The Container Ship Tourism Industry

I must admit that I&#x27;ve researched this on-and-off for years. Surprisingly, it&#x27;s reasonably expensive (ie. not inexpensive). That said, the reviews I&#x27;ve read have been nearly universally positive: as the article notes, the crews love interesting company (they spend months on the boat painting from stem-to-stern and you&#x27;re naturally inclined to discuss the outside world and not-painting-bulkheads).<p>Boredom: if you step onto a container ship as a guest without at least a month of &quot;work&quot; to do, you&#x27;re to blame. I admit, I&#x27;m uncertain of bandwidth and such; but there is <i>some</i>. Download sources before boarding! And I ain&#x27;t much of a writer, but I might take a whack at writing the Great American [short story] during the journey so that I wasn&#x27;t bored. Point is: riding a largely automated ship for 2-14 days without a plan is nearly the definition of boredom; plan against boredom!<p>Having taught myself Ruby on Rails while cruising in Alaska 8 years ago, learning without the internet can be pretty blissful. Just make sure you download the sources first! [Yes, Ruby doesn&#x27;t need that. I&#x27;m looking to learn Rust...]<p>EDIT: I have no affiliate relationship, but this (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freightercruises.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freightercruises.com&#x2F;</a>) seems pretty solid (e.g. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freightercruises.com&#x2F;seaworthy_news_1310.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freightercruises.com&#x2F;seaworthy_news_1310.php</a>).

I actually did this, back in 2004 when I was obsessed with &quot;traveling authentically.&quot; I sailed from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Cork, Ireland. It took two weeks. I was surprised at how quickly the boredom set in, as there is really nothing whatsoever to do on a boat like this once you&#x27;ve read and watched the few decent books&#x2F;movies on board. The only scenery that changes on the open ocean is the clouds.<p>It was cool to interact with the crew but also strange and somewhat depressing as the life of a sailor is really not that great. The average crewman is from a very poor country and they are at sea for most of the year to support families back home that they only get to see for a few months.

Lots world wide could be fitted with a standard socket so that your container house could be (1) taken from the ship, (2) put on a truck, (3) fitted on to a lot.<p>Sockets could be stacked to create medium density housing. You could relocate your house to any city on earth with the right socket.

&gt; the typical cost is about $120 a day<p>I don&#x27;t want to discourage anyone from traveling on container ships. It sounds like fun to me. Please be aware that some cruiseship travel can cost less (much less?) than $120 a day, and they make your bed everyday amongst many other amenities.

Also recommended if you find the idea intriguing, a long-form narrative article on the subject from last year: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;roadsandkingdoms.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;slow-boat-from-china&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;roadsandkingdoms.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;slow-boat-from-china&#x2F;</a>

I spent 6 years traveling full time from 2008-2014. One of the things that I really liked about the way we did it is that there was not tourism involved... we lived in each country as long as a visa would allow. For instance, in Bath UK we got a basement condo in an ancient methodist church that had just been converted to condos for 6 months.<p>This form of travel- on container ships- will show you a side of the world, the shipping industry, the people who work in it, working ports, etc that you&#x27;ll never see on a cruise ship. The accommodations and value is probably not competitive with a cruise ship, but the experience is not going to be similar at all.<p>We spent 2 years in Chile, starting with Startup Chile-- but it really got good when we started making friends with locals.<p>Tourism is a totally different experience from travel!

I crossed the Pacific on a cargo ship last year, 26 days from Japan to Peru, as part of a 3.5-year trip around the world without flying.<p>I made a video about my cargo ship experience here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uj9yA7KjIuw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uj9yA7KjIuw</a><p>A few quick points:<p>1. Yes, it is very expensive to travel by cargo ship. It cost me about $4,500 total. I&#x27;m glad I did it as it was a cool experience, but given the cost I&#x27;d be hesitant to do it again.<p>2. Why is it so expensive? Best I can tell, because the cargo ship companies don&#x27;t care. Taking passengers isn&#x27;t their primary business. They&#x27;re transporting multi-million dollar cargoes, so they probably figure that if they&#x27;re going to take the odd passenger, they might as well charge a high price to make it worth their while.<p>3. For anyone interested in how to go about booking a trip on a cargo ship, I explain how I did it and provide a few links here: www.ndoherty.com&#x2F;cargo-ship-2&#x2F;<p>4. Perhaps the craziest thing for me was the lack of security on the ship. My bags were never checked at the port in Japan and the captain told me the door code for the bridge within an hour of boarding the vessel. The bag check when I got off the ship in Peru was also half-assed at best.

I am <i>extremely</i> intrigued. A few weeks of mostly solitude wherein I can see a few interesting sights, meet a few interesting people, and the whole thing is extremely affordable? This sounds right up my alley. Now, to convince my wife and family…

A fun little trip on a related note is the Alaska Ferry (Alaska Marine Highway I think) which leaves Seattle (well, suburb) and spends about 4 days heading up to Alaska. You can sleep on the deck with a sleeping bag (or in a little heated patio) for real cheap and get great views with chances of whales. Cost is similar per day.<p>Cool little blog link: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jackandjilltravel.com&#x2F;roughing-it-on-the-alaskan-state-ferry&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jackandjilltravel.com&#x2F;roughing-it-on-the-alaskan-stat...</a>

And if you want a bit more luxury and want to be paid for it, cruise ships are hiring IT staff all the time. You could be incredibly under paid but still see the world.

A very interesting concept. I like the sea but hate cruising. For me, a cruise is basically a hotel pushed into international waters (or some other legal fiction) for purposes of cheap labour. But a freighter seems a different matter. I&#x27;m not saying that they pay people well, but at least taking care of me won&#x27;t be their primary job. A freighter has a job, it has a purpose for going somewhere beyond labour laws.<p>And I&#x27;d bet good money there is far less risk of norovirus on an freighter than on the floating retirement communities that are modern cruising.

Does it support Docker?

My uncle did a few cruises around the world on cargo ships, it always seemed like a great way to see the world on the relative cheap. Of course, he was a retired, single, Army officer, so taking the months such a voyage required was more practical for him than most.