedom from material possessions.

It doesn’t matter what you wear on a boat, it doesn’t matter how flashy your boat is or how much you smell! At the end of the day, out on the sea, it’s just you surviving. And in a way, that’s the most free I’ve ever felt.

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15 comments.

I’ll be moving on a sailboat with my girlfriend this (still very new) year and I discovered your blog via Pinterest. We’re also writing weekly blog posts about our journey. Your writing is excellent, and I’d like to follow you on your mailing list. But it seems your form does not work. Fix it maybe? 🙂

Ah that’s strange! I can see people are still signing up, will have a look into that! Thanks for letting me know. Thanks so much for reading along. Where’s your boat? I’m so excited for you – those first few weeks aboard are the best!

I can’t seem to sign up for more. The web page has an error on my Android. Bummer.

Can you please add my email address to your email distribution list?

Thanks, Steve

So glad to come across you guys, finding out as much as we can before we take that leap. We are a couple coming to the end of a army career. The last 2 years will be in Kenya Nanyuki. Posted in June. Then we plan to get the dream sailing boat and travel. I am doing all my home work trying to find out as much as I can before we do this. Looking forward to reading about you both and tasking in everything any thing that we will I’m sure be incredible useful. Thank you Sandy

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve only just noticed your lovely comment. I hope you’re getting further along with your dream – would love to hear about it! If you need more help we’ve put together a huge guidebook detailing everything we’ve learnt, from the very beginning of the journey through to buying the boat and eventually living aboard and making it all work. https://twogetlost.com/guidebook

That’s really nice post. I appreciate your skills. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for the honest truth in this article. Doing all the research possible before following our dreams and in your footsteps 🙌💕⛵⚓

Thanks so much for your kind comment and really pleased we could help! Keep us updated on your journey, you won’t look back!

Wow! I am on a boat reading this while my partner is away for the first time in months, and it made me feel less insane and like there are tools to help us live our dream of minimalist sailboat life.. Thank you so much for your wise words and good tools..

I’m so pleased it helped and excited for you starting this journey! You won’t regret it, and we’d love to hear more when you find the perfect boat and move aboard! If you need more help we’ve put together a huge guidebook detailing everything we’ve learnt, from the very beginning of the journey through to buying the boat and eventually living aboard and making it all work. https://twogetlost.com/guidebook

• Pingback: How To Downsize Your Wardrobe For Boatlife | Two Get Lost

Any suggested reading on preparing your land life (home, insurance, anythin really) for departure. Sell the home or rwnt, thinks like that. Want to start preparjng a year ahead and struggling to make a plan..any blogs ir reading suggestions would be appreciated!

Hello, thanks for reaching out. First off – congratulations! You’re obviously set on your plan to move aboard and it will be amazing (and lots of other things too!!) We actually cover all this in part one of our guidebook. We go through everything we had to consider before moving aboard, things like whether to sell or not to sell, what to do with all your things, even little considerations like what to tell family and friends. We’ve included tick lists for planning the change in lifestyle. You can find it here. https://twogetlost.com/guidebook Part 2 is for after you’ve bought the boat – getting the boat ready for living aboard and all the other things that come along with living at sea. I hope it helps and please do let us know how you get on – perhaps we’ll see you out here soon!

It’s helpful to understand that when living in a sailboat, the weather controls every aspect of our lives. Not long ago, my wife and I decided to invest in a sailboat because we love the sea and nature. We’d like to buy one this year, and maybe in the future, we’ll need to read carefully your advice about living in a vessel.

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How To Live on a Sailboat: Consider These 5 Things

"Someday I want to move onto a sailboat and sail off into the sunset...”

It's a common dream shared by thousands, even millions of sailors and non-sailors world-wide. And it's a compelling dream shared by so many, but what does it really take to do it? What does it even mean to live on a sailboat?

There's a strong "paradise mythology" that surrounds cruising and living aboard. That it's an easy lifestyle, with days spent in your swimsuit and sunsets under palm trees with a rum drink in your hand is a common idea. The reality is pleasant and worth it, but it's a far cry from the myth.

With this guide, I'll give you some insight from years of experience living on board so you can figure out if it's something that really is practical for you, and if it is, what you need to start thinking about.

On this page:

Liveaboard or cruiser, the basics of living on board and cruising, useful skills and knowledge, what kind of people do well as liveaboards, is the liveaboard life for you.

There are two basic ways to live on a boat, though there is a spectrum from each extreme to suit anyone's taste. At one end, you have the "Liveaboard," someone that lives on a boat instead of a house but rarely moves. At the other end are the "Cruisers" who roam the world under sail. This article focuses on the Cruising lifestyle, though much applies to liveaboards in marinas.

The Liveaboard

Someone who lives on board a boat full-time may never leave the marina. This lifestyle isn't so different from life in an RV in a park on land or a tiny house. You don't have the trappings of owning a home, and you live in a small space. But you may have a day job, a car, and you can keep plants on the dock next to your slip and have cable. You need not be in a sailboat, as a powerboat or houseboat will do the job just fine.

This article isn't about setting you up as a modern-day Travis McGee, though there is much to recommend the lifestyle. Your needs differ greatly from someone who takes their boat places. You will have ready access to parts, service technicians, and grocery stores, for example.

The Cruising Lifestyle

Cruising means moving your boat from destination to destination, whether it's in one region or across oceans. You won't have a year-round slip you return to, though some do come to the same place for a time every year. You can cruise in a sailboat or a powerboat, but the blue water cruisers who cross oceans are almost exclusively in sailboats.

This is very different from living in a marina. It turns your whole financial world on end since you can't easily work in a building on land year-round, and you have a lot more planning and equipping to do since you will move around. You may just move up and down the inter-coastal waterway, or you may sail around the world - the issues are similar.

Most cruisers also avoid marinas regularly as they are a very expensive way to spend the night in your own boat. Nothing eats through a cruising kitty more quickly than marina time. So many of us prefer to be at anchor, which adds its own challenges.

To get an idea of what it costs to dock your boat in different types of locations, check out our article on How Much it Costs to Dock Your Boat for a Year .

The Hybrid Life

We've had a few cruising friends who have lived a combination of the liveaboard lifestyle and cruising. Some will live on board part of the year, or live in a marina part of the year and cruise the rest of it. The combinations are limitless, but much of the Cruising lifestyle applies since the boat moves around.

Living on a boat - even in a marina - requires a hard reset of some of your lifelong habits. There are a million little details that are different, but there are a few major areas that you should know in advance.

Space Management and Your Things

Coming from a house or apartment, you must downsize. Space is everything on a boat, and you can't have piles of stuff loose in the boat when you go offshore. Devices need a dual function or more, and you can't afford to have excess things around since you'll also need space for spare parts, food storage, and safety gear.

When we moved on board, we:

• Got rid of all but a handful of our pleasure books. This was painful, but with limited shelf space, there's little room beyond mechanical texts, sailing books, and navigation and maintenance related reading. Fortunately, we'd begun the move to Kindles well before we moved on board.
• Pared our clothing down to minimal cold weather clothes and tropical clothing.
• Pulled all our CDs and DVDs out of cases and stored them in compact organizers. Eventually, we ripped all the CDs and went digital.
• Eliminated most kitchen gadgetry. With power limitations, it lowers your small appliance needs. But you don't have room for single-purpose items like salad spinners or big serving dish sets.
• The kids got rid of all the aged-out toys, and many of the current ones. Ours were older at twelve and fifteen, so they didn't have so many large things to take with them as younger children would have.
• Simplified our coffee making to a French press, eliminating the Keurig and regular coffee maker we had in the house.
• Reduced duplication in my tools and pared them down.
• Picked only a select few sets of linens, towels, and cloth napkins.

Those are just a few examples of some of the downsizing and re-thinking we had to do about the accumulation of "stuff" that most people view as necessities. We've also learned different attitudes about acquiring new things, as everything needs a place on the boat when we get it.

You will take too much with you when you cast off your lines, but over time you'll learn you can do with a lot less.

Changing Habits and Resource Management

Every time we come back to land, we realize how much our daily habits have changed. We don't run the water when we brush our teeth; we turn off every light when we leave the room. The little bits of daily life on land you don't think about come out when you live on board.

The big habit changers are water use, power consumption, and waste management. In a house, when you flip a switch the lights come on, when you flush the toilet the contents go ... somewhere. You don't really think about these things, the water will always come out of the tap as long as you pay the water bill or don't run the well dry.

As a liveaboard, you learn how unpleasant it is to run out of water in the middle of a shower, or have the low battery alarm come on in the middle of the night. We won't even go there about overfilling the holding tank. The responsibility to make or provide things and services you don't even think about on land forever changes the way you live.

Food, Spares, and Supplies

People ask us "what do you do for food while you're out there?"

The good news is, everybody eats. The bad news is, it's not always what you are used to eating or how you're used to eating it. Any place with people you can get food, but it takes more planning to make sure you've got what you want when you want it.

Anchored in a remote atoll in French Polynesia you actually can go ashore and buy flour. If it's not too close to when the weekly ship comes and no one else has bought it all. You can get meat and vegetables if you are willing to pay the high prices. To make your life more manageable requires foresight, since you can't just hop in the car and pop down to Stop & Shop if you run out of eggs.

Spare parts and other supplies also take planning and management. Carry spares with you, and know you will run out and find alternatives. You'll learn how to navigate importing parts and spares, and how to improvise repairs when you can't. But figuring out what you will need and buying it when you can to stock up is a never-ending challenge.

Living on board and cruising requires many different skills. Some you must have to cruise safely, others will save you time, aggravation and money. You can train and prepare, but nothing replaces hands-on experience.

Repairs and Maintenance

We planned for years to cruise. Part of my preparation involved courses at a local vocational school. Not everyone has the time or resources to take it to this level, but the courses on diesels, electricity, household systems, fiberglass and outboards have all paid for themselves in the years since. From sorting out my submerged outboard in Sydney when I couldn't find a vendor to service it, to rebuilding a water pump in the Tuamotus or troubleshooting and repairing the autopilot, it's been invaluable having these skills.

Even if you can't take professional-level courses, you will need to take some time to update your skills. If you aren't "mechanically inclined," then maybe your partner is. You can't rely on others for basic maintenance tasks, and you want to speak knowledgeably when things beyond your skill to repair break in foreign countries and remote places.

Navigation, Weather and Sailing

These are basic sailing skills, but it no longer surprises me in the day of YouTube and Patreon cruisers how many disregard their importance before setting sail. Time and again on social media discussions focus on what type of boat to buy without regard to the ability to sail it safely from point A to point B.

Perhaps I'm conservative, but knowing your boat and how it handles is critical. So is knowing how to find your way safely between ports while avoiding dangerous weather.

If you're newer to sailing, take classes. Sailing classes, navigation classes, even weather classes if you can. There are good online resources if time and budget limits you, but take steps to learn about what you're getting into. The Seven Seas Cruising Association , the American Sailing Association , and many other resources offer training courses on the web. Though there's no real substitute for time on the water, you can get many of the basic ideas to start.

If you want to get started immediately on the cheap, we have a great article on 9 Ways to Learn to Sail for Practically Free . There, you'll find a bunch of good resources to get you started. But nothing beats the real thing.

Charter a boat, or better yet if you live near water get your cruising boat a year or three before you're ready to leave and spend some time getting intimate with its systems. Sail it places, take long trips with overnight passages.

Provisioning

Cooking on a boat differs from cooking in a kitchen in a house. It's not just the lack of counter space, specialized gadgets, cooktop space, refrigerator capacity, enough burners, or a large oven. You have to re-think how you shop, what you eat, how you prepare it, and how you store it.

We've learned to make many of our favorites from scratch, whether it's pancakes, tortillas, or bread. The conveniences we have on land when a supermarket is a short drive away disappear or become very expensive. When cruising, time is an ingredient you have plenty of and we've discovered joy in making something better from scratch than you can buy in a package.

A collection of staples you can make things from not only saves you money, but saves you space since you're storing the components (flour, butter, baking powder, rice, pasta, cocoa, sugars, spices) instead of bulky boxes of cake mix, pancake mix, and shortcut rice and pasta dishes. With those basic elements we can make anything from a killer chocolate cake to one-pan copycat hamburger recipes.

We've also learned little tricks like having cream of tarter and baking soda to make our own baking powder, since baking powder doesn't last long in humidity. You pick up tips for what works in a lot of places, from other cruisers over sundowners to the internet to cooking forums on the web. We're always looking for better ideas and willing to share ours.

Our freezer is our top consumer of power, but it also allows us more flexibility and time in remote places. Meat and cheese bought in Panama carried us halfway across the Pacific, but it took planning and packing to make it work.

This is a tough question, because there are so many ways to cruise, and so many ways to solve problems when you live aboard. Someone with a large cruising kitty needn't be as self-reliant as someone in a small boat on a shoestring budget ... but they may still want to be. And "living aboard" can mean many things to different people.

Self Reliant & Independent

A liveaboard who can't solve problems and manage life without outside help will struggle. The assumption "out there" that you have some idea what you are doing. Cruising the world has a lot of alone time, outside the reach of others. There isn't always a lifeline.

Low Maintenance

Physical limits of storage, space and power prevent bringing a massive shoe collection or a full array of must-have gadgetry. Most of us don't have a lot of formal wear or fancy clothes on board, it just isn't practical. Not wearing shoes is a life goal.

Most cruiser gatherings are low key, impromptu, and informal. There's not a lot of room for fussing, and not a lot of judgment about what clothes or jewelry you wear. "Dinghy Hair" is a thing when you travel everywhere over in a small open boat, so most of us don't aim for a flawless hair look.

You don't have room to take everything with you. You will not have room for everything you want. You need to prepare for tough choices about what you need versus what you want. So if your wants are simple and you can live without many of the things we accumulate in modern society it will be an easier transition for you. If you take joy in the simpler things in life, you'll fit right in.

You can have a comfortable life though. Cruising shouldn’t mean camping, and most cruisers live in comfort. But it requires a more complex boat, driving up size and price. The more minimalist your viewpoint on life and possessions, the easier it is to live to a tighter budget.

The final decision is different for everyone, and the liveaboard lifestyle you choose will be unique to your personal habits and financial means.

