Last week I answered my question about what makes me happy with:
Traveling with curiosity and purpose. Learning. Becoming aware. Asking Who? What? Why? When? and How? Deep and meaningful relationships. And fitting all the abstract pieces together into a wonderful fabric of experience.
Well, after searching I discovered that there are quite a few ways to do this. For example, you could achieve this through:
- Travel city-to-city renting furnished apartments
- Flights, road trips and hotels
- Leverage employment to gain “free travel” while working
- Live in a RV (recreation vehicle) and just keep driving to the next adventure
- Tiny house on wheels – a more sophisticated version of the RV
Each of these has their own pros and cons. The furnished apartment option opens the world to any continent and any city. The RV or tiny house on wheels limited things to single continent, for the most part. Although using my employment as a means is enticing, it means I can only go where the company wants me to go. Flights and hotel living means I could only go on a few trips a year due to the prohibited costs. Furnished apartments was intriguing so I could “go deep”, but it was like having two homes at one – the permanent home and the temporary one. What would I do?
Dreams have a way of always resurfacing. One day I stumbled upon Trisha Leach and her podcast Keep Your Daydream Alive. She was just getting started and had only a few episodes at the time. Episode 3 highlighted “SV Delos wants to make you smile!” As luck would have it, they had a YouTube channel and the hook of my childhood was set.
Growing up in Chicago, the view of Lake Michigan always seemed to draw me – to the sailboats in the harbor. I wondered at the places they might take me. The destinations and exotic places that could be enjoyed far from those brutal, windy winters. But those were only dreams.
Later, after college I moved to Houston and quickly discovered Clear Lake. After marveling at any suggestion that the water is actually “clear”, there were those sailboats again. Only, these had direct access to the Gulf of Mexico and the oceans beyond.
After binge watching SV Delos, WhiteSpot Pirates, Follow the Boat, DrakeParagon, and stumbling upon Annie with Have Wind Will Travel and her books…the search started for me to really understand what a sailing life might cost and if it was even possible.
Inspired, this is what I learned. Yes, not only is it possible; but it is not really out of reach for most citizens in the USA. In fact, many people are already living full time on sailboats and doing so for about $1,000 USD a month. This has been confirmed recently by Gone With The Wynns where they average $916 a month in the Bahamas.
The best part, living on a sailboat is like the ultimate tiny house. If I want to change location, just hoist the sails and go! I can “live on the hook” and avoid any parking fees. This opened the entire world to me! No need to keep a house back home and a car if I cared not to.
At this point it seemed everywhere I turned on social media all I could see was sailing, sailing sailing !
But how will I get from here to out there – and sailing? And can you do it too?
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