I’ve Lived on a Sailboat Since 2016. Here’s What Owning Almost Nothing Feels Like.

Minimalist living on a sailboat is not a philosophy you adopt, it is a size limit you obey. A liveaboard boat has no closets, no chest of drawers and no garage, and anything left sitting out ends up on the cabin floor the first time you sail into a swell. So you keep what fits in a few lockers and one small cabinet, and you get rid of the rest.

I have been living that way since 2016, first on a 1972 CT-41 and now between that boat, a Nelson/Marek 46 and a Sprinter van, and I have not lived in a house since. This is the story of how I got rid of almost everything to move aboard, the five steps that worked, and what a decade of owning very little has taught me.

I first wrote this in 2017, in San Francisco, newly laid off from my job at KGO radio and about to move onto a 41-foot sailboat with my boyfriend, Tom. A year earlier we had lived in a car and a tent to pay off debt, which I thought was my first step into minimalism. The boat turned out to be a whole other level. I have kept the original story below because the feelings in it are still true, and I have added what changed.

Why does a sailboat force you into minimalist living?

A sailboat is a very small living space once you subtract what the boat itself needs. Tools, spare parts, cooking gear, life jackets, bedding and sails all claim lockers before a single personal item comes aboard. There are no huge closets, no place to display photos or knickknacks, and no cabinet deep enough to hide an endless supply of kitchen gadgets.

The sea makes the rule stricter than any apartment could. Anything sitting out gets thrown around the cabin during a bouncy passage, so what you own has to be small enough to tuck away and batten down. Our first boat had a 40-liter fridge and a handful of lockers. That is the entire storage budget for two adults, and it does not grow.

The upside is that the boat makes the decision for you. Nobody has to talk themselves into minimalism when the locker is full. You keep what you use, and the rest leaves. Every liveaboard I know arrived at the same place, and most of us wish we had known it sooner.

What did I actually get rid of to move aboard?

My plan in 2017 was simple: everything I kept had to fit in the trunk of my small car and one tiny cabinet on the boat. So I started going through the apartment, box by box.

Getting rid of stuff is not always easy. You may have memories attached to it. Maybe you paid a lot for it and feel guilty giving it away. Maybe it was a gift from someone you love. Maybe it is clothes you want to fit into again. There are a lot of barriers, and I am glad a sailboat forced me through them.

Slowly, I lost my emotional connection with Stuff, even Stuff I had hauled around for years. I do not need this, or this, or that, I would think as I chucked another item into the donation pile. I thought about each thing, what it meant to me and what role it played in my life. Without knowing it I was doing what Marie Kondo recommends in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and taking it to an extreme. By the end I was living with almost nothing, and it felt good.

What was left: a few bins of childhood mementos (two boxes of Breyer horses I could not bear to part with, two conga drums), and a couple of suitcases that lived in my car as my closet. Even looking at that photo, I felt I still had too much for a true minimalist. That is how far the boat had moved the line.

How did getting rid of everything feel?

Lighter, and not only in the obvious way. Stuff bogs us down. It clutters our energy, it ties us to one place, and it becomes a nag, a force, something to reckon with. Around that time I noticed the topic coming up at every party in Silicon Valley: does it bring you joy? The usual answer was no.

I do not think my stuff brings me joy on its own. What I kept is an accomplice to joy. Hiking boots and a backpack got me through the redwoods, the desert and 230 miles of the John Muir Trail. Slippers for ballet. A car to see friends and new places. The things earned their locker by being used.

Through giving up Stuff I gained freedom and independence, and a life that is uncluttered both visually and energetically. It felt like part of me had been hollowed out, ready to take in new experiences. That feeling has not faded.

How do you even start getting rid of stuff for boat life?

These are the five steps that worked for me, in the order I would do them again.

1. Start small

You do not have to get rid of everything at once. Pick one box a week, or one drawer in the bedroom, or one kitchen cabinet. This can be a long process, so do not overwhelm yourself trying to clear the whole house in a weekend.

2. Sell the valuable things online

If you own items of real value or paid a lot for them, sell them. Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and eBay all work, and selling locally means no shipping. Getting a little money back takes the sting out of letting an expensive thing go.

3. Give to a charity you believe in

Pick a charity you feel good about. My mom donated a lot of her things to her church, which passes clothes on to migrant workers. Knowing exactly where something is going makes it easier to hand over.

4. Let friends and family hold things for you

I gave some of my cast iron pots to my mom to look after. I did not know when or if I would want them back, but I knew she would use and love them. If you are not ready to give something up completely, let someone hold onto it for a while and see whether you ever miss it.

5. Drop the rest at Goodwill or the Salvation Army

Somewhere, someone needs your stuff more than you do, and it feels good to give it a second life. I still donate regularly, even though I hardly own anything now.

Why is living with less so liberating?

Getting rid of stuff pulls you out of the rat race. Once things lose their value, you stop trying to keep up with anyone or talk about what you have. There is more time to breathe, read and be outside. You notice small things and appreciate them instead of planning the next purchase.

It also changed how I buy. Before anything comes aboard now, I weigh what it costs and what it gives back, because I know exactly which locker it has to live in. There is so much we do not need, and it is hard to buck a consumer culture that says otherwise. But once you shake the shackles of stuff, you do not go back to wanting more.

What has a decade of living small taught me?

I wrote the original version of this article as a brand-new liveaboard. Since then Tom and I have lived in a Prius, a tent, a Chevy Astro, a Sprinter van and two sailboats, and the rules have not changed. If anything they have gotten simpler.

The one that matters most: when we buy something, we get rid of something. Neither of us owns much, and we do not shop for things unless we need them. Most of what we buy now is boat parts, which is its own kind of joke. That one-in, one-out habit is also a big part of how we afford this life.

The van taught me the same lesson the boat did. Neither a campervan nor a sailboat is luxurious, and both force you to live minimally, which I have come to think is part of the appeal. I have compared the two honestly in van life versus boat life, and on stuff they agree completely.

Living small with another person adds a rule of its own. In a space this size, clutter is not a personal quirk, it is the thing you argue about, so we keep gear to a minimum and give each other room. The couples I interviewed for how to live in a small space with your partner said the same thing.

And the boat keeps you honest about comfort. I once spent a night in a very expensive San Francisco hotel and ended up dragging blankets to the chaise lounge, because I missed my firm three inches of foam in the v-berth. You learn what you actually need, and it is less than you think. If you are packing for your first season aboard, start with the things you should never bring on a sailboat and the boat hacks that make a small cabin work.

I hope you get to feel this too, with or without a boat. The more you let go of, the more room there is for whatever comes next. If you are thinking about the boat part, here is what living on a boat is really like, and the five questions everyone asks first.

Frequently asked questions about minimalist living on a sailboat