Early Retirement Extreme Forums

That article I remembered was from AOM ... https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles ... hter-ship/

Living aboard a cruise ship isn't ERE level, maybe MMM or in between depending on how willing you are to chase the best deal. I was only pointing out that it's not a bad lifestyle for someone who's only looking for small living accommodations with access to healthy food, internet, a gym, fresh air, and amazing travel opportunities. It would be pretty cheap for someone who only cruised during low and shoulder season and did something else the rest of year.

I found this account of cargo ship travel in my old bookmarks ... http://freightertrip.blogspot.com

@Jason - Thanks to modern techmology, ships now require less crew and that leaves some former officer/crew cabin space on older cargo ships optionally open for passengers for extra profit. Former officer accommodations, which is mostly what's advertised by booking agents, look pretty damn good to me: Think 1bd/1ba apartments, compared to standard fare on a regular consumer boat. You'd eat with the entire crew (of some 10-15 people). Since you're the only passenger---maybe there's one-two other passengers---everybody else would be the officers and the crew. You'd probably spend most of the time in your own company and maybe the crew's if they'll indulge you.

https://www.freighterexpeditions.com.au ... cargo-ship

Tl;dr - Lots of reading. Water, water, everywhere ... that kind of poetic ... aaagh. No seriously, this sounds way more appealing to this introvert than a regular cruise ship that's full of "fun" but mostly remains in shallow waters, literally and figuratively.

jacob wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:50 pm

Similarly, modern cruise ships are more like floating hotels than [human] transport ships per se.

Another option: One could check into a long term stay hotel (or a casino?) and get free breakfast and cleaning without the sea-action.

When we moved to Chicago we spent a week in a LT-stay hotel/motel while searching for an apartment ... and there were retirees [there] paying for the convenience of not dealing with cleaning, some food, laundry, ... basically treating it like a cruise line w/o the pool parties.

David Foster Wallace's take on cruise ships, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. So funny.

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... 007859.pdf

@SH - Ahh, it's the Infinite Jest version of:

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

This is why when it comes to generic tennis-stuff, I prefer this to that. I get the meta-jest, but the life-energy price of that lesson is too steep for my strategy. It's kinda like the difference between reading War&Peace vs absorbing a few pithy quotes about human conflict/strategic management from WWII generals #efficiency Kinda goes back to my first memory of openly challenging my litt. teacher's authoritay ... although it wasn't very impressive compared to what kids are doing these days.

So amongst the many things I am learning in this discussion, the sailor's knot of genius we call JLF would prefer to spend his days in the bottom of a cargo ship reading an autobiographical account of an actual lounge singer who looks like he botoxes his own asshole and sailed the seven seas singing the love theme from Dirty Dancing to a revolving cast of over weight, viagra packing, second honeymooners than on a cruise ship reading one of the most acclaimed works of fiction written in the last fifty years about a fictional lounge singer who becomes President. Maybe this phenomenon requires its own thread to flush out because it's beyond my comprehension at this moment.

I met a guy who retired to Atlantic City because he gambles. He put his son in charge of the business so he would still have cash flow. It made me think of that PBS documentary The Retirement Gamble.

It's well understood that hell is [mostly] other people at breakfast.

Also at any other time.

I act accordingly.

Aye, aye, Captain.

sport ships per se.
Another option: One could check into a long term stay hotel (or a casino?) and get free breakfast and cleaning without the sea-action.

I decided a while back that I’d like to live at the Homewood Suites or similar. You get a nice comfy room with a sitting area and a kitchenette. Breakfast is included every day. Drinks (wine or beer) for a brief happy hour every weeknight. Monday-Thursday a simple but serviceable dinner is available. Cleaning service, sheet changes, etc. All included in the room price. Plus—for additional amounts you can leave a list and they’ll shop for you and stock your kitchen.

I actually met a lady briefly in the lobby one time who was doing just that. She had what appeared to be the workd’s oldest dog with her. She essentially lived at the hotel when she wasn’t visiting her kids or traveling.