To come up with an answer requires time spent the reality and exploring your own wants and realistic expectations. If it's the right choice for you, you won't notice the things you leave behind and you'll enjoy the things you learn.

There are other alternative lifestyles to choose from. Porch.com published a good Q&A article about it (featuring us as well), so if you're unsure whether boating is for you but like to explore other options, check out their article about alternative housing here.

Hi William,

this is super interesting - thank you so much for sharing.

As I am starting my sailing education with a goal to go cruising full time in a few years, I wanted to ask you a quick follow-up question. You mentioned you took some “courses on diesels, electricity, household systems, fiberglass and outboards” - could you please share more information on this? I’d love to take this kind of courses as well and would love to hear more about the specific recommendations you have.

William Porter

I took some courses at a local vocational technology school that had an associates degree program in Marine Technology - New England Institute of Technology. The typical profile of a student there was someone looking for a career working on and fixing boats, so the courses were in depth and technical with hands on lab work that made a big difference in how much I learned.

It was expensive and time consuming - I was considered a full time student while I was taking the courses - but well worth it.

While not everyone has the time to do that, there are other courses that you can take on nights and weekends to sharpen up your skills.

Thanks very much for writing this as it was eye opening and informative.

I’m 53, from Pennsylvania, a professional chef who’s semi retired as of this year. I’ve been thinking about buying a used bluewater sailboat as it’s been a dream of mine since I was a teenager. After reading your article I’m a little concerned that I may not have enough time at my age to learn everything that needs to be learned to sail safely. I’m fairly good at fixing things and problem solving but I’ve never taken pro courses for diesel, plumbing, electric, although I’ve fixed similar things in my business and home over the years. Most importantly I’m not a sailor but was planning on getting trained. I’m conservative as well as an old Boy Scout that likes to be prepared whether it’s prepping for a wedding of 350 or sailing across the Atlantic. Do you think I’m possibly too old to get properly ready for this undertaking or am I overthinking which is something I often do because I want everything to be right?

It’s Shawn here from Improve Sailing.

I don’t think you’re ever too old to learn, especially since the characteristics you’ve listed would make you particularly well disposed to learning the various fundamental sailing skills. When you’re ready to start learning, you can take a look here: https://improvesailing.com/sailing

Best of luck with your sailing dream,

Hi William! Just a quick question, how do you shower in the winter times?

hse training center in qatar

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Home » Budget Travel » Boat Life 101: How to Live on a Boat and Travel the World! (2024)

Boat Life 101: How to Live on a Boat and Travel the World! (2024)

Waves lap at the hull of the boat. Your feet are in the glassy water, a glass of rum in your hand, and a glorious sunset in front of you. Of course, the weather is perrrfect .

Just another day in the life of living on a boat.

Surely that’s not all what living on a boat is like though, right? What about the sea monsters ? What about getting shipwrecked and floating for days on end at sea awaiting rescue?

And as if a broke bum can really live on a sailboat. Come on!

Rest assured, greenhorn – I’ve got you.

I went from a baby sailor who almost blew up the boat, to hand steering my way across the Pacific Ocean using the Southern Cross as my bearing. And I did it all with very little cash to my name.

Now I’m here to pass on to you what it’s really like to live on a boat AND how to do it . It’s the how-to-poop, how-to-cook, how-to-sail – and the best places in the world to do it all in. PLUS how exactly you can put a budget on a dream.

Avast! I give you, how to live on a boat and travel the world.

The Broke Backpacker is supported by you . Clicking through our links may earn us a small affiliate commission, and that's what allows us to keep producing free content 🙂 Learn more .

Living on a Boat: What’s it Really Like?

How to live on a boat full time, best places in the world to live on a boat (and when to go) , the cost of living on a sailboat (and how to minimise it) , can you live on a sailboat for free, last tips for living the boat life.

“Indigo, where’s the F**CKING coffee?” 

Yeah, you want to buy a boat. And then you’re going to sail off into the sunset – travelling the world without spending a dime – with twelve babes on one arm and the world’s greatest rum in the other. Oh, it’s going to be so lovely, isn’t it?

Welllllll , I’m not here to burst your bubble, but I am here to give you a wee reality check. 

Living on a boat is not for suckers; it’s not for the impatient; it’s not for the stupid. I realise that many people who suck and are stupid, can and do sail. They give the rest of us a headache – don’t be them. 

If you forget the coffee, the rest of the boat may very well feed you to the sharks. The only shop for the next 200 nautical miles is now a distant speck on the goddamn horizon, after all. 

However, provided there is ample coffee, rum, and good conversation, there is nothing better than living on a boat. No, that is not a cliche.

Life on a sailboat is life at its most .

• The duality of boredom and near-death experiences.
• Harnessing the wind and moving soundlessly across the great blue spectacular.
• Fresh sashimi.
• Deep introspection.
• The oscillating moods of the crew that spread like the flu.
• Long stretches of time with no goddamn Instagram.

A boat becomes a very miniature village, and in this, you can touch on a very primal way of living; one that has been passed down to us from many millions of years of evolution. 

The simplicity is not always poetic. But it will make you appreciate every damn cup of coffee – and isn’t that what life is all about? 

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So here it is folks! The basic and hyperbole-filled how-to of living on a boat.

It’s just three simple things. (Sort of.) And then, the ocean is your oyster.

Hoist those sails and may the wind be ever in your favour.

Boat Life 101: Pooping 

Don’t laugh! Pooping on a boat is your first lesson in how different living on a sailboat is to land life.

You have to think about the consequences of your every action: sustainable travel MATTERS . If it’s a small sailboat, it will likely have a manual pump instead of a flush. You do your business, and then pump, pump, pump. 

And that’s not where it ends. You need to think about where exactly your poop is going. 

It becomes very clear that all drains lead to the ocean. 

Usually, your poops will be going into the boat’s holding tank, but they only hold so much. You need to know the regulations in the national waters of wherever the boat is because you can’t empty the holding tank until you’re far enough away from shore, certain mooring fields, and protected areas… for obvious reasons.  

Now, I would argue you haven’t lived until you’ve dealt with a malfunctioning head (marine toilet). Nothing makes you appreciate modern sewerage systems like the sweet smell of shit. 

Boat Life 101: Cooking + Provisioning 

The consequences of your actions continue here. Even if you are sailing in proximity to shops or markets, the basic fact remains that the shops are on land and your boat is on the water.

That means there is no nipping to the servo for some extra milk that you forgot. You have what you have on the boat, and you make do. 

So yeah, not bringing enough coffee for the passage? A dumb mistake you only make once. 

Living on a sailboat has made me an organised (one might say obsessive, but one would be wrong) motherfucker. I am a HARDCORE list-writer, but you need lists when you live on a sailboat.

WRITE LISTS. And keep them going all the time.

• The food and supplies list.
• The fix-it list for maintenance.
• The visa requirements and beaurcracy list.
• The all-important books to read list .

If you go on an overnight sail and you know there’s food at the next anchorage, then you can get away with forgetting the coffee just this once. If you’re crossing the biggest ocean on Earth, that’s not gonna fly. You need to write a bloody list.  

Also, food sometimes needs to be refrigerated. Refrigerators come with limited space and the frustrating tendency to gain sentience halfway through a passage. With sentience comes a severe attitude and willingness to ruin your food.

All I’m saying is, you gotta plan your meals, know how you’re going to store them, and write lists.

Oh, and it sounds obvious, but while sailing, the boat moves.

Yes, the stove on a boat is on a gimbal which means it swings with the motion of the boat and compensates for the movement. But when King Neptune feels the sailors on board have grown too comfortable, the soup says hello to the floor.

Boat Life 101: How do I sail this thing? 

If you can take a shit and cook a meal while on a sailboat, you’re 90% done. 

Collectively, we humans have been chucking some cloth on a bit of wood to capture the wind since the original discovery of Australia and the Solomon Islands (50 000 – 25 000 years ago).

Over the millennia, the process has become more refined. Now we can sail upwind and tack and all this fancy stuff. But ultimately, with a little patience and a lot of practice, anyone can learn to sail. 

There is a multitude of electronic tools – chart plotters, AIS, GPS, Iridium GO – that help you keep a track of where the hell you are and give you detailed charts about where you want to go.

You can even get the weather sent in a tiny little electronic file via a device like the Iridium GO, even when you’re sailing across the Pacific Ocean . Very handy for avoiding boat-sinking storms!

Putting some sail on a mast and heading off has never sounded so sweet! But if you learn a thing or two about the trade winds , you can make your journey even sweeter.

The trades are these delicious winds that blow reliably from east to west, meaning you can access a reliable source of energy to propel you forward (provided you want to head west).

Trade wind sailing is famous for being fucking chill, with few gnarly storms and not too many becalmed days of boredom. The merchants of the tall ship days and the modern boat bum circumnavigating the globe both love the trade winds. Yes, for the easy sailing, and also for the good rum found at many of the ports along the way. 

But when all else fails – say if your mast is struck by lightning and all your electronics are fried – there are still ways to orientate yourself on the big blue. These are methods that have evolved over our collective sailing history:

• Celestial (star) navigation : Using the constellations and a sextant, plus some maths, to figure out the boats latitude and longitude.
• Cloud navigation : Recognising the flat bottomed clouds associated with land to keep you on track back to terra firma.
• Reading the swell : This is just fascinating. This means understanding the persistent swell that move across world oceans and their relation to the star quadrants to estimate where your boat is and where it is going.

Test the Waters BEFORE You Sail – The Liveaboard Experience!

Another way you can get a taste of the boat life before you commit to a lifelong project is to charter a boat! Sailo does just that: Sailo lets you rent the boat life.

You get a boat, a sampler of the experience of living on a sailboat, and people on deck that actually know what the bloody hell they’re doing! With over 30,000(!) boats to charter from and a fabulous selection of the BEST places to live on a boat around, you’re guaranteed to find something that… floats your boat.

Sure, it’s not the no-frills boatbum style, but ultimately, you can choose to do it bareboat – with no captain and you bring all your own provisions. Or you can choose to have the boat crewed so you can sit back, relax and, learn a thing or two about boat life. (And drink champagne.)

Living on a boat comes with a host of challenges (and juicy rewards) that are made that much easier by picking a good place to do it in.

Access to quality boatyards, provisioning, internet connection – these are all big plusses for those living on a sailboat!

But also, all the stuff that made you want to partake in this mad boat lifestyle in the first place rate highly too. A plethora of remote beaches, magic sunsets, and a friendly cruising community of cool travel buddies (soon to become treasured friends) can make or break a dream destination.

I’ve also considered how easy it is to top up the cruising kitty with funds by rating how easy it is to find work in each place.

Australia + New Zealand 

• When to go: November – May (NZ & southern Australia) April – September (northern Australia)
• Best suited liquor: EMU BITTER MAAAATE Whatever the Australians aren’t drinking.

I don’t care that the citizens of both these fine nations will be after me with pitchforks for lumping them in the same pile. Honestly, mate, bro, whatever, come at me. They’re both equally dope places to liveaboard your sailboat.

Yup, gonna say it right now, both these places can be expensive for the boat bum. But they also provide good-paying work opportunities if you can play the visa game right. So they are great places to slow down, pick up a travel job , and stack some cash for future ocean adventures.

You can also take a break from the boat life, and go on an epic backpacking adventure around New Zealand . You won’t know how much you miss the ocean until you take a break from her, trust me.

Also, the sheer diversity that I’ve so callously dumped in one heading is incredible.

Honestly, you can sail down to Stewart Island in the subantarctic waters and then back up to the Eden on Earth in the equatorial Torres Strait .

You could spend a whole, wonderful lifetime sailing between these two continents and still die regretting not having seen everything.

The long and the short of it:

• You can make bank here $$$!
• You can get your boat fixed properly here. Island nations like Australia and New Zealand have a wealth of boat building and fixing experience.
• There are well stocked supermarkets here, so you can stock up on bulk items that prove tricky to find in more remote locations.
• People are cool, remote beaches are cooler. And there is a metric shitton of incredible beaches here.
• There’s also an opportunity for non-boat adventures (like backpacking around Australia ) that will make you appreciate the ocean nomad life even more.
• Diversity! Of landscape and cultures.
• Dude, the first nations of Australia managed to cross over from Papua New Guinea (probably) 60 000 years ago. SIXTY THOUSAND (louder for those in the back). The knowledge on this ancient continent will humble you if you pause to listen.
• And the seafarers that made it to Aotearoa? The Maori are some of the most badass, friendly, wise, creative, HILARIOUS people you will ever have the privilege of meeting.
• $7 bottles of wine. Sorry. But like, yes please.
• There’s epic diving in New Zealand and all over Australia with endless (and scrumptious!) spearfishing opportunities.
• Living on your boat here is easy . Not without its struggles of course, but it’s always easier to struggle close to wifi connection.

The Caribbean

• When to go: The conventional advice says December – May, but you can sail here year-round if you know how to dodge hurricanes.
• Best suited liquor: Rum. Obviously rum. Maybe with a squeeze of lemon and a splash of cola.

If you can dodge the hangouts of the rich and the famous (or work out how to make money off them) sailing the Caribbean and living on a sailboat is very rewarding.

Salsa lessons in the streets of Puerto Rico , rum-soaked nights in the Virgin Islands , goat hunting, spearfishing , azure waters, and white sand beaches all the way down to Bonaire .

Getting into the charter boat game provides a great way to make dat money. During the high season, this is one of the most popular places in the world to charter a boat.

If you are happy to do your own boat repairs, a lot of fishing, and get clever with your travel budget , the cost of living in the Caribbean is not super expensive either. You just gotta know where to go for what.

Cheap coffee and rum can be brought in bulk in the Dominican Republic . There’s a Costco not far away in Puerto Rico , so you can get some bulk toilet paper. Then it’s onwards to a deserted island, a reef, and some endless fun in the sun.

• Cheap boat repairs are available in places like Rio Dulce, Guatemala. So, for those big projects you can save quite a bit of money by getting them done here.
• The rum. I mean, it has truly been perfected here.
• There are oodles of work opportunities in the charter business or in the superyacht world.
• Cheap flights back to the USA means you can feasibly travel between the USA and El Caribe guaranteeing you an endless summer.
• The glorious azure waters and their 27-degree celsius temperatures. Helllloo, nude night diving.
• Warm, deliciously WARM, diving.
• More people at the anchorages = a very social and welcoming community of cruisers. There is a great liveaboard culture that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.
• Easy trade wind sailing.
• Did I mention the rum?

