Living on a Sailboat: The Realities of Life at Sea

Have you ever dreamed about living on a sailboat? Cruising in crystal blue waters, waking up to the gentle sway of the water, and watching the sunset each night from your cockpit.

Even after four years of sailing, there are moments when it feels like a dream. But this lifestyle comes with both incredible highs and unexpected lows

From both anchoring and marina life, we’ve learned what it truly takes to live aboard. If you’re considering swapping land life for life at sea, this guide is for you.

Whether you’re a digital nomad craving an off-grid adventure or a retiree ready to set sail, this guide covers the pros, cons, costs, and key considerations of full-time boat life.

1. Pros and Cons of Living on a Sailboat

I have to say, there are more pros than cons to living on a sailboat, or else we would be back on land. So what makes this full-time liveaboard lifestyle so great? 

Pro #1: You Travel With your Home

We get to travel with our home to new locations and explore new cultures. Whether we are going up and down the east coast of the United States, or sailing to different islands in the Caribbean, we love checking out new places, and revisiting our favorite spots.

Pro #2: You Live with Nature

We get to enjoy stunning sunrises and sunsets, watch turtles swim through our anchorages, and see dolphins and humpback whales coasting through the waters while we sail along with them.

Pro #3: Life is Simpler

We have greatly downsized our belongings when we sailed away in 2023, and live a much simpler life, to some degree. We largely live off-grid, relying on solar power for energy and hot water. Have one vehicle (our dinghy) for transportation, and everything we own travels with us.

Pro #4: Being Part of the Wonderful Sailing Community

The sailing community is amazing! Sailors are more than willing to share information and give a helping hand. 

Between Facebook groups, No Foreign Land app, WhatsApp groups for different areas we are in, or just meeting people at the dinghy dock collecting boat cards, or seeing someone needing help at anchor, it is easy to ask and provide help.

We all understand that it can be challenging out here and offer help when we can. And it’s a great way to make great friends! 

However, as I mentioned, it’s not always calm breezes and easy living.

Con #1: Limited Space

We are on our 45-foot Hunter 450 Passage, along with all of our belongings and our dog. That means we really had to pick and choose what we really needed and forgo some things, such as our large beach chairs, some of our workout equipment, and kitchen gadgets.

Some of our most used items living on the boat that help us save space are our SodaStream, folding beach chairs, and these packing cubes that help keep my clothes organized in odd-shaped spaces.

Con #2: Your Schedule Revolves Around the Weather

When we move from island to island all depends on the weather. It makes it more challenging to schedule visits with friends and family, because you are committing to being at a specific place at a specific time. 

We rely heavily on PredictWind to track the weather forecasts and plan our passages.

Con #3: We Spend A LOT of Time on Boat Maintenance

Boats require constant upkeep: everything from oil changes, to cleaning and painting the bottom, waxing the top deck and hulls, maintaining any wood and teak you have, etc. The constant wear and tear, especially being in the salt water and direct sunlight in the tropics, really speeds up the process of wearing things down.

Some of our favorite products we use include: 

• Manual Oil Change Pumper
• West Marine Heavy Duty Boat Soap
• Star Brite Rust Stain Remover
• Star Brite Teak Cleaner
• Star Brite Teak Oil

Con #4: Off-Grid Sailing Lifestyle Comes with Limitations

For most sailors, including us, we really need to keep an eye on how much water we use each day, and our off-grid power usage too. 

We have a watermaker that makes approximately 5 gallons an hour, and we estimate that we use about 8.5 gallons each day. We conserve power by limiting our use of electrical appliances using a tea kettle and French Press to make coffee each morning and we switch Starlink on only when we are actively using it.

Con #5: Internet and Connectivity Struggles

We do have Starlink, but it draws approximately 5 amps when running, so we limit our use of it during peak, sunny hours of the day. 

We did find a good Digicel plan from Martinique that works well with unlimited data in most of the Caribbean islands!

Con #6: Financial Surprises

Things can add up quick with boats! We all know the saying BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand. 

• Unexpected Costs: Boats break down when you least expect them
• Example: While in Grenada, our engine died right before a scheduled haul-out
• What It Cost Us:
  • Rescheduled haul-out ✅
  • Rented a car ✅
  • Paid for marina/mooring fees ✅
  • Engine repairs ✅
  • Total unexpected cost: $1,737

All of this added up quick, and was money we had not planned on spending that month ☹️

2. Liveaboard Sailboat Budget: How Much Does it Really Cost?

As full-time liveaboard sailors, we have been sharing our costs with you – our first full year sailing, we spent an average of $5,597 per month ($67,164 for the year), with our second year of sailing very close to this as well. 

We find that there are sailors out here sailing on much less than this per month, and also much more than this per month. 

