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A Little Advice…Travel Around the World Without Flying (Two)

25 January 2010 View Comments

Michael Hodson from The Mobile Lawyer continues this week sharing first-hand tips about how to travel around the world without taking a single airplane. He has spent the last year on a ground-level RTW trip taking buses, trains, and ships in a desire to feel every step of his trip around the globe. This three part series covers all of the tips and information he has picked up on a year of flightless travel. Don’t forget to check out the first installment, traveling around the world without flying tips and come back next week for his final tips and thoughts!

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One’s Not the Loneliest Number: You Learn About Yourself

You are going to be traveling solo for most of your trip, unless you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse that is as dedicated to your quixotic quest as you. One of the joys of traveling is meeting people on the road that you get along with and then joining up to travel together for a while. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many people that are going to be traveling as ‘quickly’ as you are, so that backpacker tradition becomes a lot more difficult to manage. Your route is also going to be pretty linear and you obviously can’t just hop on a plane and jump over a few countries to hook up with some people you want to see.

For a time on this trip, I really wanted to meet up with a few people in Asia, but my times and locations were pretty set, given my freighter’s departure date and places I wanted to see in my limited time, and they couldn’t get away from their obligations (damn the real world) in the time and location window I had available. The bonus on this front is that you will know yourself better than you have ever imagined – a few hundred hours spent on buses, trains, and boats looking at the sights going by while in your own company tends one towards self-reflection.

It Costs More: Book on Freighters and Cargo Ships

It’s expensive. People’s initial reaction to my journey is usually a combination of “you never get to see enough of a place” and “well, at least it must be cheap to travel that way.” The former is true (though I am fine with it – this time). The latter is far from true.

The easiest way to do the oceanic crossings is by cargo freighter (if you catch the winds right, you might also be able to hitch a ride on a sailboat for a crossing – try www.findacrew.com to sort out possibilities on that front). There are a few travel agents that specialize in booking passages on freighters. I’ve primarily used Hamish Jamison (Hamish <at> freightertravel <dot>co.nz) – but you can do a google search and quickly come up with the 3 to 4 others who do the same thing. I understand you can also book directly with the shipping company, but I haven’t researched the logistics since all my passages have been booked already for this trip.

In any case, expect to pay approximately 100 Euros a day for passage on a freighter. Crossing the Atlantic is about a ten-day trip and crossing the Pacific is about double that. I added Australia and New Zealand to my trip, so there will be four total passages covering about forty days total. Do the math and you quickly realize that you can buy an entire round-the-world airline ticket with a dozen stops for just the freighter expense alone.

You then have to add the expense of traveling overland everywhere verses just hopping on a plane and getting there quickly. There have been plenty of legs of this trip that I’ve made via multiple buses or trains that would have cost a fraction of the price, if I’d flown on one of the many low-cost air carriers out there.

Join us next week for Michael’s final imparting of information and tips on flightless round the world travel! And don’t forget his previous flightless travel tips last week!

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Michael Hodson is, or was, a lawyer in Northwest Arkansas who decided to take a year off and travel around the world with two rules: no reservations and no airplanes. He’s kept up the 2^nd half of the promise and only slightly fallen short on the 1^st half. His blog is at www.mobilelawyer.blogspot.com

Previous Guest Post we love:
An Unexpected Stop in the Sudan with ThePlanetD

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Brian

The cargo ship method I think is a really different way to cross continents. Talk about time to sit and reflect, not much else to do when you're out to sea for 10 or more days.

Considering you have a place to stay while you're being transported, if you ran the numbers for your particular Round The World trip, it may make perfect economic sense.
ShannonOD

That's a pretty good point Brian - 10 days on a cargo ship after living on
budget in the UK might not seem that expensive...but thinking it would be be
a shock after a budget of 15-20 $s a day :-) Still loving the
eco-friendliness of it though..and the reflection time you mentioned -
Outside of my 10 day meditation course I never had a detox period from
technology and it all - ship might be nice :-)
ShannonOD

That's a pretty good point Brian - 10 days on a cargo ship after living on
budget in the UK might not seem that expensive...but thinking it would be be
a shock after a budget of 15-20 $s a day :-) Still loving the
eco-friendliness of it though..and the reflection time you mentioned -
Outside of my 10 day meditation course I never had a detox period from
technology and it all - ship might be nice :-)
Brian Peters

The cargo ship method I think is a really different way to cross continents. Talk about time to sit and reflect, not much else to do when you're out to sea for 10 or more days.

Considering you have a place to stay while you're being transported, if you ran the numbers for your particular Round The World trip, it may make perfect economic sense.
mobilelawyer

I'd be curious if you actually could walk up and do the longer frieghter trips I've been doing. Sounds like your were more Med ferry type ships. The one's I've been on require a lot of advance planning (unfortunately). They have very few berths on board. Most of them are fully booked months in advance. They need things like copies of your medical insurance and immunization sheets and such - not the kind of thing you can do right there. That is what I was hoping for at the beginning of my trip, but I got educated on that not being possible pretty early on. Thanks for following -- I'm a reader of your blog also. Michael
ShannonOD

You are most welcome! We have one more installment next week with the final
few tips and thoughts from Michael - he certainly has inspired me to look at
this as a viable way to travel (at least between the smaller distances...20
days on a cargo ship is a bit long for me...) :-)
Nomadic Chick

I long to travel by freighter or cargo ship, it's sad that it's so expensive. In this case, flashing a cute smile won't get me a free ride. Thanks for the guest post Shannon, it was very informative.
ShannonOD

You are most welcome! We have one more installment next week with the final
few tips and thoughts from Michael - he certainly has inspired me to look at
this as a viable way to travel (at least between the smaller distances...20
days on a cargo ship is a bit long for me...) :-)
Nomadic Chick

I long to travel by freighter or cargo ship, it's sad that it's so expensive. In this case, flashing a cute smile won't get me a free ride. Thanks for the guest post Shannon, it was very informative.
ShannonOD

This type of transport is really quite new to me - I did a couple of ferries
on my past trip, but never really considered that cargo and freighter travel
were even viable options. In that way, it's really neat to see that you and
your family have traveled really extensively using this type of sea travel -
I honestly wouldn't have thought it that easy!