The South Pacific

• When to go: May – October (You can arrive in the Marquesas in April with no problems.)
• Best suited liquor: A little vodka, a lotta soda, a squeeze of lime.

I won’t even try to hide my bias. I LOVE the Pacific.

Is it the best place to live on a sailboat for most people? Probably not. Because the distances between your boat and a grocery store are usually mind-boggling. It can be expensive. It can be lonely.

There’s just no way quite like travelling to places like French Polynesia the way you can on a boat. Out in the middle of the ocean life is not always easy, even if it is full of palm trees. 

But fuck it, I love the Pacific, so we’re including it. 

No, honestly, if you can mitigate the challenge of distance, you are rewarded with the best planet Earth has to offer. Incredible diving, a slow pace of life, some world-class hiking trails (and world-class peaks), lazy sunshiney afternoons. Perfect postcard sunsets. Mmmmm.

A full one-third of the globe is consumed by the Pacific Ocean, and scattered throughout this utter vastness are innumerable tiny little islands. Luckily for the bum of the seas, the trade winds can carry you from the Americas to these little flecks with few problems.

In fact, all the technical sailing here is relatively easy. As long as you don’t get becalmed at the equator thanks to the weirdness of the ITCZ band, it is easy sailing.

But you’re going to need a water maker and have a solid solar panel set up for power. Because between Panama and the Marquesas , there are approximately 3800 nautical miles – more if you go stop in at the Galapagos.

That’s a long way between places to buy coffee. And there’s not much in the way of supermarkets until you get to Tahiti , another 800 nautical miles away.

If you leave IndigoRadio on for long enough, inevitably Kiribati will come up. You can hide from hurricanes here. The South Pacific is defined by island life at an island tempo:

• You can get delicious fish on the end of your gidji real fast here.
• People-less anchorages.
• Dreamy atolls.
• And not a damn supermarket in sight.

Ok, not everyone’s idea of easy sailing, but certainly my idea of the best that living on a boat has to offer.

There is a multitude of lifetimes that could be spent escaping the rat race and kicking back in the Pacific. There is an awesome amount of diversity of landscapes and cultures here too, not to mention a proud seafaring tradition that we aspiring boat bums should shut up and learn from. 

A Tip From One Pirate to Another

Okiedokie, you wild little circumnavigator-to-be! There are multiple ways to criss cross the globe. Resources like noonsite.com and Jimmy Cornell’s cruising guides will be invaluable to you in the planning  and execution stages of your journey.

But at a glance : I would suggest starting in Europe and the mediterranean and picking up the trade winds west across the Atlantic in this order:

• Through the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal.
• Onwards across the South Pacific, kissing New Zealand and Australia before either…
• Circling through South East Asia and back across the Northern Pacific…
• OR continuing up past Sri Lanka then…
• Around the Cape of Good Hope before…
• Going back across the Atlantic and the northern coast of the USA and back home!

Use the trade winds to your advantage! Go west until you can go west no longer.

Things go wrong on the road ALL THE TIME. Be prepared for what life throws at you.

Buy an AMK Travel Medical Kit before you head out on your next adventure – don’t be daft!

No sugar coating here. Buying and maintaining a sailboat, no matter how much it resembles a tin can, adds up real fast. 

But when the eternal sunshine and the lessons of the great blue spectacular call you – when King Neptune drafts you into his eternal service – it’s time to find a will and a way. 

Here are a few tips to help you plan a trip that I’ve picked up from my short time making various vessels my temporary abodes: 

• Don’t buy a project boat unless you want a project.  It will cost you more to fix everything on a broken boat than it will to buy a boat that’s good to go.
• But, when you do need to repair, DIY. Endless learning, yay! Or, plan your sailing route to include time in places like the Rio Dulce where repairs are cheaper.
• Anchor more often than you stay in marinas.  Marinas are devilishly expensive; anchoring is deliciously free.
• Volunteer on someone else’s boat before you get your own. 😉 If done right, this is win-win. You can take share in the labour of running a boat (for example by standing night watch) while learning the finer points of sailing from a master.
• Get seasonal work. There are so many options when it comes to this, from ‘backpacker’ staples like agriculture and hospitality to working on superyachts or as dive instructors.
• Or have residual or passive income if you’re real cool. If you’re on that elusive property ladder or earning money online , why don’t you have a boat? Just head off now and live off your automatic wealth. Be a cool kid.

Of course, when a backpacker asks about the cost of living on a sailboat, they really want to know if you can live on a sailboat for free. When a family looking to take a sabbatical asks about the cost of living, they just want to know hard numbers and a budget breakdown.

At the end of the day, you can hoist a heavily patched sail on a jerry-rigged mast and work on the boat yourself, and eat only what you catch or grow. At the other end, you can set sail on a superyacht replete with full-time staff and jetskis.

We anchor in the same sand and watch the same sunset though, so you choose what you need to spend.

I would suggest being honest about your lifestyle. Consider being a little obsessive organised about your annual costs. Because costs are going to vary greatly from boat to boat.

How Much Does it Cost to Live on a Boat? (Pricing Breakdown!)

Obviously, the variables that go into the cost of running a liveaboard boat are vastly dependent on your style of living and where in the world you are sailing.

Generally speaking, it is cheaper to spend more time at anchor and in countries with a lower cost of living. However, insurance will still be 1% – 2% of the cost of your boat and port fees are port fees. Still gotta pay ’em, whether you’re a broke bum or a gazillionaire.

Sailing and Diving Go Together Like… Sailing and Diving!

A way to combine two of the best things on Earth is to indulge in a liveaboard experience .

This is exactly what it sounds like – you live aboard a boat, usually in some fantastic and tropical destination. You can indulge in some wonderous diving, and pick the brains of the crew about their tips on living aboard a vessel!

The focus of the liveaboards is the epic diving experiences in destinations that just aren’t as accessible when travelling in other ways. Also, it’s a great inspiration for you to hustle your way onto your own boat so that diving amongst reef sharks becomes as normal as your morning coffee.

Now the controversial stuff.

I’ve had someone say, a little tongue in cheek: damn yachties get the wind for free and now they want everything else for free!

While I think being resourceful and a bargain hunter is the best way to live your life, boat or no boat, it’s just as important to have a bitta respect. So when you hit the seas or the road, I don’t see the point in haggling hard over what amounts to 50 cents.

When it comes to boat stuff, in particular, break it down into your shelter, food, and fuel, and don’t aim to get everything for free .

Aim to sustain your lifestyle for as long as possible in a way that doesn’t compromise it for everyone else. In other words, be ethical about your damn budget travel. The most rewarding consequence of trying to keep costs down is creating a more or less self-sustaining yacht. Better for you and your personal growth; better for this pale blue dot we call home.

Sailboat Cost Cutter #1: Shelter 

Maintaining your shelter (i.e. your boat) is not going to be a ‘free’ exercise. You will pay with money, or your own labour and time, to maintain it. 

It will be an exercise in learning all kinds of systems – both mechanical and electrical – and time management. Do you want to pay for that task with money or your labour? Whatever you land on for each maintenance task that inevitably comes up, you will learn that to sustain this boat bum lifestyle you just gotta take care of your wee home and she will take care of you. 

It is always free to sleep on your boat while underway. Well, it doesn’t cost any money anyway. You are investing a lot of time and energy into the passage, but you’re not paying to sleep on your boat!

Once you arrive, you can choose to stay in a marina, on a mooring, or at anchor. Anchoring will always be the cheapest (usually free) and so you don’t have to spend a lot to live in paradise. But don’t be a dick.  

• Have the right visa.
• Be respectful of others in the anchorage.
• Don’t dump shit (literal or otherwise) overboard unless you are sure you’re allowed to.
• Be friendly and offer your neighbours a hand if they need one.

This lifestyle can bring out the best in us provided we’re responsible travellers , so lean into that. 

Sailboat Cost Cutter #2: Fuel

As my friend said, damn yachties get the wind for free! Much of the energy needed to go from A to B is yours for the taking, provided you can harness it efficiently with your sails. But as with DIY vs paying for repairs, sometimes you pay just as dearly with your time as you would have with your money. 

If you are becalmed, the engine may be just the thing to help you out. When coming into a marina, you’re not going to want to be under sail. Likewise, in a storm, it is time to put the sail away and turn on the engine for stability. So having a little diesel onboard is necessary.  

Compared to land life, people living on a boat can minimise their carbon footprint and live very simply. But it’s difficult to ask the Earth for none of its resources. Just be mindful about the way you live, be eco-friendly , and try your best to not waste resources. 

You can recharge your boat batteries for electronics with the sun though – provided you can harness it with solar panels. And a lot of liveaboards will have a wind turbine for extra power on the less sunny days. This stops you from needing to use the engine so much. Yay for money, yay for the environment. 

It’s never going to be completely free. You either pay with time or money. But you can certainly save a lot of money on fuel while living on a boat. This is a rewarding way to sustain your lifestyle and be kinder to the planet. 

Sailboat Cost Cutter #3: Food

I apply the same principles to food as I do to food and shelter: you pay with money or you pay with time and labour. Also, don’t be a dick, and be good to the environment. What comes around goes around. 

This means, when it’s available, I will spearfish and I will hunt. This is me paying for my food with my time and labour rather than money. But I would also argue that it’s fulfilling my other principles of:

• Not being a dick and…
• Being good to the planet. 

Hear me out: I think vegans and hunters alike would agree that factory farming and the industrial scale of meat production are fucked up. It’s a waste of our water, arable land, and produces poorer quality meat. Furthermore, the animals suffer tremendously. 

But if I’m kicking it in Kiribati, there is no way I’m going to be a vegetarian and still believe I’m doing a solid for the planet. The carbon footprint required to get my strictly vegetarian tofu to the remote islands is greater than the carbon footprint of me harvesting a fish every few days. 

That fish has swum about its whole life having a good time doing cool fish stuff. And then, like all of us will, it died. I have immense gratitude toward this being for providing me with sustenance. I feel like I am part of a cycle of life that predates my puny existence. 

In the same vein, to bring tofu to the Caribbean has required a process that is on the whole less ethical than going for a shoot and getting a feral goat for dinner.

The land cleared to grow the soybeans + the production of soybeans into tofu + the carbon cost of flying the tofu product into the island = YIKES.

The feral goats that destabilize delicate island ecosystems? They had a good goat-y life and then they became a good goat-y curry that fed 12 people. 

Ok, I’m done. Eat meat or don’t; ethical animal tourism and all that jazz, however, morality is complicated. There are ways to reduce the money you spend on food and your carbon footprint without being a dick.

I’d also say that in the process of harvesting your own food, you gain a greater appreciation for life on this planet. And get a sense of urgency around stepping up to protect it.  Give it a try; you might be surprised.

Epic Tips for Broke Boatpackers

• Know your knots. Apart from knots being fascinating in their own right (knots were probably invented alongside stone tools?! ), they are the foundation of boat life. Knowing a couple of basics , like a bowline, will give you a good leg up when joining a boat. 
• Be able to cook at least two decent meals, also be clean. You aren’t only working, but living on this boat with someone. Take care of your space and bring some good food to the table and you will go a long way as a crew member. 
• Go to docks and ask around. This is a good way to meet people – even if you just end up crew for a day sail. Be friendly, make yourself known, and find you’ll find yourself on a boat in no time. 
• Facebook can be your friend. When walking the docks fails, there is a multitude of Facebook and other social media groups dedicated to connecting wannabe crew with boats!
• Know how to write about yourself on your Facebook adverts. But you’ve got to know how to sell yourself! If you can cook a bomb-ass puttanesca and can tie a reef knot – mention it! Don’t sell yourself short! That being said, don’t exaggerate and tell fibs about the sailing experience you (don’t) have. The truth will come out painfully during the first bit of real sailing you do, so be honest. There’s usually captains willing to teach the basics for a bit of company and a good meal. 
• Knowing how to fillet a fish is handy. Sailors know how to sail. They don’t necessarily know how to fish. So if you can bring this skill to the table, you’re going to be a beloved crew member in no time!

Drink water from ANYWHERE. The Grayl Geopress is the worlds leading filtered water bottle protecting you from all manner of waterborne nasties.

Single-use plastic bottles are a MASSIVE threat to marine life. Be a part of the solution and travel with a filter water bottle. Save money and the environment!

We’ve tested the Geopress  rigorously  from the icy heights of Pakistan to the tropical jungles of Bali, and can confirm: it’s the best water bottle you’ll ever buy!

Sweet, glorious tips from a pro-pirate to a soon-to-be, the seas are calling, so go sail them!

Stay Safe, Boat Bums!

One thing that many intrepid little sailors are not good at? Estimating danger and the likelihood of death.

Maybe this is a good thing because you do have to be the right sort of mad to get into a sailboat and cross an ocean.

Maybe, just maybe, you should consider purchasing travel insurance before shit hits the fan though. But enough from me, hear it from a fellow adventurer.

ALWAYS sort out your backpacker insurance before your trip. There’s plenty to choose from in that department, but a good place to start is Safety Wing .

They offer month-to-month payments, no lock-in contracts, and require absolutely no itineraries: that’s the exact kind of insurance long-term travellers and digital nomads need.

SafetyWing is cheap, easy, and admin-free: just sign up lickety-split so you can get back to it!

Click the button below to learn more about SafetyWing’s setup or read our insider review for the full tasty scoop.

FAQs About Life on a Boat

Here’s what I know you want to know about living on a boat!

What is the cheapest place in the world to live on a boat?

This will depend on your spending habits, of course. If you give yourself a budget of $3000 per month, you will spend $3000 per month. That being said, travelling around Southeast Asia and South America is an exquisite choice. They have superb cruising and a low cost of living. The Philippines stands out as a paradise to explore while on a budget.

Can you live on a boat in a marina?

You absolutely can! Now, call me biased, but the point of living on a boat is to go adventuring so I’d keep marina stays  strategic . Only stay as long as it takes to get repaired, or get provisions, and then take off into the sunset!

