Sunday, October 2 we will be doing a presentation on our circumnavigation for the Seven Seas Cruising Association’s San Diego Gam. The Gam is an all day event featuring four seminars and open to the general public. For more information, check out the Seven Seas Cruising Association’s site.
On Saturday, November 12 we will be giving two back to back seminars at Trawlerfest San Diego. The first is at 8:30 am: “Recipe for Success: What My Cruising Will Cost Me” where we explain to people how to calculate what cruising will cost them (we are even writing a special workbook for this!). The second is at 10:00 am: “San Diego to Panama.” Trawlerfest is a three day event featuring 18 informative seminars, a boat show, and is also open to the public. For more information, check out their website.
As far as Book 2 of the Unexpected Circumnavigation series goes, Christi sent it to the editor several weeks ago. The editor is a little over halfway done with it now. We’ve been saying soon for the last year, but the light is at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.
I am interested in your calculations on cruising costs…my wife and I looking to get into it.
This is a really complicated topic. We actually wrote a workbook called “Recipe for Success: How To Figure Out What Cruising Will Cost Me.” However, we were having a hard time with formatting issues, so it didn’t get published before the munchkin was born. We have not worked on getting the book published since his birth, but its on our “to do” list.
The reality is that you can make it work on any budget. We’ve seen people with no money on small, poorly equipped boats living happily, and we’ve seen people who are quite miserable trying to scrape by on a small budget.
You are accustomed to a certain lifestyle. If you try to change your lifestyle too much, you are not going to be happy. If you love camping, you will probably be okay on a boat without any luxuries. If you hate camping, you will probably be miserable on that boat. If you love cooking, you will be fine buying cheap local foods and cooking at home. If you love eating out at gourmet restaurants, you’ll probably be miserable with no budget for going out to eat.
We believe the most important question is “how much time are you going to be cruising?” By boxing in a time window, you can accurately predict many costs. We picked 2 years of non-stop cruising and budgeted from there.
What’s the type of boat you want to live on? Look up what kind of annual maintenance/typical repairs that boat needs and ballpark costs per year for parts and labor in the part of the world that you want to cruise. Too expensive? Then what cheaper boats are viable options?
Where do you want to cruise? Asia is cheap, Europe is expensive, so you need to figure costs relative to that.
Are you going to anchor out or stay in marinas?
What kind of activities do you like to do and food do you like to eat? What do these things cost in the part of the world that you plan to cruise in?
Our book lists every cost we could think of, and then a series of questions like these to get you thinking about budgeting accordingly.
Good luck. We’re sorry to be vague, but budgets are so highly personal. We’re happy to answer more questions, so ask away.