Australia by Boat

More travellers are looking to go flightless either for green reasons or just to slow down and enjoy their trip. Unfortunately as border security tightens and global piracy increases, taking a boat to Australia is getting tougher.

Your best bet is to try to hop a freighter. The romantic days of crewing on a freighter are gone, so today you’ll have to pay. From the UK to Melbourne, for example, you can expect to pay around AUD$8,500. That’s the tough bit out of the way, now you can lie back and enjoy the journey which will take almost 40 days. Bring a book or, better yet, a set of encyclopaedias.

Travelling from Singapore to Darwin is quicker and cheaper but few companies take passengers on this route. You can travel on from Melbourne to Tahiti, California or even Canada. Ship life is fairly comfortable with meals provided and your own cabin, shower and possibly TV, plus you’ll get to make a few interesting stopovers you might not have planned.

You can start planning with companies like Strand Travel or Freighter World.

This piece was originally written for the Herlad Sun travel Q&A section. Published here at the request of Parlance.