Can I sail around the world?

It doesn’t take much to put the sails out and follow a bearing. It also doesn’t take much to lose your mast in a surprise squall. Of course, you can sail a boat around the world, but you need to be organised. Provisions, finances, weather. The trip of a lifetime is not for the faint-hearted. Not that that should stop the intrepid adventurer!

SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT NOT TO FORGET

Follow instructions and ACTUALLY LISTEN. Put that ego aside, mate. The Captain ALWAYS has the final say, and if they say duck, you DUCK. The boat life can be real unforgiving. Oh, and learn how to handle your rum! It’s a pirate’s life and, well, nobody wants to be at sea with  that guy…

Do sea monsters really exist?

Oh yes. Without a doubt. You just won’t meet the monster until you’ve been at sea for more than 25 days straight. The crew are tired of each other. The boat keeps breaking. There’s a storm on the horizon. It’s night watch again and the clouds are hiding the stars. You wonder if your mother is worried for you and when you might be able to call her again. Briefly, you lean over the side of the boat and wonder what it would be like to just walk off. Would you sink or swim? The sea monsters don’t live in the sea.

Fair Winds, Sailor!

Living on a boat will challenge you.

There is no other lifestyle that forces you to be attuned to weather patterns, engine maintenance, personal dynamics, ethical dilemmas at every mealtime; to consider watermakers and wind turbines; to completely surrender while also stepping up and getting shit done. 

The nitty-gritty of how to live on a sailboat will not be fully revealed to you until you step onto one and do it. But, if you can poop and provision you’re halfway there! 

You gotta lick your finger and hold it up to the wind. Ah yes, the trades blow west. Rum and a seriously sexy sunset await.

Indigo Blue

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I truly enjoyed this read. I am under a government contract for the next while, but have a plan to retire and become a full timer somewhere warmer than Canada. I have been making my own notes and your writing gave me plenty more tips. Please feel free to email and keep me in the loop. Thanks so much and happy sailing!

Amazing read, thank you so much! I’m planning to get on with my own boat living dream and was curious if you (and fellow readers ) could share your thoughts on some of the big issues of boat living you have experienced? Much obliged 🙂 Keep up the good work!

First of all, welcome to the boat life! Biggest issues: Realistically the biggest issue is usually finances. The ocean is constantly wearing away at your boat and trying to sink it. Buying and maintaining a boat is expensive. That’s why so many boat lifers end up in the charter or delivery business – either as crew or as owner/operators – because it pays well.

Once you have your cruising kitty sorted, the next biggest issue is crew dynamics. Sailing alone is demanding, lonely, enthralling, and incredible all at once. Having crew on board and stepping up as captain is a trip in itself. Managing a team is always challenging – let alone when your team lives on a tiny sailboat and is constantly fighting the elements and can never take a break from each other.

The actual sailing and reading of the weather – that stuff becomes easy! This is why you should make yourself stop every so often and remind yourself how wild and wonderful it is that you’re getting around using the freaking wind! Also, the stars, man. If there’s one reason I’d cross the Pacific again for, it’s the stars.

Good luck and fair winds!

That is a f*cking great 101 boat guide! ahah Thank you Indigo for it and welcome to the writer’s team 🙂

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Living on a Sailboat

Photograph by Rona Proudfoot

By Kate Zidar

Last year, on Halloween, we splashed our boat in New Bedford, MA for the first time since purchasing it (in parts!) earlier that year.

Now it is over three months later, and we are still miraculously afloat in the fabled “Marshes of Glynn” between Brunswick and St. Simons Island in coastal Georgia.

To be perfectly honest, if you would have asked me three months ago to point out Brunswick, GA on a map, I would have tactically changed the topic. The same could be said for a dozen or so locations along the southeastern coast of the US that we have nonetheless called home during the maiden voyage of SY Tranquility. We are, quite literally, off the beaten track.

At this point, I cannot claim any expert status as a liveaboard, nor am I even a very competent sailor. Fabio, my partner and the official captain of our two-person crew, will surely confirm both of those assertions. In the grand scheme of things, I am a total newcomer compared to many we have met along the way. But I can share with you all how we have successfully made it this far, and how we plan to continue.

I should also clarify that my experience is limited to one kind of liveaboard situation–two people on a 29-foot bluewater sailboat with minimal systems and almost no storage. Joining the crew of a luxury motor yacht, restoring a historic wooden boat, or running a charter business on a catamaran will all offer totally different experiences. There are as many ways to live on water as there are ways to live on land, so even if the specific way we are doing it doesn’t appeal to you, keep looking. You will find your way.

How to Travel Full-time

From making a living to raising your kids, where to go and more!

Preparing the Mind

Living on a small boat means changing a lot of your expectations, and continuing to adapt to reality as it emerges. For example, my early expectations of living on a boat were that the chatter of my mind would be drastically reduced, my daily life would simplify and therefore the most important things, my real values, would emerge as the central focus each day.

These types of lofty expectations are somewhat mitigated by the emerging realities of having very little privacy or personal space, essentially living outdoors in winter, and a precipitous drop in face-to-face interaction with my friends, family and colleagues.

To move on to a boat is to physically secede from your mainstream community. How do you remain empathetic, confident and sane? Next to this, getting rid of most of my worldly belongings was actually the easy part. Maybe I should start there.

Get Rid of Stuff

When Fabio and I first met he was working on a boat in Panama, and when he came to visit me in NYC in the winter, I had to meet him at the airport with footwear, because his only shoes were flip-flops.

You know you don’t need most of the stuff you own. Admit it. I always lived in a small apartment, and never had a walk-in closet full of shoes. But living on a boat means having only one of things, and having very few things total. A year ago I had two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with titles on everything under the sun. Today we continually grapple with our distilled library of boat-related titles so that it fits in a space the size of a shoebox.

A lot of things are easy to get rid of. You have a yard sale, your friends show up with donuts, you hang out on the sidewalk in the sun, and at the end of the day you have cash in your pocket.

But then you find that some things have “real value”. I had several film cameras that I inherited from my Grandpap, who was our family historian. He documented every dinner and holiday we shared, with these huge Nikon assemblies, and we would all dutifully smile and submit to the pop of his roving flashbulb. I inherited not just the cameras, but also the photography bug. However, on the boat what use will I have for film cameras? The salt will destroy the machines as well as the film. Plus, storage. The rational decision would be to sell them in the marketplace of New York City, to a photographer who knows their value, and would use them daily, just like my Grandpap did.

But every time an obvious camera-toting photog would inquire about the camera bag I guarded behind me at my yard sale, the interaction would wind down through a nostalgic review of each of the carefully packed lenses, and how hilarious my Grandpap was. Each of three prospective buyers helped me carefully pack it all away and refused to even discuss a price. “You shouldn’t sell everything.”

No matter how much you renounce, and you will need to radically let go, find some space on land where you can save these things with real value.

Finding a Boat

When we found our boat it was in pieces, in a yard, with no systems and no rigging. She was perfect.

Boats are not hard to come by along the east coast of the US, especially since the economic downturn of 2008. Most boat owners have primary residences and perhaps a vacation home or two, and when times are lean, a boat is one of the more painless things to put up for sale or forsake outright. All down the coast we have seen boats abandoned at anchor, tied up for good at marinas and left to rot in boatyards.

Don’t fall for it. There is no such thing as a free boat. What you save on the low cost of a fixer-upper, you will pay back (and then some) in time and money during the refit. The starting cost of a boat is everything it takes to get it to “sail-away condition”.

We started our search based on three things: budget (under 10K), size (under 30ft) and performance (bluewater-capable). Go look at boats in person. If they are on land, you can take a good look at the hull, and if they are in the water you could request a sail trial. Once you know the features and models you really like, you can broaden your search online and know if something is worth traveling for.

When it came down to it, we were choosing between two similar boats, one in sail-away condition near our target budget and the other, priced much less but in pieces. Ultimately, we preferred to do the refit ourselves so that if something malfunctioned while we were underway, we would know the systems completely, having built them ourselves.

This was surely the harder and ultimately more expensive route, but we haven’t regretted it yet.

Fixing up Your Boat

Let’s get something straight; we are still fixing up our boat. We might always be fixing up our boat. A boat only spends one brief moment as “finished” when it is fresh from the factory and has yet to touch weather or salt water.

We have the benefit of living in an era where do-it-yourself types can use open source information online to train themselves to do almost anything. Between sailing forums and YouTube, you can get step-by-step instructions for most boat jobs. We considered the Internet to be a starting point, and would follow up on these ideas by peppering the more experienced folks around us for more detailed advice in real life.

Again and again, we got the recommendation to monitor the trash bins at boatyards and marinas. Even if you are not on a freegan, this makes sense for the small boat owner because when bigger boats get work done, their scraps are often the perfect size for your small project. We have diverted nice wood, mixing cups, paint trays, half pots of varnish…anything you need really, will someday appear in the waste stream. Eventually in the yard, our neighbors began to know what we were on the lookout for, and would deliver us delicacies such as life vests and fenders.

Avoid marine products and marine stores wherever possible (there goes my West Marine sponsorship). Some products–marine paints come to mind–do not have a civilian substitute, but many boat products are just more expensive for no real reason. For anything you want to incorporate on your boat, from materials to appliances, it must resist rust and corrosion, take up very little space, and draw little or no power. Beyond that, don’t worry about if it has a navy blue anchor on the package or not.

Major truck stops–the real ones with showers and “vitamin” packets at the checkout–usually have a wide array of 12v accessories and electronics that could work great on a boat. Yard sales in seafaring towns will typically turn up all the tools and vintage bits you could ever hope for. For everything else, return to the Internet.

The most reassuring piece of advice that we got, out of all the advice that people generously heaped upon us through our initial yard period, came from a fiberglass guru named Nate up in New Bedford, MA. He repeatedly assured us, “Everything on a boat can be fixed.” Don’t worry if you don’t do it perfectly on your first attempt, there is always the next refit.

Pick your Crew

On our crew, we have a Capitan (Fabio, a licensed sailor with thousands of nautical miles logged) and a First Mate* (me, whose first offshore experience was three months ago). Somebody on your crew needs to know how to sail. Not everybody, but definitely somebody.

Somebody on your crew also needs to be awake. Not everybody, but when you are underway, there is a crewmember on watch at all times. For us, being on watch means that you are actively sailing the boat, as we have no fancy stuff like an autopilot. So before I had my sea legs, we needed an additional crewmember to attempt our first offshore passage, to ensure that Fabio had a solid teammate in case I turned green and curled into a ball for three days (which I did).

Plenty of people sail single-handed (solo), and even circumnavigate the globe, all without a First Mate. These folks usually have lots of experience, and have rigged their boat to be sailed by one person, and have autopilot. We have a friend here, Brian, who is planning a solo passage to the Azores and beyond this spring, and his preparations are focused on the level of safety and independence that solo sailing demands. We’re taking style notes and will definitely steal some of his ideas.

We have also met plenty of folks with an extended crew that includes pets and small children. On one evening visit to a marina back when we first began boat shopping, we heard a baby’s cry wafting around in the wind, and followed it to the open hatch of a small 30-ft boat. Since then we have met larger families living aboard who are quite successfully tackling the responsibilities of parenting while maintaining buoyancy. It can certainly be done! So far, however, our aspirations for expanding our crew are limited to incorporating a small cat named Beta.

* Fabio is actually withholding the official conveyance of my title as First Mate until I clean the bilge with my long ape-like arms. I am procrastinating this job for obvious reasons, but feel as though I have otherwise earned public use of the title.

What about Work?

If it is not completely obvious by now, Fabio and I are not independently wealthy. In fact, we both decided to do this as a way to live more affordably and simply. The original decision to buy a boat under 30ft had to do with reducing the price and scale of everything else involved. Our other decisions about generating and storing electricity, opting for an electric motor, capturing/storing/purifying water are all working toward the goal of having increasingly more independence and even less expense.

Most liveaboards we have met along the way so far are retired, meaning that they are quite a bit wealthier and older than us. Although we sometimes feel a bit out of place, our retired colleagues have consistently expressed their admiration for how we are “going for it” before it was completely comfortable to do so financially. That feedback is always reassuring, but it doesn’t put bread on the table!

So we still need to work, to keep bread on the table as well as to keep our brains from going all soft and mushy.

There are three kinds of “traditional” work available to us as liveaboards: telecommuting, seasonal and temporary. What is available to you depends on your experience, your location, the season and your access to technology.

Fabio began sailing and living aboard full time several years ago, and has pursued quite a bit of training. Depending on the season and location, he can find some kind of work delivering or maintaining boats, usually larger international yachts. It is sometimes quite difficult labor, but he can usually find work quickly when he needs to refill the coffers, and it gets him out into the world of boats and boaters.

I have yet to really find my place in the transient workplace, and I am in a moment of having a very open mind. Ideally, I would continue work in my field of training, environmental planning, but short-term or “low residency” work has been hard to come by. I have already transitioned a bit, teaching online science classes through American Museum of Natural History, and offering part-time editing for scientific journals. Essentially, as long as I have some form of regular contact with the Internet, I can do some kind of telecommuting work, but that gets me into mushy brain territory very quickly. It is good to be around other human beings sometimes.

Since we landed in Brunswick, I have applied for a long list of jobs, everything from Private Island Manager (that really exists) to Overnight Shelf-Stocker at the grocery store. As it starts to warm up, the fancy resorts and restaurants will begin hiring, and there are seasonal jobs abundant in those industries. I am taking a free class online about financial markets and day trading. I have found a few outlets (shoutout to Wandrly Magazine!) that have paid for my writing and photographs, and I am developing ideas for the next leg of the trip.

There is, after all, no wrong brainstorming.

Enjoying Life

Fabio and I will be arguing about any number of things, and we will both want to quit and sink the boat, and then we pull up the dock lines, raise a sail and get into our operating dynamic. Suddenly we have smiles on our faces, and there is a dolphin jumping around portside and a pelican dive-bombing for fish starboard.

Just like that, you remember why you have taken all of the risk and renounced all the stuff. Sailing is the whole point of doing all of this, and sailing is enjoying life to the fullest.

