It was about 7pm on Sunday when we realized that we wouldn’t make it to our storage building in Portland in time to add our remaining boxes to our long-term storage before they closed on Sunday, and would not reopen until after our flight left on Monday. At that point in time I should have realized this trip was going to be harder than it had played out in my head. You see, at this time, we were already exhausted. We were literally throwing stuff in the garbage, giving it away, and making a mad dash to get moved out in time. We didn’t get it all done, but thanks to help from some great friends ..read more

This is less of an instructional post than a cry for help. We are nearly at the end of our landlubber life, and I mean days away from being done. And I look around and see stuff everywhere. I’m overwhelmed, and not sure how we make it out of here on time – assuming our flight isn’t canceled due to Omicron, which is currently surging. The amount of obstacles we have had to overcome to make it this far is nothing short of astounding, so what’s one more? Clearly we will not be deterred. Not by stuff, not by Omicron. And if you’re wondering what it takes to sail away from it all, its this thing ca ..read more

I recently attended a virtual class geared towards families who dream of selling it all and sailing away. After the information about the cost of the sailing lifestyle was given, there were complaints from attendees who claimed the instructor was “out of touch” with the average joe. A lot of complaints. Here’s my message to the average joe who wants to sail away, but can’t afford it: ​Average Joe, listen up. If you want an extraordinary life, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices. Start with these two: Decide to succeed.  Downgrade every expenditure in your budget while you u ..read more

This post documents the steps we took through the arduous process of financing and insuring our sailing vessel. Finding the Boat It all began when I saw a post in the FB group “Catamarans For Sale by Owner – Worldwide” by our seller, and reached out to him via FB messenger asking for more details. The seller sent me an email the same day with two videos and several pictures of the boat, along with some details. After reviewing the information, images, and video of the boat we decided it was exactly what we were looking for. It was a larger boat than we thought we would be able to afford. Altho ..read more

There are moments of hesitation. There are moments when fear hits me like a rogue wave, and I think, what the hell am I doing? Its when I think about going into work and handing my resignation letter to my boss, and effectively walking away from a hefty six figure job, a generous profit share, and health benefits that could turn into a lifesaver overnight.  How did we get here? As we tumble ever faster and closer to that moment, THAT day, I get emotional thinking about it. Many long years in the making. Years when all I had was a patchy blanket of belief to hold onto, and a neve ..read more

Going on an extended adventure and leaving behind our normal daily life is what I’ve wanted for the past eight years. Before I was married, when I was still a single Mom. Long before we took our first sailing lesson on Lake Pleasant in Phoenix, AZ. When I had no inkling that I would marry my husband and have two more precious babies (so late in life), I decided that my dream was to buy a sailboat and travel around the world. Why would such a drastic change in lifestyle appeal to a struggling, single Mom? Dreaming of sailing away was my escape from the trials of life for years. But over time, i ..read more

I’m not going to lie – I have spent probably hundreds of hours slicing and dicing numbers, trying to figure out how much money we need to save up for our sailing lifestyle. For us, the plan is to spend 3 years on the sailboat. But let’s be honest – we would love to keep the door open to sailing for as long as we want. Maybe that means 1 year, maybe 5. Its hard to say before we get out there. If we waited to save up enough to sail indefinitely, we’d never go. So we had to come up with a realistic timeframe and budget to make it happen. In this post I’m going to share specific financial calculat ..read more

We listed the house for sale last week. Mind you, we listed it for $239k more than we paid for it 2 years ago. Never did we expect an offer for $26k more than that! I guess it was our lucky day… Our very first house viewers came on a Saturday, the only scheduled tour for the day. They turned out to be investors, and surprisingly, made us a cash offer $26k more than our list price and we accepted. We didn’t even make it to the open house on Sunday! That left us scrambling to find a place to live. With 17 days to close on the house, we pick up keys for our new townhouse rental today. The place i ..read more

Greetings, future readers. Hopefully by the time you find this post, the crew of MARS will be blissfully sailing the seven seas. But today, we live in Bend, OR and work full-time jobs while preparing for our future Life on MARS. This week, we take a huge step towards that future. We’ve decided to list our home for sale! The profits from our house, plus savings, plus future savings equals our sailing budget. The idea is to take a few years off from “real life” and spend uninterrupted time with our young children (Lizzie, 4; Maddox, 3). We will have grand adventures and learn many lessons. We wi ..read more