Best places for quiet cheap living

[babyhauler]

Hello my idea is to get a sailboat, live on it. I want time, peace and quiet to write. I want cheap groceries and other supplies. I don't care about nightlife or touring around. I will go on land for some socializing with whoever is there, wherever it is?

Doing this on land in the USA is impossible due to insanity level inflation unless someone wants to give me cheap or free no drama place to crash. Plus food in the USA is very expensive. Plus I just want to try something different. I want to try living on a boat. I have seen lots of sailboats for sale under $20k that look like they could work perfectly for this.

Where are the best places for no drama, peaceful, cheap boat life? And should I be thinking about anchorage or a marina or what? And how cheaply can I do this? The cheaper I can make it the longer I have to write.

[Franziska]

You could try Tunisia, cost of living here is fairly low.

Weather is usually very nice.

Still you'd be confined to marinas. No free anchoring over longer periods over here.

People are very friendly in general, but be aware that they are quite critical towards the US. It's a Muslim country.



Be prepared to accept a lack of environmental consciousness too.

[Kettlewell]

IMHO if you want quiet, cheap living a sailboat is great, but mainly if you want to travel to lots of interesting places at the same time. If moving on frequently you can anchor out every night and pay nothing for that privilege, but if you are not a sailor to begin with living on a boat is not simple. You have to deal with maintenance, storms, regulations, hassles like having to find a place to do your laundry, walking to get groceries, etc. I don't recommend a boat unless you want to go boating!

[babyhauler]

Thanks Kettlewell. I do like the idea of being able to move my little home from place to place, if I get tired of one place or if it gets bad after I get there. Yes I do need to be sure to keep the boat chores to a minimum. I'm not a sailor yet, so for passages I could hire a crew who knows how to do sail to help me move the boat. Or practice around the area, get training, and read enough until I'm confident.

Walking to run errands is perfect for me. Also have folding bike and rollerblades if the host nation allows them.

Franziska marinas sound good as long as they are cheap. I would be very comfortable in a Muslim country, or any country really, as long as I am welcome there. I'm quite critical of the USA myself. If people in my host country criticize USA I'm likely to agree with them!

FYI I also have a liveaboard slip in the USA to anchor my residency for paperwork etc. Car is currently up for sale, plan is to use the proceeds to buy my first boat.

[Fore and Aft]

Babyhauler I will be interested to see what replys you get. Let me start by saying buying a $20,000 yacht is like buying a worn out car except worse. Everything is going to break or need replacing on it eventually. Not to mention you will need to remove the yacht from the water and apply new antifoul paint every 18 months or so. The words cheap and boat never belong in the same sentence unless you throw in the words feral and eyesore. Sure there's some smart cruisers that can do it. But they're a rare breed and definitely don't mind doing things the hard way to save money.
You're complaining about the price of food, thats world wide at the moment. But what ever country you end up in you're not going to eat cheaply like an American. You will have to adopt the local cuisine if you want to keep to a budget.
If all you want to do is write then surely travelling in a small van and squatting on the outskirts of small towns would work. Here in Queensland on my surveying tours l regularly pass a couple of vans that are parked in different locations on different days. No doubt they're living in them and just flying under the radar.
Cheers

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Babyhauler I will be interested to see what replys you get. Let me start by saying buying a $20,000 yacht is like buying a worn out car except worse. Everything is going to break or need replacing on it eventually. Not to mention you will need to remove the yacht from the water and apply new antifoul paint every 18 months or so. The words cheap and boat never belong in the same sentence unless you throw in the words feral and eyesore. Sure there's some smart cruisers that can do it. But they're a rare breed and definitely don't mind doing things the hard way to save money.
You're complaining about the price of food, thats world wide at the moment. But what ever country you end up in you're not going to eat cheaply like an American. You will have to adopt the local cuisine if you want to keep to a budget.
If all you want to do is write then surely travelling in a small van and squatting on the outskirts of small towns would work. Here in Queensland on my surveying tours l regularly pass a couple of vans that are parked in different locations on different days. No doubt they're living in them and just flying under the radar.
Cheers

What?

My $2,000 sailboat which I bought in 2011 is holding up pretty well.

I have replaced nothing structural not even the rigging or the thruhulls.

It's fiberglass so it will probably another 50 years. It's a 1974 Bristol 27.

As far as the antifouling, I do that every 4 years whether it needs it or not!

[babyhauler]

now this is inspiring! awesome story thomm225. This is what I'm looking for!

[babyhauler]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Babyhauler I will be interested to see what replys you get. Let me start by saying buying a $20,000 yacht is like buying a worn out car except worse. Everything is going to break or need replacing on it eventually...
Cheers

Now this is great advice sharing here.

Assuming I bought an old $20k "yacht" every year, and disposed of it at end of year, that would be an average expense of $1,667/month. About the same as renting a studio apartment. So if I got > 1 year out of it, had some fun, I'd be ahead.

Yeah I understand stuff on the boat will break and whatnot. And it can get soggy, cold or hot. Assuming I'm willing to have the entire boat shredded after 12 months, I may save some good equipment to move to the next cheap boat.

