My Simple Life At Sea Puts More Vital Priorities Within Reach

An illustrated journey of how I'm blurring the lines between daily life & adventure

What youth & liveliness feel like

In my early 20s, my hipster dreams of moving to Portland, Oregon came true. I traded my financed sedan for a cheap commuter bike. On two wheels, I glided through the cloud-covered, forest-lined, misty city, across the dozen bridges, to all four corners of town. Even if I got a flat tire, I’d do the small repair with a huge self-satisfied smile and continue pedaling on my festive way.

Over the hills, across the river, and to whatever coffee shop was calling my name.

My movement, and my entire existence, was powered by sweat and my youthful enthusiasm — an infinitely renewable resource.

Portland was where I learned how to maximize the most vital aspects of life while minimizing my investments of energy & cash. I didn’t have more than $800 in my savings. I had very few possessions. I lived in a tiny, cheap apartment. My priorities were adventure, passion, & freedom. But I felt like a millionaire.

I didn’t need a huge income to sustain this happy existence. I only worked as much as I needed — about 20 hours per week at a coffee shop — to pay my bills. And I rarely doubted my ability to thrive or stay alive.

Ping-ponging in & out of vitality

In the 13 years since, my attraction to a minimalist mindset never waned, but my day-to-day got way more complex.

Eventually, my husband and I moved to the more-expensive city of Denver, Colorado. We thought we could afford it. Suddenly, we had a mortgage and endless bills. The house required more time and spending to keep up. The two cars cost more money to operate and insure. I gave my most creative hours to my job, and I had little leftover to pursue my other priorities.

What did I really get for this investment?

I found ways to stay happy. I had amazing friends and pursued my artistic interests on the side. But this didn’t mean I was doing what I wanted, per se.

Everything changed one day when my husband got fired from his cozy job. Suddenly, it was much harder to afford our life and innumerable possessions. So, we decided to do something radically different.

In the past year, we’ve reanimated that Portland mindset of less is more. We decided we’re going to move onto a small sailboat. We have fewer material objects today than we have in over a decade. We only have what we can fit in our 31-foot sailboat and nothing more.

In 2012, we lived in a tiny Portland apartment and I rode my bike everywhere. By 2024, we “upgraded” to a house, two cars, and all the necessary furnishings. Today, we have traded it all for a small sailboat.

In Denver, we experienced massive lifestyle creep. Suddenly, our ability to thrive and stay alive became reliant on two upper-middle-class incomes. I’d routinely ask myself, “How could I make less money and still make it work?” But really, that meant I had too much crap. And the worst part was I had little energy & cash leftover for other things that I desired, like adventure, passion, & freedom.

Vitality

Lately, I’ve been obsessing over this concept. Here’s my definition:

Vitality: the power giving strength, growth, & sustainability to all living things.

I’m not one of these minimalists who will tell you that owning more possessions made me less happy. It’s not true because I got good at sustaining minimal feelings of happiness — for example, with friends and art.

To me, vitality is different than happiness. Having more possessions massively reduced my power to live strongly, productively, and sustainably. Therefore, more possessions meant less vitality.

My vitality is higher now than it’s ever been. For the past 7 months, we’ve had a simple life while we work and save. We devote all our energy & cash into getting our boat ready for a global sailing odyssey. We’re still a couple months from living aboard, but we recently took her out of the marina for a test run. We’re so close. The adventure has already begun.

My vitality — the power to do what I want to do in life — is inversely related to my amount of possessions. This is because more possessions require more energy & cash to sustain, leaving less leftover for other priorities.

All my energy & cash went to just keeping up

When I was in Denver, the complexities of my life meant I was always tired and constrained. I had the absolute basics — like food, water, and warmth. But it took so much energy & cash to maintain my house, two cars, and all the other crap. This meant that other priorities — adventure, passion, & freedom — were often out of reach on my pyramid of priorities.

While we had a house, two cars, and a bunch of other stuff, it required a huge amount of energy & cash just to maintain. This meant our other priorities — adventure, passion, and freedom — were too often out of reach.

It wasn’t sustainable. I saw other people — friends, neighbors, and coworkers — keeping up this kind of life for years or decades. I knew coworkers who still prioritized promotions, bigger houses, and nicer cars above all else. But this wasn’t me. I guess I needed to learn it first-hand. And I needed some other way to pursue what was more important to me.

Like a sick addiction, though, I still had fear of letting go of that life.

In Denver, I felt more fearful than I did in Portland with vastly fewer possessions (and way less cash). That fear of losing it all meant even less power to live strongly, productively, and sustainably. It meant less vitality.

In the end, the fear of continuing in that life was 10x greater than any fear of living on a small sailboat. Luckily, my husband agreed. So, we took the leap. We embraced the unknown and focused on shuffling our priorities.

Maximizing my vitality via small sailboat

It’s late-March, 2025. My sea gypsy dreams are about to come true.

Traversing continents, crossing oceans, and to whatever beach or port city is calling our name.

Thankfully, living on a small sailboat won’t require much income. It required a big cash investment upfront to make her reliable, but it’s still less than a fully decked-out Sprinter van or downpayment on an average Denver home. We’re aiming to live on <$2,000/month (I’ve talked about my income needs in another post). We’ll aim to have some months that cost <$1,000. This will allow me to quit my 9-5 job and join my husband as a full-time sailor.

On the sailboat, I’ll have more energy & cash to focus on my other priorities, including writing. As long as I have the absolute basics and can keep the water out of the boat (meaning, stay afloat), it’ll be much easier to reach for the higher priorities up the pyramid. Daily life will no longer have such a firm line separating it from adventure, passion, & freedom. The goal is the blur.

With our small sailboat, we’ll need less energy & cash for upkeep. Plus, our life at sea will blur the lines with our other priorities — adventure, passion, & freedom — making them more accessible and within reach.

Our bet is that simplifying our life will increase our vitality.

What do you think?

I’m not delusional about how much energy & cash it’ll take to thrive and stay alive on our sailboat. But it’ll all be in service of maximizing priorities that matter most. And we got the right attitude.

We’ll likely need to do work we’re not always stoked about. My husband says all the time how much he hates boat work. But we do what needs to get done, because it’s getting us where we want to go. And it’s less important what we’re doing for a living and more important what we’re doing with our lives.

Instead of investing all this effort into merely sustaining our existence, it’ll be to sustain our highest priorities.

By definition, a sailboat only needs wind to move. I’ll keep writing newsletters fully energized by the sun. My entire existence will be superpowered by sweat and my youthful enthusiasm — as long as it lasts. My guess is it’ll be much more sustainable.

I aim to rediscover that feeling of floating through Portland on my frame and spokes, with little money, and still feeling like a millionaire.

I’d love to have you join along ⛵️😸

This is our 31-foot sloop, Chérie, which we have been refitting for >7 months so far. We finally got her in the water, and she floats! We replaced the engine & anchor. The old sails will work for awhile. Nothing will stop us now.

If you enjoyed my article today, please consider buying me a cup o’ Joe.

You can help sustainably power our adventure at sea — and around the world. Thanks for your support!