Choosing (or not) Places to Visit

For the last three months, people along the way would ask us, “Where are you going?” and the only answer we had was, “South!”

On a sailboat, a lot of your trip planning is constrained by the physical properties of coasts, oceans and weather. Your job as a sailor is to learn as much about these dynamic factors as possible, combine that with your understanding of your boat, and if the probability of safe passage outweighs the ever-present risks, you go.

But you can’t just go anywhere you want, right now, on your boat. You can try, but its not totally up to you.

Sometimes you are charging along underway and the winds suddenly die down, leaving you to just bob around out there playing Bananagrams. Other times, the wind picks up and pushes all the water out of the tiny harbor you would like to arrive in, stranding you on a suddenly shallow sandbar. You can’t really get too specific with your appointment book when you travel under sail.

This has been interesting for me because sometimes, the conditions just make the decisions for you, and you arrive someplace you didn’t plan for, or you are hustled on to your next destination while you are still enjoying the present location. It makes for plenty of serendipity. I can’t say I ever wanted to visit Wachapreague, Coinjock, Manteo, Okracoke, Southport, St. Helena or Jekyll Island…but I now know that I want to go back to each of these places.

Now that we are stationary for the time being, we have the new challenge of deciding between going South or North…or staying put!

Difficulties

I am a tall girl, and in the boat I need to crouch, crawl and hover a lot. When I get off the boat, I try to walk and ride bikes, and stretch out as much as possible, but the physicality of living on a boat is a major challenge.

Every once and awhile, I envision waking up at dawn and doing yoga on the deck, but it has been a brutal winter, even at the southern extreme of the polar vortex. So that yoga dream has been continually replaced by huddling up in a sleeping bag with hot tea, the opposite of expansion for the vertebrae.

With the warming weather and our planned improvements to the boat, Fabio and I expect to have more comfort both living and sailing. For future excursions we plan to add an autopilot that can steer for us when we are on a monotonous offshore course, affording us the privilege of moving freely about in space. Remember, everything on a boat can be fixed.

In Conclusion

It has only been a very short time since I stepped off of land and onto this boat, but it feels like a lot has happened. Time has slowed down.

By doing this, I wanted to discover what kind of mettle I had, if I had any survival instinct left, or if I had just sort of become a blobby consumer of goods and services. I have learned that I am actually more of an idiot than I could have ever imagined, that I can be somehow meticulous and lazy at the same time, and can injure my partner with a careless tone of voice. However, I have also found that I have a fair amount of courage and more ability in certain unexpected areas. I am a decent maker of things out of fiberglass–who knew?

Getting here has taken an enormous amount of work and solidarity with Fabio. Even if I am learning how to do a lot of this myself, we would not be where we are now without each other’s support and emboldening influence. We have found that we encourage each other’s most improbable aspirations, and are supremely nurturing of one another in everything from the pursuit of interesting food to the development of new skills and creative endeavors.

More than anything, the pace and the intention behind traveling by sailboat gives you the time to consider what you really want, where you want to go, and who you want with you along the way. It’s been a massive gift.

My Cruiser Life Magazine

Living On a Boat Full Time — What to Consider Before Living Aboard

Let’s talk about real-life boat ownership and living on a boat full time. My wife and I have lived on our boat for nearly eight years, doing everything from full-time living on a boat in a marina to cruising The Islands of The Bahamas for months.

For starters, everything you’ve ever wondered about living on a boat probably doesn’t scratch the surface of everything you’ll learn. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone; for every wonderful day on the water, there’s a stressful situation or broken boat part.

So what does living on a boat full time look like? Here’s a glimpse into the world of the liveaboard. 

Table of Contents

Should i live on a boat absolutely yes, here’s why (pros of living on a boat), never, in a million years, should anyone ever live on a boat (cons of living on a boat), there’s more than one way to live on a boat, there’s a steep learning curve, it’s kind of like camping, constant maintenance and cleaning, weather drama, the legalities of the live aboard life, cost of living on a boat, paths to moving aboard, living on a boat full time faqs, what are the pros and cons of living on a boat.

It is often said that there’s a wide gap between the romantic vision that many people have of the liveaboard lifestyle and the nitty-gritty reality.

Here are the pros and cons of living on a boat full time, taken from our personal experiences.

Living on a boat is sometimes even better than your most romantic vision. Dolphins frolicking while the sunsets, tropical drinks in your hands, and nothing but crystal clear water between you and the most spectacular island beach you’ve ever seen. Yes, that all happens, sometimes.

• Freedom to go where you want, when you want
• Travel as much or as little as you want
• Take your house with you as you move
• Changing scenery, waterfront property where ever you go
• Wildlife visits—seals, whales, dolphins, birds
• A friendly community of other boaters
• Learn to live more simply, with only the necessities

Everyone has good days and bad days. We’ve often described boat life as having high highs but very low lows. The peaks and valleys of boat life (crests and troughs?) are just much farther from baseline-normal.

For every dolphin, there is a broken toilet joker valve leaking sewage onto the bathroom floor. 

For every idyllic island beach, there is a fouled diesel filter that needs changing. 

For every smooth downwind passage, there is a sloshy, windless mess of flapping sails making everyone on board seasick.

The list could go on and on and on.

• Constant maintenance and cleaning
• Difficulty finding skilled, professional labor 
• Small spaces, no storage, no privacy
• No dishwashers, washing machines, dryers (usually)
• Away from docks, you always have limited power and water
• Constant exposure to the weather
• Tax and insurance issues

Common Issues with Moving Onto a Boat

Here are some of the biggest issues we have noticed from our experiences and those around us. While everyone’s experience of living on a boat full time differs, everyone seems to have similar issues.

First, it has to be said that everyone’s experience is different. And that’s most obvious by looking at what sort of boat they choose and where they choose to live on it.

Many books have been written on the subject, and most like to divide boaters into three groups based on their budgets. There are the high-lifers who can afford to buy a new or newish boat that is large and comfortable. They can afford to live at a resort marina and likely hire professionals for most maintenance and cleaning tasks. They likely spend most of their time in marinas if they travel far. 

Then there are the Goldilocks boaters—not too big, not too small—making up the “middle class” of boating. There’s a healthy mix of DIY projecting with some professional help on the big projects. They might liveaboard at a marina or travel full-time. They might live at docks, anchor, or a mix. 

And then there are the budget boaters. Cheap boats are easy to come by if you’re willing to use DIY labor to fix them up. They are most likely to anchor out to minimize costs. 

All these people live very different lives on their boats, but does it matter? The costs are astronomically different, but they could be visiting the same ports, seeing the same sights, and even sharing the same experiences. 

What’s most amazing is how everyone perceives their liveaboard situation. I’ve been to dock parties where couples on 60′ catamarans complain that they have no personal space and must take a break from being on the boat together after a few months. Meanwhile, I know a family of five (plus two dogs) that live on a 40′ monohull with less than 1/3 the space of the catamaran. They have issues, but they’re pretty happy five years later. 

(Speaking of catamarans, check out my recommendations for liveaboard catamaran options.)

Year one of boating is the worst. There’s so much to learn; it’s all new and different than anything you’ve done before. There are all the sailing terms you must learn, but there are also boat maintenance tasks and understanding how all the systems on your boat work. Then there are the basics of seamanship and how to operate your vessel safely. It is a lot to take in.

And the basics of living on a boat are different from land life. Your kitchen (galley) is much smaller. The toilet doesn’t flush like a regular land toilet. You’re always thinking about minimizing water use when showering or doing dishes. If you turn too many electrical items on, circuit breakers pop. The list goes on and on, and when you’re new, it’s stressful.

Once you’ve got the kinks worked out, learned your boat systems, and successfully traveled and lived on your boat for a while, things get much better. You know more, your boat is set up the way you need it, and you have the confidence to start enjoying yourself. Some people take a few months, some a year, and, unfortunately, some never get there. 

Boats are small spaces, but the truth is that living on a boat is more like camping than most boaters like to admit. You get by with only a few items in your wardrobe. You skip showers since you don’t always have hot water. You don’t have space for all the luxuries of home. No dishwasher. No washing machine. Everyone is occasionally uncomfortable onboard, whether from the weather or the cramped quarters.

Boats are also hard on relationships. While there’s something romantic about being cozy and alone together at sea, it isn’t so romantic on day five, or thirty, or sixty. Personal space is non-existent on most boats. It’s inevitable that your significant other—or anyone else—will drive you nuts after some time. Boats have ended more than one marriage that we know of. 

The cramped living space on a boat poses other problems, too. Downsizing is important because you simply can’t bring it all with you—there’s no storage space. What is important, what’s nice to have, and what will you use on a boat? Living on a boat forces you to live with the minimum and acknowledge what you need to survive. 

Living on a sailboat is, of course, drastically different than living on a luxury yacht. But all these problems seem relative, and no matter what size your boat is, everyone has the same complaints.

Boats are always trying to sink and fall apart. The ocean helps them with its corrosive saltwater and constant motion. The only thing keeping it afloat? You, the lowly and unprepared new boat owner. Yikes!

 Even if you have mechanics and boatyard workers do most of the big projects for you, there’s still a ton that you’ll wind up doing on your own. Just day-to-day cleaning on a boat is a big deal. Everything is more difficult and takes longer than it does on a house. 

Somehow, boats seem to get dirtier faster than houses do. From polishing the hull, shining the stainless, varnishing the teak, and scrubbing the scum line to everyday things like dishes, sweeping the floors, and cleaning the bathroom, boats are dirty, and it takes time to keep them clean.

The weather plays a bigger part in your life than you’ll even imagine. Most of us pay remarkably little attention to the weather when we’re on land. If it’s hot, we might just minimize our time away from air conditioning. If it’s raining, it’s a minor inconvenience. We never think about the wind or tides.

But everything on a boat revolves around the weather. Every day we look at the weather for the upcoming week. Forecasts are often inaccurate, so we expect it to change. But what should we be ready for? When cruising, we often track weather systems over a week away and start planning. 

This week, it says we might get gusts to 52 knots (!!!) from the southwest with heavy rain and thunderstorms. We’re anchored and away from the dock. Will our anchorage be protected from winds like that? Is the holding good here, or is there a safer place we should move to? Should we think about moving there early in case it fills up with boats? 

We go through this exercise every week or two, no matter where we are. When approaching an anchorage, it’s all about the wind direction, tide level, and whatever else is happening. Are we okay with being stuck here for a few days if it’s foggy? A week? What if we need south winds to reach our next destination, but the forecast only has east winds? Do we wait or change our destination? 

The amount of attention it takes and the flexibility of your schedule is mind-boggling to most landlubbers. When friends want to visit us, we tell them we can meet them in a specific place or at a specific time, but not both. If you want us to meet you, you’ve got to be flexible too!

What do you legally need to do to live on a boat full time? Most people’s home or apartment is their legal residence and domicile. It’s listed on their driver’s license, and it’s where they vote and pay taxes. 

How will all these issues play out when you move onto a boat that moves around? There are mail forwarding services that allow you to set up residency. We use St. Brendan’s Isle in Florida since we were already Floridians, but there are also similar services in other states. This at least gives you the ability to have a driver’s license and vote. 

Taxes are a little more complicated. You can register the boat at your address in Florida, but each US state collects its own use tax. If you use your boat in their state for over a few months, they want to tax it. It’s not a problem if you move around, but what if you want to leave your boat in New York for the summer? Then you might have to register it there and pay taxes. 

Additionally, many counties in the US collect personal property tax on boats. We know of several places where if you are in the county on January 1 st , you’ll owe the county property tax. If you were one county away where the tax happens to be zero, you would owe nothing. Tricky!

Recreational boat insurance is another matter of concern. It used to be fairly easy to insure a boat, especially a cheap old boat. If you have a homeowner’s policy, you can easily add the boat. But if you’re a liveaboard with no real land address, getting insurance is becoming a problem. If the boat is too old, you’re traveling to distant ports, or the boat is very large, and you’re first time boat owners, it can be hard to find an underwriter. 

Do you even need insurance? Many marinas and boatyards now require it. Gone are the days when you could sail the world and “self-insure.” But, honestly, those days never really existed. If your uninsured $5,000 sailboat drags anchor and puts a gash in a $5 million yacht, a serious legal headache will follow. Many owners of older vessels keep “liability-only” insurance, but even this is getting less affordable and hard to come by.

Many folks who want to try boat life are understandably curious about the average cost of owning and buying a liveaboard sailboat . Is it cheaper to live on a boat than a house? That’s a tough question to answer. For one thing, people’s expectations and their needs for comfort and security vary widely.

Both houses and boats can be found for about the same amount. If you’re in the market for a $250,000 house, you could find a nice boat for that amount. It would, of course, be much smaller and—unlike the house—be a terrible investment. So while you might be able to get a loan for a house (which makes excellent collateral for the bank), getting a loan for a boat would require a bigger risk on the part of the bank and therefore cost you a lot more.

On the cheaper end, you could find a fixer-upper boat on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for far less than a neglected house. A house will always have some value based on the land, whereas a boat can become valueless. It’s not uncommon to hear of people getting free boats abandoned in boatyards, making ridiculously low offers on neglected vessels, and getting large boats for a few thousand dollars. People are always wondering how to get rid of an old boat .

These fixer-uppers have their own stories, of course. Many YouTube channels are dedicated to the cheap boat fix-up scheme. Project boats can be wallet-shrinking and soul-sucking. Taking on a project is a good way to lose a lot of money, along with years of your life and any interest you ever had in boating. Project boats are not for most people.

Both boats and houses have taxes and insurance, so those costs are probably very similar. Tax laws vary by state and county. In some places, you won’t have to pay any tax on your boat except for the initial sales tax at the time of purchase. You will have to pay an annual personal property tax in other locales.

You’ll also have to pay for boat parking . Marina, mooring ball, or in the boatyard—all will come with a monthly bill. The house or apartment will not have storage fees, so there’s no equivalent here. But, if you bought a cheap boat for cash and are only paying monthly liveaboard slip fees, this might be less than a mortgage payment would be.

If you’re traveling and anchoring, you can generally do that for free. However, most cruisers spend a few nights a month at marinas. That averages about the same amount they’d pay for monthly dockage since nightly transient rates are high.

