

Travel by cargo ship around the world - TriinT
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/articles/travel-by-cargo-ship-around-the-world.shtml

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yardie
If you are serious about travel then get trained and crewed on a yacht. I met
a lot of refugees from the 99-00 dotbomb. People that were college educated,
unemployed, and worn out from the long hours. This was a welcome refuge for
them. The hours were great and so were the locations. And the money was
totally tax-free.

And, as a guy, 90% of their female colleagues were drop dead gorgeous. I
really considered calling in work and resigning so I could join a crew on the
next boat looking to hire.

~~~
czstrong
Sounds like a nice way to spend my summer before I start work. Does anyone
have any personal experience with this? Any resources or tips on how to go
about this would be appreciated.

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yardie
The biggest part is probably location. They aren't going to fly you in for an
interview so you have to be in an area that has a yacht industry. This will be
Ft. Lauderdale (your best bet), Miami, Palm Beach, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
and parts of California. Go to the docks and pound the pavement. I was walking
around taking pictures for my job when I inquired about availabilities crews
were giving me all sorts of advice. The stories were so fascinating I was
ready to call my office and drop everything. You'll find agencies in these
areas that will probably want your CV and a passport photo. Appearance is big
component of the job. Captains like their crew looking like the cast of a
movie.

If you're looking for a summer only thing there are boats looking for crew.
They don't pay you, you'll pay for part of the voyage to cover food, landing,
and docking fees. Depending on the boat be prepared to work hard. But the
payoff is better ports of call.

Try here: <http://www.crewfile.com/>

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mstevens
Apart from an excellent holiday, this sounds like a great way to get some
coding done.

Take a laptop, a few books on your favourite languages, come back with a
product!

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robin_reala
I wonder what their net access is like? Guess everything’s done via satellite
phone, which might get a _little_ expensive.

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wheels
I think having regular internet access would ruin the whole point of such a
trip to me. The appeal is in the refuge-less disconnect, both from the
internet and everything else.

~~~
electromagnetic
I frequently try becoming a internet fugitive for periods of time, but its
long arms eventually capture me again. I believe being in the middle of the
ocean would certainly liberate me for a prolonged period of time, however so
would going into cottage country in a tent . . . although there is
considerably less bears at sea (note that there still is technically a fair
amount due to Polar Bears being on ice in mid ocean, hence 'considerably less'
and not 'no').

Internet access is both a curse and a blessing, however it tends to lean more
towards the former rather than the heavy lean towards the latter that everyone
desires.

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whatusername
Go south of the equator. No Polar bears down here.

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electromagnetic
But you have to watch underwater for frigging birds and there's flying fish!
The southern hemispheres wildlife is insane.

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robk
The costs are just too high unless you only seek the romanticism of taking a
boat with likely non-English speaking crew for weeks at a time across an
ocean. A round-the-world ticket (www.oneworld.com to start) is usually a far
better value in terms of seeing many places on a (much more) flexible
schedule.

~~~
flipbrad
I regret my oneworld ticket approach to a 6.5 month backpack break - in
retrospect I should have seen far fewer places and got a better feel for the
ones I was in. It's also not nice having flights booked so far in advance that
it's hard (not impossible) to stick around in the various paradises you come
across.

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robk
Actually though you have a ton of flexibility on those tickets. If you need to
move a date, it's easy enough to switch to any flight with availability in
that class, no charge. Also, you can split it up and take half the trip, fly
home for a while, then return and continue the trip where you left off. As
long as you fly within a year, you can do segments 11 months apart really.

~~~
flipbrad
We had to pay £30 for a change, if I recall correctly...

