Some interesting animal stuff, a cautionary tale, and something in the “greed and West marine” department…
It occurred to me that most all cruising destinations have become, shall we say, somewhat problematic. Or to put it another way, mere touristic shells of what made them places to sail to. Sadly, it’s mostly our fault and too many cruisers ignored island cultures and blindly distorted local economies opening to more tourism which led to even more economic distortion. The introduction of corporate bareboat companies and and cruising rallies added a turbo charged element to the mix and now most cruising destinations are more akin to Las Vegas than an island getaway. Made even worse because most tourism sucks money out of destinations rather than injecting it into the local economies.
Kind of a bummer that.
I’ve always been a proponent of using cruising guides as a way to avoid places rather than see them. My methodology is to go through a cruising guide and sail to anchorages off the beaten path rather than what’s currently considered hip. In the same vein, we might as well add any place with a rally or large bareboat fleets.
Which makes the whole cruising routes choice akin to higher math.
I mention all this simply because in perusing Cornells’s World Cruising Routes to make sense of our travels in the foreseeable future, it’s time to rethink all those places on various milk runs. A lot of those destinations no longer make sense for a nomad from a pariah nation.
Oh yeah, Thailand has just changed their Visa-free stays from sixty to thirty days…
Is it true that doing the trade wind route NORTH of the equator is like cruising back to the 1950s-60s? (with attendant prices?) Plus lots of USA territories there. Ending in Japan, which looks enticing cruising up its west side.
Well…
One can dream…
That said, it’s really hard to judge the costs of living as most people cruising are coy about the cost of things. As it happens Hawaii is a lot cheaper than the USVIs. The downside is that Hawaii is surprisingly boat unfriendly. Mexico to Hawaii, Hawaii to Japan and Japan to Alaska would make a very attractive voyage that’s always been on my want list.
A quick web search says that most Pacific (American Samoa and even Tahiti) Islands are less expensive than the USVI overall. If you do your homework and provision based on frugality one can get by fairly well.