Cruising vs Travelling
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Thu 9 Dec 2010 01:37
around outside the birds are just singing away. One of the cruisers left
early this morning heading north.
It is shaping up for a hot day, so I need to get things done early. The
lightening protection came off this morning, it has not been needed but that
is no issue better to safe than sorry.
The fish men go past coming in after a long night out, and the town is waking
up, time to find breakfast.
At breakfast I ran into a couple off a new boat who came in, they have just completed a 5 year circumnavigation and are heading back to Seattle to go back to work and play with new grandkids. But the discussion was great we talked about places as they had been to Australia Vanuatu and South Africa, we talked boating etc. But eventually the conversation moved to Travel vs. cruising, this has been an issue Tracy and I have been grappling with all year.
We eventually ended up at a definition of each and like us they have come to conclusion that they different and really cannot be combined unless you are doing islands. If you put your boat in a safe place for a while and travel, then it works.
Travel: is where you go out and explore, immerse and discover new places and cultures. (Very much what we did in South America, and have done extensively for years).
Cruising : Is where you travel and live by the boat and the boat is the center of your life style and it is the way of life, new places or different places or revisiting. But in most cases you only experience what is around you not the full country and culture.
They realized this 3 years into cruising and while they enjoyed their circumnavigation the best places for them where the island places like Cook Islands, Vanuatu etc where the boat and travel experienced combined, in the many other places like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, they feel like they only got to see such a small part of the country.
They lived for the lifestyle of the boat.
Now they would like do some travel without the boat.
Often you have this idea that the two can combine the happiest cruisers are those who live for the boat water lifestyle no matter where they, the location is just another setting for that lifestyle.
It was great to have the discussion and feel comfortable with the changes we making that we will still travel in Australia and world, and we will cruise the areas around where we live and up the coast, but we cruise for the lifestyle not to discover and experience new places.
Thought of the day.