living on the narrow boat can be truly magical
in this video we are going to share with you why we'll love it
hi everyone and welcome to the 20 best things about living on an arrow boat featuring
yours one and truly miles marina from our perspective it was a continuous
cruiser living on the boat for two and a half years terms and conditions may apply
other experiences may differ not in any particular order
first in at number 20 is traveling so being able to travel without having to leave your home
so traveling at three miles an hour through the english countryside and getting staying loads a
different towns and different counties yeah it's amazing and it's a really unique experience to
see the uk or england from that perspective so traveling in your pajamas
the next one is the sense of community when we moved on to the boat we knew that there
is a very tight boating community where we were in london first and then finding that it's actually
everywhere around the country so living on a boat is wonderful for meeting new people and meeting
like-minded people and also getting to know people from completely different areas of life
places in the country there is also um this sense of camaraderie because baiting is not
the easiest lifestyle so everyone knows the challenges that we all go through so
so many people are incredibly helpful if you need anything
often people can just knock on your door or like you we can ask neighbors even if we never
met them before so yeah a writing community is wonderful and incredibly resourceful and helpful
and in at number 18 being close to nature living on a boat you get to experience all four seasons
look out your window and see nature in all of its abundant glory so yeah
being close to nature on the boat closer than you think i'm a hay bale hugger marina hugs trees
another great thing about living on a boat is not having to rent so we own alba so we don't have to
rent and that's like the most amazing feeling not having to pay rent we're still paying a loan for
it but it's nothing like we would have paid rent in london where we used to live and apart from
rent also is amazing not to have to househair i lived in london for 10 years in a shared house and
miles lived in leeds for 10 years as well sharing the house so being able to have our own kitchen
our own bathrooms and just make our space the way we want it is absolutely amazing so next up
is being nomadic and being able to choose your neighbors mooring with friends
just setting off when you want to you know if you want a new spot or whatever and also if you don't
like your neighbors although that's not happened to us often although some people are probably left
as just being able to have a different view every day you know wake up one morning
don't like the spot anymore just head off into the sun set and you know the canal is your oyster
so another benefit of living on the boat is being able to experience the elements obviously we live
in water so that's one of the elements that we're very exposed to and it's amazing to be able to
feel the boat rocking and sleeping and knowing that there is water underneath your
home fire is something that we have every winter most bridges we have a wood burning stove
and that's something we interact on the daily basis in fact we make sure that the fire is on
24 hours a day it's quite unusual for many people to be so close to the fire especially
in our modern society but this fire is something that we get to experience um every day in winter
and then even earth the feeling that we get when we moor up somewhere after cruising for a while
and finding a place to stay for a couple of weeks and explore the area i feel is really special and
kind of give us an extra perspective and gratitude for the new places that we explore next up is the
feeling of an endless summer so swimming in the river paddle boarding rowing running away from
cows and sheep barbecuing fire pitting hay bale balancing it's all in there hello little one
i can see you you're so cute
why is it stuck i don't think so i think he's just a little bit scared of us
being so close to nature as we are right now meet peter the possum
your little face little face
another great thing about living on the boat is learning new skills we live off grid so there is
always an opportunity to learn something new when things go wrong and sometimes certain
tasks seem unachievable like performing engine service or installing a water pump by ourselves
but once we do it it kind of yeah gives that sense of achievement and grows our confidence
which is just fantastic and it's a really really great skill to have we've been able to
build a door and lay a laminate floor built window frames a few other bits tiling it is a bit tiling
yeah getting a bit handy being on a boat learning new skills and what have you another great thing
is opportunity to practice gratitude for little things sometimes there are challenging situations
on the boat when we might run out of water cold or certain things don't go according to plan
and when that is resolved eventually everything gets resolved the feeling that you get when you
suddenly have water when you're warm when you have everything you need is just fantastic and
we will never we will never take running water and heating or electricity for granted after living on
the boat for all this time it really really gives us an opportunity to be grateful for little things
the ability to watch sunsets every day
if that's not enough starry skies not every day some days we've seen some epic sunsets haven't we
oxford seem to have great sunsets every day well this one's not too
bad either and yeah we get to see a lot of starry nights and we've got an app as well
that tells us what we're looking at so we can see like jupiter and venus
after living on a boat for all this time i feel that winter is is a very special experience
we have a wood burning stove so every day we got a fire going to keep us warm
and sitting in winter when especially when everything is frozen outside
and sitting on a boat by the wood burner is just a very unique and wonderful experience
i know some people would rent an airbnb with specifically with the wood burner
just to have that experience but we get to do it every day and it's pretty much cool
so another one of the things i love about living on a boat is being able to cruise
and having those cruising weekends on the thames you cruise fairly often you know some evenings
after work and weekends we don't sort of wait two weeks unless we're in an amazing spot obviously
but yeah just being able to cruise and going out for cruises taking friends with us teaching them