Both boats and houses have maintenance and upkeep expenses, but boats generally have more. It’s generally estimated that you should budget ten percent of the boat’s purchase price for annual maintenance. If you bought a $50,000 boat, this would be $5,000 yearly. That holds for most boats, but year one will be higher as you fix neglected items and make your upgrades.

From our experience, we’ve seen people take two paths towards the liveaboard life.

• Some folks own their boat and use it for weekends or a week’s vacation here and there. They move aboard full-time as they transition to retirement, a work sabbatical, or remote work. Since it’s a gradual transition, these folks generally know what to expect. 
• Then there are the folks who go all in—they know nothing about sailing or boats and sell it all and move aboard. For them, it’s a jump into icy cold water or learning a new language by moving abroad. 

Which group is more successful? Group One generally knows what to expect, has worked out the kinks in their boat, and has already tackled the learning curve. There’s still a lot to take in, but they’re generally less stressed by it. If you can spend some time on your boat enjoying boating before moving onboard, it’s generally a good thing.

But, either way, being a full-time liveaboard is not a long-term lifestyle for most people. People who start from both groups seem to last an average of about one and a half to three years. After that, they’re ready to either sell the boat and move on or buy an RV or vacation land home that allows them to divide their time between boating and something else. People who last more than three years with only a boat are a very small minority.

One parting thought: Living on a boat full time and traveling is like having three or four full-time jobs. Each requires 30-40 hours per week when you include labor, research, and thinking and planning. 

• Boat ownership — basic maintenance and cleaning
• Cruising full-time — destination and route planning, weather study
• Living aboard — cooking, cleaning, shopping, and everything else takes so much longer on a boat than in a house
• Your actual job — if you work aboard

How much does it cost to live full time on a yacht?

A lot depends on the size of the yacht. A small sailboat can be found fairly cheaply. For around $50,000US, you can get an older 35-foot sailboat in decent condition and move aboard with few problems. The biggest issue is finding a marina that allows live-aboard boaters. Slip fees will be your biggest expense and can be as high as $1,500 monthly in some areas. However, you can get monthly slips for as little as $300 in other places. 

How to stay organized on a sailboat?

Sailboats have small spaces and not much storage, so keeping organized is key. The first step is to downsize your possessions to the bare minimum—only take what you absolutely need. The less you have, the easier your life aboard will be. 

After that, it’s a matter of packing the boat so that everything has its place. Some boaters like to keep a spreadsheet of where they’ve packed everything away so they can find it quickly. 

Is it cheaper to live in an RV or a boat?

Both of these activities are very dependent on location. Purchasing either one is very similar in cost. RV parks and marinas charge similar prices, but the cost varies depending on the location and services. In the end, however, moving an RV somewhere cheaper is easier and quicker, so you can live somewhere cheaply more easily. 

Matt has been boating around Florida for over 25 years in everything from small powerboats to large cruising catamarans. He currently lives aboard a 38-foot Cabo Rico sailboat with his wife Lucy and adventure dog Chelsea. Together, they cruise between winters in The Bahamas and summers in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Fort Myers Beach buzzing about huge boat stuck on restaurant dock since Hurricane Ian

The hands on the clock hanging on the wall at Bonita Bill’s never move. They are permanently set to 5 o’clock. 

Because, you know, it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere. 

There’s also something else at the popular Fort Myers Beach bar and restaurant on San Carlos Island that isn’t moving. 

At least not anytime soon.On Sept. 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian caused water to surge to more than 15 feet high along Fort Myers Beach, resulting in catastrophic damage for miles on the Gulf Coast from Marco Island to Cape Coral.

When the water receded, the effect on the shoreline was like draining a bathtub with toys in it. The water goes away. The toys left behind in the tub end up scattered, upside down and sideways. 

Sanibel wildlife thriving again!: CBS news show shines spotlight on Sanibel Island's spectacular wildlife thriving after Ian

This has been the harsh reality at Fort Myers Beach — days, weeks and now more than eight months after Ian.

Boats are scattered everywhere. Shrimp boats. Sail boats. Speed boats. They are upside down. Sideways. Sunk. 

One of those boats is named “Batchelor Pad.”

It’s precariously perched on a dock at the north end of Bonita Bill’s, a popular hangout for locals and tourists that, until the destructive September day, had only the magnificent Mantanzas Bridge as a breathtaking backdrop for customers.

Now, the view includes the bridge and a behemoth boat.

“Batchelor Pad” is 42 feet long, weighs 20 tons (40,000 pounds) and, to the best of everyone’s knowledge, it has not moved one inch since Ian roared ashore.

This giant Bertram Flush Deck Motor Yacht is stuck. It’s stuck in time. Just like the clock hanging on the wall inside Bonita Bill's.

The uncanny presence of the boat makes it feel like every day is Sept. 28 here. And depending on whom you talk to, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing.

How did the boat land on Bonita Bill's?

Bonita Bill’s has been a Fort Myers Beach fixture for decades. It’s located at 702 Fisherman’s Wharf and faces the Mantanzas Pass to the west, which separates San Carlos Island from Estero Island.

There are numerous docks and boat slips along the west side of the Bonita Bill’s. It’s also a marina where people live full time on their vessels.

One of the slips was occupied by “Batchelor Pad” until the afternoon of Sept. 28.

The owner of the property – the restaurant, bar and marina – is the Semmer Family. Bill Semmer bought the place in 1991 and earned a well-deserved reputation as a beloved figure in the surrounding beach community. Semmer founded and hosted the annual children’s fishing tournament at Bonita Bill’s, and he helped put on a fireworks display at the Fort Myers Beach Pier for 25 years.

One of his favorite sayings about Bonita Bill’s was, “Ain’t no place like this place so this place must be the place!”

Semmer was diagnosed with melanoma in December 2022. He died weeks later. He was 76.

Today, Semmer’s daughter, Katie Reynolds, is managing the family business along with her sister, Nikki Semmer, and brother, Billy Semmer.

One of Reynolds' first challenges has been addressing that elephant in the room or, rather, the boat in the restaurant.

When you see the boat — and you really have to see it to believe it — it’s almost as if it arrived at Bonita Bill’s like a patron arrives — sidling up to the bar and ordering a cold one. 

“The first time I saw the boat was in pictures and all I kept thinking was that this looks like something out of a movie — this can’t be real — I had trouble wrapping my brain around it,” Reynolds said. “And I think like everyone else … next, I’m like how the heck did this not take out the entire place? Then I saw it in person months later and it absolutely looks like it was perfectly staged there.”

But it wasn’t staged.

It was put there by Mother Nature with some luck involved.

“Batchelor Pad” could have easily done more damage to the restaurant beyond a remarkably small indentation to what is known as the dingy dock. Before Ian, customers who came by boat to Bonita Bill’s could drop anchor in the pass and then navigate their dingy (a smaller boat) to the dock.

It’s not an option to do that now. The dock has been pushed inward and there is a fair amount of splintered wood.

And the boat? Remarkably, it doesn’t appear to have a scratch on it above the surface of the water.

“We are still working on the full assessment to the entire marina, but we plan to build everything back,” said Reynolds, 36, who took leave from her job with the Boeing company in Seattle to help the family stabilize all of its affairs after their father’s death.

“Luckily the boat came just inches from hitting the restaurant and only looks to have taken out our floating dock, a portion of fixed dock and some pilings,” she said.

Underneath “Batchelor Pad,” not visible to the naked eye, the boat has been impaled by two thick dock posts, which are what is keeping it securely in place. Initially, there was hope of an “easy” removal to avoid the cost of having a boat company do the job, which for this boat would cost approximately $42,000 ‒ $1,000 per foot.

Who owns the boat?

Eddie Kane, the last owner of the boat, was blunt.

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Kane said recently from Texas. “I didn’t think it was as bad as it is. I thought if I can get another boat with power to it and then a decent high tide, we could just slip it out of there.”

Kane is a long-haul trucker and formerly a commercial fisherman. He moved to Fort Myers Beach from Annapolis, Maryland, home of the U.S. Naval Academy.

“Batchelor Pad” was Kane’s full-time residence until Sept. 28. When Hurricane Ian, a powerful Category 4 storm, was raging, he was forced to abandon the vessel. With winds howling and water spraying, he jumped onto another boat nearby to save himself.

Despite his efforts to secure the boat, it broke free during the surge and high winds.

Kane said he had no other option but to evacuate. He had visions of the runaway boat slamming into the Mantanzas Bridge. He quickly found a life jacket, buckled it and didn’t look back.

As it turned out, “Batchelor Pad” only moved a short distance, ending up wedged into Bonita Bill’s dingy dock.

“I had friends whose boats sank,” Kane said. “There is a video of me jumping off my boat when it got loose. I didn’t know where it was going. If I had known where it was going, I would have stayed on.”

Kane has been back on the boat a few times since that day. He needed to retrieve personal items. He said he lost his set of pneumatic tools. On the bright side, some cherished family jewelry wasn’t lost.

“Lots of sentimental value there,” he said.

As it sits now, the boat is at such an angle, the bow pointing up toward the sky, that Kane said he had to hold on to something the entire time he was salvaging the possessions to prevent him from tumbling toward the back of the boat.

The mostly white boat with some shades of blue and black trim along its underbelly is impressive. Kane said the boat could easily accommodate eight passengers. One of its main features is a master state room. That part of the boat, in the back, is submerged in eight-feet of water.

Kane said the boat was built in 1977 and would have cost $200,000 at the time. He estimated the worth of the boat back on Sept. 28 to be “$40-50,000 probably.”

The current value of “Batchelor Pad” is the primary reason he opted to sign over ownership of the boat to FEMA in March, doing so on the last day he could file the paperwork. Given the value of the boat, paying a company more than $40,000 to remove it didn’t make financial sense to him. Kane said a crane will be needed to get the job done whether it is lifting “Bachelor Pad” onto a barge in Mantanzas Pass or onto a flatbed truck in Bonita Bill’s parking lot.

Reynolds pointed out that not too far behind where “Batchelor Pad” sits today is a 38-foot, steel tugboat. It sank. You can just see the top of the antenna sticking out of the water. The tugboat will have to be removed before “Bachelor Pad” can be dealt with. There's also a sailboat near the tugboat submerged and blocking access.

A date has not been set for the removal of those two boats, or "Batchelor Pad".

Boat removal has been a long, pain-staking process along the beach and the canals. Ian left a mess. Reynolds said many boats have already been removed from Bonita Bill’s marina. She credited her sister Nikki for managing the process between boat owners and FEMA.

What people are saying about the boat stuck at Bonita Bill's

“For me personally, I look forward to the day it goes. I feel like it will be a big breath of fresh air at Bonita Bill’s,” Reynolds said. “Each boat that is pulled out from the docks feels like a little bit of weight is taken off our shoulders. We’re a small island and the boating community is our mainstay - shrimpers, crabbers, fishermen, sailors, recreational boaters, and more - so many work and live right here on San Carlos Island and being able to bring our docks back that serve so many in this community is the goal.”

Bonita Bill’s re-opened on March 27. Bob Irwin, a restaurant employee, said people posing for pictures near or in front the boat has become popular.

“Twenty a day,” he said.

There is a rope around the boat. It keeps customers from getting too close and possibly injured if “Batchelor Pad” were to suddenly shift.

Reynolds admitted the buzz on social media about the spectacle of the boat has been good for business.

“It’s been a way to reach folks to let them know ‘Hey, we survived’ and that we are still here and open and it’s also been a way to bring in new folks to check us out and to San Carlos Island and support other local business,” she said. “We welcome anyone who wants to come check out the boat and get your picture. We don’t charge to come see it - just come on in and you can’t miss it!”

Keep it? Don’t keep it? The comments on social media represent both sides. These are some of the opinions shared in a thread about the boat in a post on the I Love Fort Myers Beach Facebook Group page:

Well, nothing says “we are here” like just carrying on regardless of mother nature.

I love the boat at Bonita Bill’s.  It’s a reminder of what Fort Myers went through and will continue to rebuild!

I like it! I wish it could be left like that. Adds character and shows grit and determination on behalf of everyone who worked so hard to get it back open.

Get rid of it now.

The boat is still on the dock unclaimed?

Can’t believe that boat is still inside that place.

“People want it to stay, but they need to understand it won’t look like that in two years,” said Chris Flanagan, who works in the kitchen at Bonita Bill’s.

Shelli Merrill was behind the bar preparing for the arriving lunch crowd at Bonita Bill's on a recent Wednesday.

“I like it there,” she said. “It’s cool. I think they should cut a hole in it and put some tables in there.”

The reality for Reynolds and others is Bonita’ Bills is not Disney World. Keeping the boat where it is for amusement purposes like taking selfies isn’t practical from a business perspective as well as obvious safety concerns.

June 1 marked the official start of the 2023 Hurricane Season. Understandably, that's on Reynolds’s mind.

Reynolds offered a powerful perspective. As much as the boat has been the “talk of the town” she said it’s a little blip in the scope of things. Many lives were lost to Hurricane Ian. For a brief time, she feared her own family members might not have survived the hurricane.

“While I grew up here, I now live in Washington State and was there for the hurricane. I lived here through Charley and was bracing myself for that level of destruction - nothing could have prepared me for what I saw on the news the next day,” Reynolds said. “The first thing I saw was Times Square wiped away - completely demolished. After I saw that I thought for sure my family was gone, that everything was gone. The majority of my family all live within a quarter mile of Times Square. I am so very fortunate that my family survived. And some days I’m still in awe that Bonita Bill’s survived. It took a beating but it’s still standing.”

The Semmer family is important, even to outside folks. More than 600 recently attended a memorial for Bill Semmer at the restaurant.

Kane, 60, has since relocated to Labelle. He now owns another boat and lives in a marina along the Caloosahatchee River, far away, he hopes, from any future storm stress. He was back on "Bachelor Pad" recently. Reynolds asked him if she could have the boat's nameplates to hang in the restaurant. Kane said he was more than happy to hand them over to her.

He still has a photo of “Batchelor Pad” on his phone. The image is a memory of what was, but also of what could have been.

“I am really lucky,” Kane said. “I lived on that boat for a year and a half, two years, It makes me sick every time I see it. You know, it’s like crying over spilled milk. Nothing you can do about it. It’s Mother Nature.”