At about $120 a night, it doesn’t seem like a bad deal to me, and I bet you could negotiate a lower rate for longer stays.

Florida is still suffering from having over built retirement communities. I check the listings. Many of the "communities" are really just hotels with some some organized activities, like dancing when dancing has become a barely perceptible wrist shake or synchronized swimming which means an organized 360 with half the people going in the wrong direction. I could find enjoyment in ruthlessly kicking elderly ass in games of lawn bowling. You can purchase a condo for under 100K. It's my Plan Z if I end up alone. I could buy for 30K and just hire a maid service.

For those interested:

http://www.kingspointmovie.com

@Jacob
Your strategy is both understandable and confusing for me. Understandable in terms of a finite amount of life energy to spend on figuring life puzzles out. Confusing because sometimes the meta-concept focused pieces of work actually lead to deeper understanding because you can "feel"/"experience" it for lack of better words and there is value in that that can't be chalked up in pithy quotes.

@Jason
DW and I spent 2 weeks in a Floridan retirement community this Winter (we are 28) and it was excellent. Although there are generational gap issues that would take time to figure out, there was always someone willing to play a game of some sort with me, and some very athletic 60+ year old who gave me a run for my money on the Pickleball court.

We've seriously considered snowbirding down from Canadia. Children in school is our biggest concern at this point. Maybe if we give homeschooling a try in the future and like it, it'll be back on the table.

I'm not sure I understand the argument, but for me, DFW, like Robin Williams, is a person I believe to have a mind that is "different" from most even when not fueled on narcotics. So I don't have an issue spending time on this earth interacting with it and enjoying it's abilities.

If I had a choice, I'd personally prefer to live with people discernibly older than younger me.

jacob wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 14, 2018 3:48 pm

...When we moved to Chicago we spent a week in a LT-stay hotel/motel...

Musings on Extremity no. 1321 (#LMEEA)

how have you solved problem of sleeping in like 6 people room?
and living with people with people of (before any SHTF discussion: I use this phrase in neutral meaning) different clay?
I think in such places are (sometimes) for immigrant blue collar workers, who tend to drink a lot and don't like "social conventions of aspiring middle-class".
this is why such places offer such low fees, I think.


I'm deadly serious. I'm not mocking you , because this remark is probably going to solve my issue about finding cheap room when moving through my/fellow country and not knowing anybody in new place.

LT-stay just means the room comes with a kitchen (and pots and pans). They're often more expensive than a regular room unless you factor in eating out.

It doesn't mean that it's full of other people. It's not a hostel.

@Stahlmann What you are painting a picture of is the type of long term stay that is seen in the Blues Brothers or as I saw in Chicago down the street from home on Diversey and Southport (long since gentrified away, the one on Fullerton just east of Pulaski which lasted longer -- might even be there still). A kind of place of last resorts with cheap rooms, usually a shared bathroom at the end of the hall, etc. Then there is the other end of the spectrum; cookie cutter clean corporate-based just like a hotel/motel but aimed at a slightly different market. That I think is what most are writing about in this thread.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your musings.

Hmm. I heard of "workerorkers' hotels" in my socioeconomic location. The conditions are like I described in the last post. I was interested in, because of... price. It would be able to achieve 30*15 for accomodation in great scheme. However...

I'm bit discouraged to places like that after my last year adventures in hostels. Also very difficult to be productive after no sleep night

Conde Nast article on Mario from 2016. It add some details.
https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016 ... enty-years

@Jason After watching Kings Point on Kanopy (free access via library), I get a sense of why it might be plan Z. Not the worst but retiring to Florida appears pretty bleak after watching that. Not horrible though, could be worse.

My only thought after watching the video is that I don't really know how the happiest guy in the world looks, but I bet he is not spending his time telling everybody how happy he is.
He looks like someone who's trying to convince others he's doing ok when in fact he's not.