Also adapting to local food sounds awesome. Recently was in Saigon. Eating out endlessly and staying in hotels was much cheaper than basic living in the USA. I remember good pizza at Korean bakery was $1USD/slice. Also the local food was amazing, nutritious and even cheaper. Duck eggs, coconut, crocodile, interesting vegetables and whatnot. Really opened my eyes and led to the thoughts I'm having now of traveling or wandering constantly. What are other cool places I can go? I'm eager to learn about even more places.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by babyhauler

now this is inspiring! awesome story thomm225. This is what I'm looking for!

Nice.

If you aren't an expert on boats, you may want to select one from James Baldwin's list.

They can usually be had at a lower price, and they are usually very seaworthy.

He circumnavigated 2X on a Pearson Triton 28.

https://atomvoyages.com/planning/cla...ers-list-html/

https://atomvoyages.com/planning/cla...ers-list-html/

From the atomvoyages site:

A final word of advice to the novice sailor – resist the temptation to undertake a major refit and extensive modifications on your new old boat right at the start. It’s best to make only the obvious repairs needed and go out and sail locally and on some limited coastal passages to learn exactly what is and what is not needed for you. Otherwise you may end up spending years and many thousands of dollars more than expected modifying your boat and then find out on your first ocean crossing that the boat is not right for you or those great ideas you had during the refurbishment did not work out that well at sea.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by babyhauler

now this is inspiring!

What you also have to take into consideration is it's a weekender boat.. if you want to move around in more remote/cheaper areas you need a seaworthy boat and the cajones to match it.
Sailing weekends around Chesapeake Bay close to rescue services is one thing, travelling is something else.
But... having said that, BoatAlexander did circumnavigate on a $1000 very basic boat.
It all boils down to your comfort levels and risk tolerances.

[babyhauler]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Nice.

If you aren't an expert on boats, you may want to select one from James Baldwin's list... /B]

Reading atom voyages, awesome thoughts on that site.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by babyhauler

Thanks Kettlewell. I do like the idea of being able to move my little home from place to place, if I get tired of one place or if it gets bad after I get there. Yes I do need to be sure to keep the boat chores to a minimum. I'm not a sailor yet, so for passages I could hire a crew who knows how to do sail to help me move the boat. Or practice around the area, get training, and read enough until I'm confident.

Walking to run errands is perfect for me. Also have folding bike and rollerblades if the host nation allows them.

Franziska marinas sound good as long as they are cheap. I would be very comfortable in a Muslim country, or any country really, as long as I am welcome there. I'm quite critical of the USA myself. If people in my host country criticize USA I'm likely to agree with them!

FYI I also have a liveaboard slip in the USA to anchor my residency for paperwork etc. Car is currently up for sale, plan is to use the proceeds to buy my first boat.

Marinas in Tunisia are fairly cheap we got an annual (!!) quote of not even 1700$ for a berth for our 35ft cat.



If you get an immobilisation paper for the boat it can stay very long without the need to import it AFAIK. They don't seem to mind when you live on the boat under these circumstances as long as you don't leave port without getting the immobilisation formally lifted.


Not sure how long non Tunisian citizens can stay though without visa.

We are terminating a refit just now and head back to the EU, where we can cruise and live on the hook in definitely.



Thankfully there are still many free anchorages in the Mediterranean.



Regarding my comments towards them being critical towards the US, people are in the core very friendly over here. There are many US boats over here too.

[babyhauler]

Originally Posted by boatman61

What you also have to take into consideration is it's a weekender boat....

yeah my first boat which is still imaginary in my head, is already nicknamed "camper"

my marina lets me keep a boat and dinghy in the water in my slip if I want. So plan is to stick camper on there, and get a sailing dinghy first. Learn to sail the dinghy really well. Then take the camper boat out. Then maybe go out longer and longer each time slowly building skills and experience. Or have someone help me sail it someplace awesome to park, like Tunisia as mentioned above.

So back on the orig question, Tunisia so far is the only place recommended. What are other great places to go for quiet calm serene affordable life living in a cheap sailboat?

[Benz]

There's lots of places to live cheap on the hook or in a marina around the Western Caribbean and the Pacific coast of Central America. One difficulty to overcome is Visas--there's workarounds to limits of stay nearly everywhere, but sometimes you have to remove the boat from the country's waters and keep it out a certain amount of time before re-entry.
That said, Cartagena, Colombia, is a great and inexpensive city for a liveaboard. Panama has many places where people anchor for long periods--Linton, Portobello, Bocas, etc.
Rio Dulce, Guatemala, is another sort of place where once entered, some people find life too easy and have difficulty leaving.
Isla Mujeres, Mexico, is as good as it gets for easy living, though it's not what it was twenty five years ago before the big hotel.
South Florida, if you want to drift around with the other tarp-draped derelicts behind the Keys, is as far as some get, even though they could live far more comfortably on whatever vestigial income they have three days sail to the south in Mexico.

[babyhauler]

Thanks my list to checkout so far is: Tunisia; Western Caribbean; Pacific side of Central America; Cartagena, Columbia, Panama (Linton , Portobolle, Bocas); Rio Dulce Guatemala; Isla Mujeres Mexico & South Florida.

btw I'm fluent in Spanish.