As dramatic as the boat arriving to its current resting place was, removing it could be a spectacle as well with a certain amount of fanfare and suspense depending on how it plays out. When a date is set and the word gets out, there will no doubt be spectators, who will be there to say good-bye or good riddance to "Batchelor Pad."

One thing is for sure: “Batchelor Pad” will be gone, but never forgotten. 

Just don’t mess with that clock. 

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Maui Fire Survivor Picks Up Belongings From Hotel After Being Kicked Out

After nine months living in Maui hotel rooms funded by the federal government, U‘i Kahue-Cabanting no longer has a dedicated place to live. But she and her business partner have a plan.

U‘i Kahue-Cabanting returned to the Royal Lahaina Resort last week wheeling an empty wagon cart.

“They still haven’t told me why I’ve been locked out, why I’m being kicked out,” U‘i told the hotel staff. “But I’m here to collect my things.”

A hotel worker led U‘i into her former hotel room and unlocked the door. U‘i cleared the room of her clothes, toiletries, snacks and supplies for Maui Grown 808 , the native plant and cultural arts company she operates with her business partner Mario Siatris. It was too much to cart down the elevator in her wagon, so a bell hop helped her move her things out of the hotel and into her van.

U‘i had lived since April at the Royal Lahaina Resort, one of several hotels still providing emergency shelter to hundreds of survivors of the Aug. 8 fires. But last month, she got a text message from a Red Cross worker while on a business trip in Oregon saying she had to vacate.

“Upon your return, you will find your hotel room locked,” the text message said. “You will need to meet with hotel security to gain access.”

U‘i said she’d told the Red Cross that she’d be traveling for work before she left on the trip and arranged to conduct the agency’s mandatory check-ins remotely by phone during the week she was gone.

Displaced Lahaina wildfire survivors housed by the  Federal Emergency Management Agency’s  temporary sheltering program are required to check in twice a week with the  Red Cross , which is managing the program. People housed by the hotel program are also expected to proactively document their own attempts to find stable housing. 

Non-compliance with the rules is grounds for being kicked out. But U‘i said she followed the rules diligently.

FEMA spokeswoman Jenny Campora referred questions to the Red Cross. Red Cross spokeswoman Mary Simkins declined to comment specifically on U‘i’s case.

Before she left the resort after picking up her belongings Wednesday, U‘i talked to a Red Cross worker in the lobby. She explained her situation and asked for clarity on why she was abruptly booted from the emergency housing program.

The Red Cross worker couldn’t give U‘i a clear reason why she’d been locked out of her hotel room. Neither could a FEMA worker whom the Red Cross suggested she reach out to for answers.

“I’m beyond frustrated and angry already,” U‘i later explained through tears. “I’m just really disappointed. It feels like they intended to do this to me when I was out of town. I would feel differently if they had given me some days notice but it was like — bam! — you’re out.”

If she weren’t so busy running her business, U‘i said she’d be devastated about how things ended with the emergency shelter program. Last week she and Mario took on 18 shifts teaching coconut weaving at workshops and demonstrations held at hotels, botanical gardens, parks and festivals across Maui. Her work is a welcome distraction from the low points in her personal wildfire recovery.

The demand for Maui Grown 808’s cultural workshops exceeds what Mario and U‘i can offer with their limited staff. They’re always looking to train more people to weave coconut fronds and help them teach, but the island’s labor pool is limited and the job market is competitive.

Still, Mario and U‘i rarely turn down opportunities to perpetuate this disappearing cultural art . They work long days foraging and prepping plant material, weaving bowls or hats for special orders and teaching classes.

“I didn’t realize how profound this work is until we were doing this one workshop where we had these ladies from Tonga and they were teasing each other — very competitive with each other — while making their coconut hats,” U‘i shared with a student group at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens on Saturday. “But by the end of the session they were in tears.”

“They hadn’t done something like this in 40 years since they were last in the village,” she continued. “And so I realized that sharing this cultural art with people from all over the Pacific who are part of the diaspora, living on the mainland or wherever they are, that this is what our kahea and our kuleana is, our calling and our responsibility.”

U‘i has friends and family she can live with temporarily. But she no longer has a home of her own. The belongings she retrieved from the hotel on Wednesday are still stowed in her car because she doesn’t have anywhere else to put them.

She spent the first four nights after being ousted from the resort couch-surfing with her daughter and grandchildren. But she had to move on because her daughter’s leased Kihei apartment is part of a subsidized workforce housing development with strict rules about overnight guests.

Now she’s staying with her business partner Mario, who has a government-subsidized room for wildfire survivors at the Aston Kaanapali Shores, where he’s worked as the chief landscaper for 25 years.

Last week Mario received a notice from the Red Cross that he must be out of his unit by Monday, which is when FEMA’s emergency housing program is now set to end. So the partners are plotting where to go next.

Both U‘i and Mario have declined assistance from FEMA’s direct-lease housing program, which provides qualified wildfire survivors with a long-term lease to a home or apartment instead of pricey rooms at hotels. These units are being leased for fire survivors who have nowhere else to go in part due to the island’s housing crisis.

U‘i and Mario are making their own plans, however. They don’t want to continue to rely on FEMA assistance as they rebuild their lives. And they want more autonomy.

They also want to return to living on Mario’s lot as soon as they can, even if that looks like glorified camping. So they’ve ordered a custom 26-foot trailer from a camping outfitter in Oregon.

The business partners plan to live in the rig, which can sleep up to five people, for the next year or two. And they aim to park it on Mario’s fire-scorched property in the heart of Lahaina where his house stood before the fire obliterated it.

Due to transpacific shipping logistics, the trailer’s estimated arrival date has been pushed back several times, most recently to the end of July. Now the partners must quickly figure out where they’ll live during the six-week gap between Monday, when FEMA stops reimbursing the state for emergency hotel housing for survivors, and the trailer’s landing at the Port of Kahului during the week of July 22.

Even when the FEMA program ends, however, the owner of the condo unit where Mario’s been living for the last nine months has assured him he can stay for as long as he needs without charge. This offer has been extended to U‘i, too. So U‘i and Mario are following up with the owner to see if they can stay in place until their trailer arrives.

But they’re still working on a Plan B in case they have to vacate the condo next week.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

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7 Best Places To Liveaboard A Sailboat

Last Updated by

Daniel Wade

December 20, 2023

Living aboard a sailboat is a dream come true for many people. There is something so inherently appealing about living on a boat, getting the opportunity to pick up one’s roots and move to new pastures at the drop of a hat, or anchor.

But, how do you know whether somewhere is a good place to live if you have never been there? Not everywhere is ideal for everyone, of course, but there are some common factors you can look for to give you an indication of how good a location will be for you. This article will explain the best places to live on a sailboat , what makes them so good, and more.

Table of contents

Why do people choose to live aboard a sailboat?

There are plenty of reasons people might choose to liveaboard a sailboat. As mentioned above, the ability to move your home at will is rarely possible.

The only two real instances are people who choose to live aboard a sailboat or in an RV. The difference is, a sailboat can be far roomier and can make moving location even easier.

Here are some of the most common reasons people choose to liveaboard a sailboat:

Coast to coast

Being able to pick up one’s roots and make the journey from the east coast to the west with your home is uncommon, to say the least. Not everyone has ties keeping them in one location.

If you work from home and all you need is a good wifi connection, you can essentially work from anywhere.

Living on a sailboat can give you the chance to sail from California to Hawaii , should you feel so inclined.

This is a sense of adventure you simply will not find anywhere else.

Living abroad

Sailing from the continental United States to other countries is a great way to see other cultures, this is why many people choose to live on a sailboat. It gives them the freedom to visit new countries and meet new people whenever they wish.

You cant even take your RV to these places, so sailing truly is the only way to bring your home with you. Depending on how big your boat is, you could take it essentially anywhere.

If you decide you want to live in the south of France for a while, well off you go.

Living on a sailboat is simply cool . It is the dream of so many people for a reason, there is something so inherently romantic about life on a sailboat, spending our free time on the open sea.

The sense of connection we have to the deep blue sea that we likely won’t find with the apartment block we could alternatively be living in. Sailing at heart is an adventure whether you are sailing from coast to coast or simply lazily patrolling the coast for the afternoon.

What are some benefits of living aboard a sailboat?

There are numerous benefits to living on a sailboat that many people who have never done it may not realize. Living on a sailboat inherently comes with some differences to living on land. Some people may find these differences unappealing but to the majority of people choosing to live permanently aboard their sailboat, they are blessings.

Living on a boat means having the ability to sail away from anything you may find disturbing. Are you somewhere very loud, is there a party going on at your neighbors? Just leave. Most marinas are typically pretty quiet, but there can occasionally be parties and events going on. If they bother you it is easy enough most of the time to just leave until they are over. When there is not some kind of event going on, marinas are typically pretty quiet and peaceful. It’s a nice way to live near a big city without the hustle and bustle of the city center.

No phone service or wifi

Whilst it is possible for you to hook up your sailboat with an internet connection , if you were trying to avoid having that kind of connection, that would be possible too.

Sometimes we just need to be able to get away from our phones and our computers for a while.

For our mental wellbeing, having the opportunity to sail a few miles off the coast and suddenly have complete isolation and privacy is a small miracle for some folk.

The idea of living on a boat may not seem immediately like a “safe” way of living, but it is. The little things like the marina security being there to help keep you safe cannot be understated. Not only are the marinas typically very well protected with locked gates and CCTV, but there are also often actual security guards too. Furthermore, your neighbors are on the lookout for trouble just as much as you are. You aren’t likely to bump into a problem with another resident of the marina.

If there is a natural disaster incoming, like a tornado, being able to move to safer waters is not a luxury many people have. When Florida gets hit with tornados people regularly uproot themselves and move up the east coast until the worst of it has passed. You cannot move your house and all your belongings, you can only move your self. This isn’t a problem with a sailboat.

The simple life

Living on a sailboat is a very simple way of living. Not that it doesn’t require skill and knowhow to do it successfully, it just is by definition going to be more simplistic. Firstly, you have to spend so much of your time doing boat maintenance that this becomes your main focus. Secondly, you cannot fill your boat with hoarded junk like so many people who live on land do. You only need the bare necessities. This can be a breath of fresh air for people who have never had to do it before. It offers a very focussed life, your priorities become far more clear.

Where are the best places to live on a sailboat?

There are so many fantastic places to live on a sailboat all around the United States. It is rare that a country is so large, first of all, but also remaining so diverse. Then when you consider just how much coastline the United States has, it opens your eyes to just how many possibilities there truly are. Here are some of the very best places to live on a sailboat in the United States:

1. Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

If you are looking for a mild climate, friendly people, good fishing and a relaxing home; Chesapeake Bay is the place to be. You may find the marinas more on the expensive end of the spectrum, but it is worth it. Chesapeake is very sheltered from the harsh winds and storms of the rest of the east coast, it is very safe and a good choice for anyone new to the lifestyle. You may recognize Chesapeake from the Netlflix show “Chesapeake shores”, whilst yes it is based on that area the show itself is filmed in Vancouver so you, unfortunately, won’t be stumbling upon any of the actors or set.

2. Corpus Christi, Texas

If you are looking for somewhere that can offer you a fair price, great food, and amazing access to South America look no further. Corpus Christi has only recently developed into a wonderful area that it is today. The marinas are new and state of the art, but haven’t yet been hit with the pricing boom of more popular locations. Currently, you can get a decent marina slot for about $150 a month. Far less than somewhere up north near Tampa Bay or New York. The food is great, you will find genuine Mexican cuisine of the very best quality. If it isn’t quite authentic enough for you, Mexico is not so far for you to sail to yourself.

3. Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay makes a great location for those who enjoy whiling their free time away doing some fishing. The fishing in Green Bay is second to none, the marina rental is cheap, and the people are friendly. Plus, the Green Bay Packers are generally pretty good if you are a fan of football. The marinas in Green Bay are pretty close to the main shops and restaurants so you will still feel connected to the local community. When it does come to marinas, you are going to want to find the one that best suits your budget. There are very cheap marina spots available, but you will get far more for your money at the more expensive marinas. Better security, better location, better amenities.

4. Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

The lake of the Ozarks is one of the most beautiful and interesting places you could choose to live in. The lake itself is huge, covering over 55k square acres and playing host to over a thousand miles of coastline. This makes it the perfect place for exploring in your free time. The weather is mild and the people are friendly. It isn’t overly high priced considering how famous it, you may remember it from the hit Netflix series “Ozark”. The show did a fine job of representing the look of the area, even if it did over exaggerate other areas. For example, there is far less criminal activity than the show would have you believe.

5. Long Island, New York

This is the perfect location for someone with one foot in one foot out of the boating lifestyle. Perhaps you love the idea of living aboard your sailboat, sailing up and down the coast in your free time, and the simplistic life boating offers. But, you aren’t quite ready to give up everything the big city has to offer either. Luckily, by staying in Long Island you will be so close to New York that you get the best of both worlds. Given where it is in the world, it can be slightly more expensive than some of the other options in this list but you do get what you pay for.

6. San Diego, California

San Diego is perhaps the best place to live if you plan to stay on the west coast. The city itself is beautiful, the people friendly, the marinas state of the art and the opportunity to explore is fantastic. But , the marina rent is going to be extortionate. It is California, after all. Whilst you could stay in Green Bay for $150 a month, it could cost you as much as $1500 a month in San Diego. This can price a lot of people out of living in California, but, if that isn’t a problem for you all California has to offer. San Diego makes a great home base for exploring not just all of Califonia but the west coast as a whole. The weather is always nice, it rarely rains, the food is good and there is more to do than almost any other state.

7. Tampa Bay, Florida

Tampa Bay is a great place to live if you are in search of good weather. Being in Florida means you are going to typically get great weather all year round, even if you might get the occasional tornado. Tampa is a great place to live if you work aboard your sailboat, there is no income tax in Florida so you may find yourself earning even more than you previously would have. You might need this extra income as the marina fees can be pretty pricey down there. Tampa can be far cheaper than Miami itself, if you plan to spend a lot of time in Miami it is just a short journey there. The money you save from avoiding living in Miami itself is a big difference-maker.