Similar to living on land, expect your routine expenses such as food, health insurance costs, and internet/cell phones, with a few extra added in for the boat. 

We have our living expenses broken down into 11 categories, which includes categories for Boat Expenses, Marinas and Moorings, and the extra costs associated with sailing with our dog Mangaux. This category we had to increase when we started sailing with our dog in the Caribbean, due to the extra health certificates and pet permits we needed.

In regards to food and dining out, we have been able to keep that pretty consistent with when we lived on land. 

Food can cost more in the Caribbean if you are used to buying specific brands from home. For example, we once paid $7.35 USD for Philadelphia cream cheese (Garden Vegetable) to eat with some bagels. Current cost on Walmart online is around $4.17.

However, we have fun trying new foods, local brands and cooking on the boat more, and finding ways to keep our spending within our budget.

A great way to save money living on a sailboat is to do your own boat projects and boat maintenance, such as waxing the hull, engine oil changes, minor repairs, etc. This is important for saving money, as well as being able to fix your boat if it breaks down when you are out at sea.

3. Hidden Costs of Living on a Sailboat

As with life on land, there are always some unexpected costs hiding around the next corner. Some hidden costs of sailing for us include the following:

International Health Insurance

We have additional health insurance to be covered for catastrophic events that could happen outside of the United States. We pay approximately $240 per month for both Scott and me.

Import Duties on Boat Parts

In some countries, parts can cost 30-50% more due to taxes. This is the exact reason why we didn’t ship any boat parts to Grenada when we spent 6 months there for hurricane season.

Cruising and Pet Permit Fees

Many islands have $100+ clearance fees. The Bahamas has been the most expensive with a $300 cruising permit fee for 3 months.

For pet permit fees, we paid just under $200 to get Mangaux into St. Lucia. Most of this fee was an overtime fee for the vet to come “inspect” Mangaux on a weekend.

Unexpected Travel Costs

Flights home for emergencies can be a budget killer. I have also learned that flying back to Michigan from Grenada cost me nearly double ($1,100) compared to Scott’s flight back to Miami ($600) during the summertime.

4. What’s It Really Like? A Day in the Life of a Liveaboard

Just like life on land, you get into your daily routines. 

While on anchor, we get up and check the weather, have some coffee, then dinghy to shore with our dog, Mangaux. After our morning dog walk, we typically do our daily chores (sweeping and clean up, breakfast, and checking on the bilge and shaft packing that is designed to drip). 

Then comes our boat chores for the day (laundry, grocery shopping, or like today – an oil change for our engine). We try to finish up mid-afternoon to save time for relaxing, swimming, or hanging out with friends. 

Our evenings end with another trip to shore for the dog walk, and if we are lucky, catching a beautiful sunset before dinner, showers and bed.

Things don’t always go according to plan, and we have found that doing things from anchor takes much longer than when we lived on land. 

For example, we tried to take a scheduled shuttle to a grocery store, however, the driver never arrived. So after waiting an hour, we bailed on that plan and ended up walking to another grocery store. All in all, we spent 4 hours getting our groceries that day!

5. Choosing the Right Sailboat for Full-Time Liveaboard

This one really comes down to your personal preference, and how much you want to spend.

Things to consider when looking for a sailboat to live on include but are not limited to:

• Comfort vs Performance: With our Hunter sailboat, she performs well, but is definitely not a “performance” boat. But she sure is very comfortable to live on!
• Storage Space: How much space do you really need? Are you sailing solo, with a family, with pets? 
• Essential Features: Have an idea of what you can live with / without
  • How many heads do you want on your boat
  • How many cabins for sleeping
  • Do you plan to cook underway – then consider a galley layout (for a monohull) where you can hold on and be secure
  • Consider how much solar you will need (we have 900 watts are are happy with this amount), battery capacity you want (we have 594 ah of AGM, but on my wishlist is lithium), and watermaker capacity and setup (ours makes 5-gallons per hour, but runs on 12-volt and works good for us)
• Monohull vs Catamaran: Catamarans definitely have more space, but also cost a considerable amount more money, depending on the make, model and condition of the boat. 

We chose our 45-foot 1998 Hunter 450 Passage for our liveaboard sailboat. She has plenty of space for Scott, Mangaux and me, a good U-shaped galley layout, and a large aft cabin with a queen-size bed. 

We have found that it can get quite a bit rolly at anchorages in a monohull when there is a swell, which can make it challenging cooking or doing projects at anchor.

Once, when anchored in Malendure in Guadeloupe, it was particularly rolly that day and we had quite the challenge just raising our dinghy on our foredeck to store for our next passage. 

Otherwise, we are very happy with having a monohull while sailing between the islands, and having a great setup on our boat Pelagia to be able to handle both sails from within the cockpit.

