the how

The topic of "How do you do this?" is a common discussion among both fellow cruisers and land dwellers. Every cruiser does it differently, and many are still figuring it out. We didn't have it all figured out when we began cruising in 2016, but we had enough savings to do it for a little while, and from there, we began hashing out a plan that would help us to sustain cruising as a way of life. Part of figuring it out, is finding out what other people do, how are they making it work.

Like I said, all cruisers are different, and nobody is doing it the same. It depends on many different variables -your income (can it be sustained while cruising), skill set, background, where you want to cruise, etc. We were fortunate enough to be able to purchase Secret Water with cash, so we don't have a boat payment. (I'd highly recommend that.) The truth is, it's a lot easier to live on less while cruising, but boat expenses are expensive (so are house expenses) so all that has to be accounted for. 

So here's our story.

While Chris taught in the classroom, he would run kid Minecrafter Camps in the summer for fun. He'd do one or two of them a summer, each one taking us to a destination that would essentially be our family vacation for that year. Once we began cruising, we thought that was the end of camps, but during our first summer on the boat down in La Paz, Mexico we got a call from our Bend, OR school. They wanted to know if we could come back. Since we were already planning to visit family in California for a couple of weeks, we said "yes" and added another week into our travel plans. 

After that camp concluded, we had a lot of decisions to make, this needed to either be our last camp, or it needed to be transformed into something larger. We knew running a for-profit business wouldn't be sustainable, taxes alone were a good reason,  but also it's difficult to get into schools that way. All of our previous camps had come to us, not the other way around.

So a non-profit was formed, we call it Woven Learning & Technology. As a non-profit, we have more opportunities to work with schools and the added benefits of accepting business donations. Another major benefit is that Chris is now an employee versus being self-employed. 

What this has meant for us. Since we are committed to running camps in the summer, it means that we have to cruise in an area of the world that is easy travel back and forth between the boat and the States. We've chosen to stay in the Northern Pacific, it's well timed with hurricane season and has affordable travel costs. During the year, we need internet, especially for our board meeting. We make sure we choose destinations that we can pick up wifi or use our cells, but we also make sure to fit in remote places where we're unplugged from the rest of the world as well.

If you want to help support our non-profit, consider supporting us through Amazon Smile. Each time you make a purchase, we get a small percentage. The only trick is, you need to make sure you're on 
smile.amazon.com, not just amazon.com.


Chris has also written two books, so there's also a bit of income from that.