literally the ropes um and yeah it's all good fun and being out and about on the boat so when
we're on the canals and move every two weeks actually look forward to taking the boat out
living on a boat is living in a small space so both of us had to downsize when we moved in
together on alba but for us it's a positive thing because it's an opportunity to have less stuff
worry less about things have simplify life have less clothes less kitchen gadgets just have what
we need exactly and actually we don't need much at all um we don't have anything stored outside
our boat everything we own is on alba and having small amount of stuff is actually quite liberating
living on a narrowboat is a great opportunity to practice non-attachment
there is just no way to plan anything living on a boat plans always always change and that's
that's a thing that doesn't change is that the plans change and you've got to be okay with that
um also neighbors always change even if you make friends for some time uh we'll cruise in different
directions and end on a different schedule weather changes views change you know so many
things change sometimes you have solar sometimes you don't sometimes you're close to the shops and
sometimes you're really really far away so all of that all this variety is what we signed up for
and it it is a great opportunity to practice not being attached to certain places people or things
changing the subject what's for dinner cabbage and we can change that so living on a narrow
boat does give you a great opportunity to have a city and country life balance where
sometimes you're in the middle of nowhere like we are right now most of the time in our case
but other times when you could be in the middle of town um in the middle of the hustle and bustle we
lived in london for a year um but also we've been to henley and places like that so you can really
get in the center of a town and get a feel for the town as well as really experience the wild
of the outdoors and nature and gets it from a really unique perspective as well living on a
narrow boat and cruising around the country gives us an opportunity to see many animals and birds
we've seen so many interesting species and been able to witness animals really really up close in
their natural environment which is just amazing i once seen a beaver an otter and a huge variety of
birds and we also yes we also saved a few we once saved a bat that was um ended up on our boat and
we managed to save it uh we saved kind of help to save a cow saved a goose a canadian goose um
we didn't save it to be we have attempted to save it and we did our best so yeah that's one of the
benefits another great reason for living on a narrowboat or some people's reason potentially
for living on a narrowboat is that it's very accessible and you can save a lot of money living
on a narrow boat and if you want you can also spend a lot of money living on a narrowboat as
well being realistic it's probably cheaper or as cheap as living in a small house so you know it's
very accessible boats of sort of different size and different usage boaters of all budgets can
enjoy another amazing thing about living on a boat is that this lifestyle exposed us to incredible
extraordinary life experiences talking about being at the right place at the right time things we've
seen people have met it could be like small things could be big things for example a few months ago
we saw an owl carrying a mouse in its paws i guess and claws right against the sunset i thought that
was like the most beautiful thing many times we woke up with um cows licking our boat and licking
our windows at four o'clock in the morning that was on the towns rescuing unpinned narrowboats
that some kids had unpinned rescue narrowboats rescuing animals as i mentioned rescuing ourselves
yeah being in tricky situations rescuing ourselves or meeting amazing people meeting jane uh the lady
who was a volunteer for a bat society in london and she knew all about the boats and about the
bats and she nothing about boats no she saved the bat that we rescued and yeah that was such an
amazing experience um just people we met a couple who sailed around the world with four children
yeah we just get to meet so many wonderful people with amazing life stories i think that's priceless
so another great thing about narrowboating is just how accessible it is so anyone of
any age any boating experience or lack of it yeah it's just really accessible it's a
really great way to sort of get out there and be on the water and you know have some really
wholesome memories whatever form you're doing yes and you don't have to do you don't have to
learn a skill and have a qualification to you don't have plenty of them to learn yes but you
don't have to you don't have to because you can just hire an arabic for a weekend without
any experience and you can get a narrowboat at any age loads of retired people do it because
you don't have to have specific um skill to to own a boat no and you can do it solo as well yeah yeah
loads of people do it solo yeah so yeah get a boat see on the water and that's a wrap yeah living on
a boat is great there's many great things there's loads of challenges ahead i think we're always
i think we're always very mindful if this is just a period this is a very unique period of our lives
and we are very aware of that and we try and enjoy every minute of it and be like being being aware
that it might come to an end at any point and also our journey was quite unusual we spent the first
year on the boat in london working in london and thinking that that's all we are going to
experience boating-wise we didn't even imagine that we will be able to work online and travel
and travel and see the countryside and see other canals we've been on the grand union on the oxford
we've done terms ken and evan canal and everywhere we go it's just a new world and it's just so
special and so beautiful and we understand how how amazing it is for us to have this experience
we got the boat in you know we spent the first year in london and then when pandemic happened
we were able to start working from home from alba and this way we just set off
and you know and we saw places we never thought we were going to see from the comfort of our home
we hope you found this video useful and let us know if you can resonate with any of the points
what's your best reason for living on a narrow boat whether you live on a narrowboat
or whether it was one of these let us know thanks so much guys see you in the next one
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