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aandon
I crewed on a private sailboat for a summer after college and it was amazing:
it's a paid adventure with great people in breathtaking places. Even the
middle of the ocean is surprisingly beautiful. The most important pre-
requisite is a strong stomach. It's likely you'll hit a storm where you will
be levitating off your bed at the height of each wave for two days straight:
seasickness is completely incapacitating and will make your captain regret
taking you onboard. If you pass that and can clean and heat up a pizza, most
captains will take you on all expenses paid, possibly with pay. There is a
migration of boats from the Caribbean to New England in the spring and back
down south in the fall. Try hitting the docks at the stopping over points in
St. Barts, Martinique, Bermuda, or Newport.

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wheels
I've looked at this in the past, and unfortunately it's prohibitively
expensive for longer trips. I'd like to go transatlantic at some point, but it
costs 2-3x as much as flying, and in fact, even more than a cruise ship (which
sounds horrible to me).

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elblanco
I've looked into this and reached the same conclusion. Longer trip? Fewer
Amenities? More expensive? It doesn't add up.

 _(really all I want to do is go fight pirates)_

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ovi256
You know that the crews are not only discouraged, but usually not allowed to
fight back with real firearms for fear of retaliation ? The pirates are ready
to die, after all. The most they'll do is use a fire lance to keep the pirates
away or wash them off-board.

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anamax
> The pirates are ready to die, after all.

Are they? They're willing to kill, but that's different.

Remember, a robber isn't telling you what he thinks that his life is worth,
he's telling you what he thinks your life is worth to him.

~~~
ovi256
I'm really meaning Somalian pirates, which have shown repeatedly complete
disregards for their own lives. A Western robber is no match.

~~~
elblanco
I would pay money to see this fight.

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patrickgzill
Considering that you can ship a container from China to USA for about $3-4K,
the quoted prices seem quite high at $125 per day.

Sure, food is included, but given that the ship no doubt purchases food in
bulk, as well as resupplies itself at the cheapest ports, it would seem that
$50 or less per day (perhaps double occupancy) would be a lot more reasonable.

~~~
TriinT
I speculate that the price is that high because they can afford to charge that
much. A cargo ship can take only 12 passengers at most... and there seem to be
a few 1000s of people who are really into this kind of traveling. Suppy &
demand is the most likely explanation for such high prices.

For example, the following company charges $2,500 for a 20-day voyage from
Long Beach to Shanghai:

<http://www.freighterworld.com/places/fareast.html#LaeiszCAX>

If the flight ticket is approx. $1,000 and 20 days of rent in LA are at least
$500, then one is paying a $1,000 premium for the experience, which does not
sound _too_ much if one does it only once. Travel by cargo ship on a regular
basis would be unaffordable, though.

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gamble
I believe the main reason they offer passenger service is that there are some
shipments that need a human handler. (Horses, for example) There's definitely
demand for passenger berths, albeit not for tourists.

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yardie
You used to be able to putter around the caribbean on a few of the mailships.
Voyages normally lasted a day or 2 and the price was insanely cheap. But just
like everything else, as more tourist figured out how the islanders got around
a new business opportunity came up. Now the mailships aren't much cheaper then
the puddle jumpers.

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arihelgason
I recommend reading Christopher Buckley's Steaming to Bambula - though things
have changed since then.

([http://www.amazon.com/Steaming-Bamboola-World-Tramp-
Freighte...](http://www.amazon.com/Steaming-Bamboola-World-Tramp-
Freighter/dp/0140099220))

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vermontdevil
Another alternative is the last Royal Mail ship: <http://www.rms-st-
helena.com/>

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rmason
I always thought it would be cool but now I am not so certain.

Going 55 days without net access would be a deal breaker for me.

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joss82
"[...] many are happy to take you along for the ride."

If you are a woman, sure.

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TriinT
Some more links:

[http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-travel-by-
carg...](http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-travel-by-cargo-ship/)

<http://wikitravel.org/en/Freighter_travel>

[http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0011/miniguide_freighter_v...](http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0011/miniguide_freighter_voyage.html)

[http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0906/freighter-cruising-
ex...](http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0906/freighter-cruising-
experience.html)