Finding the best places to liveaboard a sailboat depends so much on what you the individual are looking for. If the price doesn’t matter, living in San Diego or Long Island might be perfect for you. Alternatively, if you are trying to save your money for the future Green Bay or Corpus Christi would be perfect. Everyone has their likes and dislikes when it comes to where they want to live. Any of the above-mentioned locations would make great homes for new and seasoned sailors alike.

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Scammers took billions in taxpayer money through biggest fraud in Arizona history. Here’s how

The massive scandal that hit Arizona’s Medicaid program — the largest financial swindle in the state’s history — often is described with broad brushstrokes: Rehab clinics that promised addiction treatment manufactured phony bills. The state paid out, with the fraud soaring past $2.5 billion.

But what the public hasn’t heard is an explanation of exactly how the scheme, which mainly targeted Native Americans , grew so large so fast.

The case against a Las Vegas company called L&L Investments, charged in the first case brought in the overall fraud, offers a road map.

Trial and court records include voluminous documents like spreadsheets, emails and text messages that chronicle how billing requests were created.

One man who created some of those bills was asked on the witness stand how the company defined success.

The answer didn’t involve patients achieving sobriety. Instead, he said, the goal was “money in the bank.”

L&L Investments acted as a consultant for rehab clinics. The spare words of a contract the parties signed said the company would help with administrative duties.

But prosecutors said that masked the true aim: The company peppered Arizona’s system with fraudulent requests for money. When the checks came in, L&L Investments would get a 20% cut, records show.

Those checks siphoned money out of the state’s Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS (pronounced “access”), in ever-increasing amounts over two years. Prosecutors said the total of the fraudulent billings was at least $40 million.

It was just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2021, the Arizona Attorney General's office brought charges against those involved in the L&L Investments scheme. At the time, the indictment was a one-off. Authorities would not grasp the magnitude of the problem for years.

Other investigations — and criminal cases — would follow. Some are still in the works.

Hundreds of entities ultimately were suspended from billing AHCCCS because of suspected fraud; most of those suspensions came in 2023.

The scope of the fraud is breathtaking. It unleashed a humanitarian crisis that targeted people at their most vulnerable, many of them Native Americans far from home.

Victims were promised help that never came, isolated from their families and friends who feared they were missing or dead. They were lied to, threatened, blackmailed. They were plied with alcohol and drugs at their weakest moments.

How many people fell victim is difficult to measure because many fled or found their way home, but the stories people tell suggest that thousands were taken in, and some never made it out.

The price of the disaster is borne by taxpayers who must rely on the government to root out fraud and abuse. They were failed on a massive scale.

The ease at which scammers took millions out of Arizona’s Medicaid system attracted hundreds of individuals who authorities say wanted to cash in. They did so partly because Arizona’s system had no guardrails in place to either prevent or, at least, flag the fraudulent billings.

The scheme attracted people suspected of or convicted of fraud in other states, most notably Nevada.

At least 20 entities targeted by Arizona officials were operated by someone who Nevada authorities had drummed out of the health care system there, a review of records by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com shows.

Among them were Lawrence and Leasa Carter, the husband-and-wife owners and the “L”s of L&L Investments.

That company was set up to defraud Arizona’s health care system on an “industrial scale,” prosecutors said in a court filing.

A September 2021 indictment listed 13 individuals and 14 entities. All parties reached plea deals in the case — except for L&L Investments.

The case against the company pressed ahead to a jury trial in Maricopa County Superior Court.

The Carters themselves were not criminally charged along with their company in 2021. Their indictments came in March 2023 in another suspected scheme. They have pleaded not guilty. Through their attorney, both declined to comment.

Of the emails and text messages presented in court documents and testimony, not one was about the type of care that should be given to a Native American client. Nor did any celebrate the successful sobriety of a patient.

There were, however, plenty of messages about money.

Promises, bribes, threats: How victims of Arizona substance abuse treatment scams were targeted

Scheme moves from Nevada to Arizona

Before starting L&L Investments, Lawrence Carter ran care homes in Reno. In March 2016, Nevada officials raided one of those homes, following up on reports of bed bugs and overall filth .

Carter told the Reno Gazette Journal at the time that he charged his clients, most of whom came from the city’s homeless shelter, $500 a month in rent. He then billed Medicaid for “wrap around" services.

The Reno newspaper reported that from 2014 to 2016 Carter billed Medicaid for $514,000.

Six days after the raid, Nevada officials terminated Carter’s ability to bill Medicaid for mental health services for seven years.

Officials said that, outside of the concerns over patients, Carter had failed to disclose on his application to Nevada that he was convicted of felonies in both California and Nevada.

But when Nevada blocked Carter from billing Medicaid, he figured out a novel way to make money, according to testimony from a former employee.

Instead of running clinics, he would offer his services as a consultant. A contract, a copy of which was included in court records, promised that his business — L&L Investments — would handle a clinic’s billing records. The contract promised it would maximize efficiency and ensure comportment with regulations.

L&L’s real goal was maximizing profit, prosecutors said. It would bill Nevada’s system for hours of treatment that were not actually provided.

That scheme was outlined in court testimony by Dale Henson, who started working for Carter in Nevada before becoming one of his first employees deployed to the Phoenix area.

Henson said in court that he was selling real estate and health insurance in Reno. A woman came in needing a house and when it came time to close the deal, she said she could produce $500,000 in cash within days.

Intrigued, Henson asked what she did for a living.

The woman, Ariell Dix , told him. And subsequently showed him.

“She led us by the hand,” Henson said.

Dix worked for L&L Investments. Her role involved helping clinics set up shop under the L&L umbrella, then compiling lists of patients and their insurance information, according to court records.

Following Dix’s direction, Henson’s wife opened a residential treatment facility in summer 2017. Dix ensured it was filled with an initial batch of patients.

Henson said he met Leasa Carter in August 2017. His company, Henson Family Services, signed a contract agreeing to pay a portion of its revenue to what was termed the “umbrella” organization, L&L Investments.

Soon afterward, Henson became an employee of L&L Investments. His job, according to his court testimony, was taking lists of sign-in sheets from clinics and converting them to the bureaucratic code used in billing forms.

But by 2018, Nevada authorities noticed a suspicious pattern of billing and started investigating.

In December 2018, Nevada announced it had found $73 million in fraudulently paid claims that year across its system.

Among those the state investigated was Dix.

Dix would plead guilty in March 2020 to three misdemeanors, admitting to inadequate record keeping. She was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay restitution of more than $400,000, some for the fraudulent billings and some for the cost of the investigation.

By the time of her sentence, her attorney told the court, she had moved to Arizona.

So had the L&L Investment scheme. To escape the crackdown in Nevada, L&L's founders took a road trip to Texas to see what the atmosphere was like there. On their way back to Nevada, the Carters stopped in Arizona. They found the regulatory climate they were looking for.

They told Henson, according to his testimony, that Arizona was like the "old Nevada" before that state started getting stingy with dollars.

The one difference: in Arizona, there was more money to be made by exploiting a vulnerability involving the American Indian Health Program.

That system was intentionally designed to have fewer barriers than traditional private insurance. It served a historically underserved population in rural areas that had financial and geographic obstacles to medical help.

Arizona would pay bills with few questions, and with no preset dollar limits. The patient just needed to be Native American. Or at least enrolled as one.

And L&L Investments would soon find a man, freshly released from prison after a fraud conviction, who was willing to shepherd fellow Native Americans into the scheme.

Arizona contract creates connection to Native Americans

Kevin Maulson, 62, was raised in northern Wisconsin as part of the Lac du Flambeau Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. His father, Tom Maulson, was among the band’s leaders, eventually becoming president.

Maulson’s path was not as illustrious.

He went to prison for fraud in Wisconsin in 2015. There, he found Jesus and began leading Bible study classes. In the weeks before his release, Maulson met with a man named Tim Young Eagle, who headed a non-profit in Wisconsin called Lutheran Indian Ministries.

Young Eagle hired Maulson to go to Phoenix, where Maulson’s fiancé lived, and assess the spiritual needs of Native Americans there.

Maulson, upon his release in October 2017, made inroads among Native American women who had experienced homelessness and were trying to recover from alcoholism. Maulson arranged to pick them up from the facilities where they lived and bring them to Sunday church services.

It was during this time that Maulson met a person who would inch him under the L&L Investments umbrella.

Maulson, in a sentencing memo filed with the court, said he was told he could make money through the Native American women he was serving. Maulson, in turn, told that to his boss in Wisconsin.

Before long, he was directed to partake in a series of meetings and allow a biller from L&L Investments access to Lutheran Indian Ministries paperwork. In September 2019 the entities signed a contract for work in Arizona.

Timeline: How Arizona's Medicaid program became a vehicle for fraud

'Get me 10 more clients by 12:00'

Text messages and emails show that L&L Investments was building up its billing scheme in the summer of 2019.

Authorities said Henson handled billing while Dix tracked patients, especially the insurance numbers and dates of birth needed for payment. Dix sent a text to an employee in June 2019 that was included in court filings, just as the scheme was getting started. It read: "Lets get this done now so we can get paid Friday.”

As the scheme continued into 2020, L&L Investments signed consulting contracts with more businesses and, prosecutors said, became more aggressive in its billing practices.

An example: On Jan. 31, 2020, an employee named Charles Temple — who served as a go-between for entities under the scheme’s umbrella — sent a text to Henson. Temple asked how that week’s numbers looked.

“Not good,” Henson replied in a text, “$82k.”

Henson had an idea to boost it. “If you can get me 10 more clients by 12:00, I can bill them this week.” Temple replied that he would check. A few minutes later, he sent this: “I have some on the way…Brand new”

On that day, prosecutors say, one of those brand-new patients was listed as receiving 165 hours of treatment at Sun Valley Services going back nearly three months.

Another example: On April 1, 2020, Henson sent a text to Temple telling him that he needed “the list” by the end of the day, otherwise Sun Valley Services couldn’t bill that week.

The sign-in sheets Temple would send ended up in a court filing.

The sheets, ostensibly for March 23 through March 27, 2020, were exact duplicates of each other . The only difference was the date written in the upper right-hand corner.

The order of names was the same. So was the handwriting. Each sheet had the same smudges and scratch-outs.

And one man’s name appeared twice on the same sign-up sheet.

With that documentation of services rendered, Sun Valley Services sent in its reimbursement request.

In response, the state of Arizona sent a payment for nearly $37,000.

Schemes expand even as indictments land

An agent from the state Attorney General’s Office started looking into suspicious billing patterns at behavioral health facilities in April 2020. One of the people he interviewed during those first weeks of the investigation was Maulson, court records show.

Months later, in October 2020, investigators raided the offices of Lutheran Indian Ministries. Authorities also filed a forfeiture action asking the court to allow it to seize money, cars and property belonging to those it said were involved.

In November 2020, Arizona Medicaid’s system stopped the providers suspected to be involved from being able to submit requests for money.

The indictments would come nearly a year later, in September 2021, naming a host of people and entities suspected of being under the L&L Investments umbrella.

While L&L Investments was charged with fraud, an indictment was not brought against either Lawrence or Leasa Carter in that case. Court documents do not explain why.

But even as the state was dismantling the organization that L&L Investments built, the Carters were busy with a major new client.

L&L Investments contracted its services to a company called Arizona WellCare. That company was approved as an AHCCCS provider, though its application failed to mention felony convictions for aggravated assault in Georgia of one of its operators, Curtis Smith.

Prosecutors said that between May 2020 and September 2021, Arizona WellCare filed fraudulent claims totaling more than $10 million. Court records mention bank transactions that show transfers to companies controlled by the Carters totaling $2 million, or 20%, just as the contract specified.

After Arizona suspended Arizona WellCare, its operators, Curtis Smith and Rhonda Russell, struck out on their own, court records show, starting another entity under the name of a relative. Authorities said the two learned the ropes from the Carters.

In two weeks, it racked up nearly $500,000 in billing before it, too, was suspended. According to court records, Curtis Smith, Rhonda Russell and the relative were seen on surveillance footage in an Atlanta bank unsuccessfully attempting to cash the checks from Arizona.

Both Curtis Smith and Rhonda Russell have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys did not respond to a request for an interview.

Dix also was charged in the Arizona WellCare case. In May, she was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after pleading no contest to two felony charges. She became the first person incarcerated in Arizona in the massive fraud scheme.

Ahead of sentencing, she told the judge she sincerely aimed to help people through her work with L&L Investments. “It was all about the treatment model," she said, "and not the billing model.”

Key player testifies against former employer

Dale Henson was the chief witness when L&L Investments went on criminal trial in May.

During days on the stand, Henson walked jurors through the billing practices he employed in Nevada — and how they were amplified in Arizona.

He told the jury about his plea deal and how he agreed to pay $1.2 million in restitution.

At the time he was sending in the billing requests, Henson didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. “Now I do,” he told jurors. “It looks ridiculous.”

Henson said his testimony against L&L Investments was not only part of his plea deal, but a way to soothe his conscience.

“This is the only way I can fix it,” he told jurors, “is coming up here and telling the truth.”

The jury deliberated less than three hours before returning with its verdict: guilty on all counts.

Reach Richard Ruelas at [email protected] or 602-444-8473.

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Trails Center to host living history event June 8 and 9

Event coordinator, event dates, event description.

CASPER, Wyo. – Experience life as a pioneer this weekend at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center with old fashioned pioneer games, music, and more.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on June 9, living history re-enactors with the Merchant family will be at the Trails Center to showcase pioneer life along the trail. Step back in time with special activities throughout both days, including games and music, and learn about life on the pioneer trail in their pioneer camp.

Event Schedule

• 10 a.m. – Pioneer Games
• 12 p.m. – Pioneer Music
• 2 p.m. – Life on the Trails
• Saturday, June 8 at 11 a.m.: Riding the Pony Express (Junior Ranger Program)

To stay up to date on summer programs at the Trails Center, follow BLM Wyoming on Facebook or X, or visit the BLM’s Trails Center website at https://www.blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/national-historic-trails-interpretive-center .

For questions, call the Trails Center at 307-261-7780.

The Trails Center is open 7 days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. MST. 1501 N. Poplar St., Casper, WY 82601 Admission is Free