I figured I’d start our inaugural blog post with the question we get asked the most, “Why??” (Followed by the close second: “How??”)

Top 5 reasons we’ve chosen to leave traditional land life to live aboard a sailboat:

1. We love to travel. Back in 2007 Neal proposed in Germany with something along the lines of “I want to spend the rest of my life going on crazy adventures with you.” Challenge accepted.
2. We love to travel slowly. Have you ever been on a cruise and felt the stress of having exactly 6 hours to be herded through all the tourist traps at your destination before being shuffled back onto the ship to do it again tomorrow somewhere else? That’s basically exactly opposite of the way we like to travel. (Though cruising can be fun in other ways.) We want to be able to dig in to a place. Meet people, experience life there, enjoy the little things. We figured since a sailboat is literally the slowest form of travel, why not? (Ok not literally, though I could sometimes walk faster than we sail.)
3. We want to spend time with the kids while they’re still young enough to want to spend time with us. Having come from an adventurous family myself, I distinctly remember the shift from “wow this is so much fun!” to “ugh I really wanted to be with my friends this weekend.” We had a limited window of time where Rowan is old enough to listen to instructions (theoretically) and Torren is young enough to still not mind hanging out with us (also theoretically.) We’re in that window right now, so it’s time!
4. Many of the places I’ve always wanted to go are not particularly accessible. We could have taken a gap year to travel the world by plane, but some of the remote islands I’ve always wanted to visit are just not accessible by plane. We can travel anywhere by boat, and if we can’t get there by boat we can sail to a place with an airport. That idea very much engages the adventurous side of our imagination as a family.
5. We can take our home with us. One of the hardest parts of long term travel is living out of a suitcase and never quite knowing where you’ll be sleeping that night. Our kids thrive on having a sense of consistency and familiarity to keep them rooted when everything else is new, inconsistent, and/or unfamiliar. Taking our home with us will provide them that.