As for the mass transit - I quickly discovered that bikes and trains and
walking are such incredibly immersive ways to travel - it's just to quick,
easy, and sanitized if you take a flight all of the time - much better to
really dive into the experience. Thanks for sharing all of these alternative
travel options that you and your family use :-)
ShannonOD

I think it would be worth experiencing for sure. I have to admit that it
never really crossed my mind much that freighter and cargo travel were a
viable option until Michael really laid it out and I started following his
journey :-) I have no doubt though that you guys will find an opportunity
eventually, you and Dan are on such an incredible journey :-)
soultravelers3

We've actually have saved money by traveling by cargo ship and it's one of our favorite ways to travel! I'm not sure I would like it or the cost for 20 straight days, but we actually first thought we would start our trip going west from SF on freighter as a long way to get to Europe. Our child was just 5 and they won't take kids that young, so we went to plan B and stayed our first night on a boat in the center of Amsterdam.

We never make reservations either as we like to follow our bliss, and we like to go slow. We're so comfy with ports now, that we don't even usually book ahead with cargo ships or country to country freighter ferries.

We just show up a few hours before they leave and buy our tickets. After taking ships from Barcelona to Rome, Venice to Athens, Spain to Morocco, UK to Sweden,Italy to Croatia, France to Ireland, Rhodes to Turkey, Genoa to Barcelona,Melk to Krems and all over the Greek Islands the slow way, our pun loving kid considers herself, the "ferry queen".

We travel overland by every type of transportation, but in truth more walking, biking and mass transit than anything. One doesn't need a plane to see the world ( we went to 29 countries/4 continents on just 1 plane ride in our 1st 2 1/2 years). Their is something wonderful about walking the land, arriving by boat to a grand city, taking trains and buses with locals, road trips via small RV or car, but I wouldn't want to totally eliminate planes either, even though they are my least fave way to travel.

Fun to hear someone else talking about freighters. It's a fab way to travel that most people miss.
Michael Hodson

I'd be curious if you actually could walk up and do the longer frieghter trips I've been doing. Sounds like your were more Med ferry type ships. The one's I've been on require a lot of advance planning (unfortunately). They have very few berths on board. Most of them are fully booked months in advance. They need things like copies of your medical insurance and immunization sheets and such - not the kind of thing you can do right there. That is what I was hoping for at the beginning of my trip, but I got educated on that not being possible pretty early on. Thanks for following -- I'm a reader of your blog also. Michael
ShannonOD

This type of transport is really quite new to me - I did a couple of ferries
on my past trip, but never really considered that cargo and freighter travel
were even viable options. In that way, it's really neat to see that you and
your family have traveled really extensively using this type of sea travel -
I honestly wouldn't have thought it that easy!

As for the mass transit - I quickly discovered that bikes and trains and
walking are such incredibly immersive ways to travel - it's just to quick,
easy, and sanitized if you take a flight all of the time - much better to
really dive into the experience. Thanks for sharing all of these alternative
travel options that you and your family use :-)
soultravelers3

We've actually have saved money by traveling by cargo ship and it's one of our favorite ways to travel! I'm not sure I would like it or the cost for 20 straight days, but we actually first thought we would start our trip going west from SF on freighter as a long way to get to Europe. Our child was just 5 and they won't take kids that young, so we went to plan B and stayed our first night on a boat in the center of Amsterdam.

We never make reservations either as we like to follow our bliss, and we like to go slow. We're so comfy with ports now, that we don't even usually book ahead with cargo ships or country to country freighter ferries.

We just show up a few hours before they leave and buy our tickets. After taking ships from Barcelona to Rome, Venice to Athens, Spain to Morocco, UK to Sweden,Italy to Croatia, France to Ireland, Rhodes to Turkey, Genoa to Barcelona,Melk to Krems and all over the Greek Islands the slow way, our pun loving kid considers herself, the "ferry queen".

We travel overland by every type of transportation, but in truth more walking, biking and mass transit than anything. One doesn't need a plane to see the world ( we went to 29 countries/4 continents on just 1 plane ride in our 1st 2 1/2 years). Their is something wonderful about walking the land, arriving by boat to a grand city, taking trains and buses with locals, road trips via small RV or car, but I wouldn't want to totally eliminate planes either, even though they are my least fave way to travel.

Fun to hear someone else talking about freighters. It's a fab way to travel that most people miss.
Audrey

My husband and I definitely appreciate land travel and travel mostly by bus/train, but have yet to travel by sea. We made an attempt in 2008 to go from Europe to New York city by cargo ship, but we were too late to get a spot (so we flew instead). I do hope we find a way to travel by freighter or cargo ship before we end this trip. Thanks for the advice!
ShannonOD

I think it would be worth experiencing for sure. I have to admit that it
never really crossed my mind much that freighter and cargo travel were a
viable option until Michael really laid it out and I started following his
journey :-) I have no doubt though that you guys will find an opportunity
eventually, you and Dan are on such an incredible journey :-)
Audrey

My husband and I definitely appreciate land travel and travel mostly by bus/train, but have yet to travel by sea. We made an attempt in 2008 to go from Europe to New York city by cargo ship, but we were too late to get a spot (so we flew instead). I do hope we find a way to travel by freighter or cargo ship before we end this trip. Thanks for the advice!