6. Must-Have Gear and Set-Up for Off-Grid Living

Below is a list of items we find essential, or use daily, for living full-time on our boat.

Solar Power and a Good House Battery Bank

We heavily rely on our 900 watts of solar power to power our 594 ah AGM batteries. Typically (other than December/January when the days are much shorter) we can go a week or more without running our generator. 

We find ourselves running our generator more often to give it a good run, than out of necessity. We turn it into a “date night” and run the air conditioners, Starlink and find a good show or movie to watch on TV!

Watermaker and/or Good Water Storage

Our boat holds approximately 200 gallons of water, which is way more than enough for the 2 of us plus Mangaux. We average approximately 8.5 gallons per day of water usage.

We also have a 5 gph watermaker that runs on 12-volt that we use to keep our tanks topped up. Our only struggle with this setup is on cloudier days. Then, we don’t quite have enough solar power coming in to run the watermaker without having to run the generator that evening to boost up our batteries.

Reliable Marine Toilets

For our heads, we replaced one of our manual flush marine heads with a composting toilet. We still have one manual flush marine head with a 20-gallon holding tank.

We love the simplicity of our composting toilet, and don’t have to worry about a macerator pump breaking down, or clogged hoses not allowing our tank to empty out.

12V Refrigerator and Freezer

When we first bought Pelagia, the refrigerator and freezer ran on 110V power. We knew we were planning on spending a lot of time on anchor, so we converted the fridge and freezer to 12V power before we left. 

This has made a significant improvement for living on anchor, as our solar power can power our fridge and freezer, and we no longer need to run our generator twice a day to keep our food cold.

A Comfortable Sailboat for Daily Living

While not essential, things we love having on our boat include:

• Interior Standalone Shower and Transom Shower – I love being able to rinse off on the back of the boat. I also love our interior standalone shower for when I want to wash my hair, or when it’s cold or rainy outside. 
• Starlink allows us to have a great connection to the internet wherever we are. It is very nice being able to immediately connect to the internet to clear into countries that use SailClear or their own online system.
• Boat Subscriptions – We have several subscriptions that we use when sailing full-time. Some I consider essential, like our digital navigation charts and weather apps, while others are nice-to-have, like Starlink and Netflix.

7. Where to Live on a Sailboat

That is the beauty of living on a sailboat, you can live wherever the winds will take you! But, there are definitely things to consider.

Marinas vs. Anchoring

Before we quit our jobs and sailed away, we lived on our boat at a marina in Mobile, AL. We still had our cars, and needed to get to work easily. We had the convenience of unlimited power, water and the internet. It was a great transition from living on land to living on anchor.

The cost of marinas can vary greatly depending on the area you are looking at. After more than two years of sailing full-time, I still haven’t found a marina more economical than the Mobile Yacht Club. We paid $350 per month (including power, water and internet). 

By comparison, we stayed 4 months in Grenada at the Grenada Yacht Club (the most economical marina in Grenada), and paid approximately $800 per month (as Yacht Club members with a 10% discount), Our slip was around $534 per month, power was around $250 per month and water was approximately $20 per month. The internet was included, but was inconsistent.

Marinas offer the convenience of power, water, and instant access to land, among other varying amenities.

Anchoring in most areas (excluding national park service areas) is free. No Foreign Land is wonderful for finding great anchorages in the Caribbean!

I enjoy anchoring for being a bit spaced out (most of the time!) from your neighbors. However, daily tasks like dog walks, provisioning, laundry and other chores are a bit more cumbersome. 

8. Common Misconceptions About Living on a Sailboat

After living on a sailboat full-time for almost 4 years, let me clear up some common misconceptions about this lifestyle:

It’s Cheap!

While it can be more economical from time to time when living on anchor, there are always unexpected boat costs and fees. The cost associated with properly maintaining your boat can add up quickly.

It’s Relaxing!

Yes, it can be. It can also be quite stressful sailing through storm squalls, unexpected rough seas, or dealing with boat issues at sea. We also do several overnight passages, which can be exhausting.

You Can Sail Anywhere!

It takes a lot of research and planning before we just arrive in a new country, especially since we are sailing with a dog. 

Be sure to know how to clear in with Customs and Immigrations, ensure your boat registration and passports are up to date, and be prepared for clearance costs (that tend to change frequently).

Frequently Asked Questions about the Liveaboard Lifestyle

Is the Liveaboard Lifestyle Right for You?

There are a lot of things to consider before taking the dive to living aboard a boat full-time. Can you handle doing boat maintenance and repairs yourself? Are you ok with the weather determining your schedule? Are you able to be flexible and creative when unpredictable issues arise?

In addition to these things, you need to be able to drive your boat, know the Rules of the Road boating regulations, understand navigation charts, weather forecasts and passage planning – all of which you can learn!

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