Living on a canal boat with children

[Jammydodger23]

Has any one got experience of living on a canal boat with children. I am seriously considering making this move.

Oops just seen it’s a zombie 🧟‍♂️

I think this could be a good solution but not always that cheap by the sounds of things! How do the girls feel ? I cant swim very well so not for me but I know someone who did it (no children though)

Oh dear, just noticed it's a zombie!
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Marie Browne wrote a series of books about living with children on canal boats, the series starts with ‘Narrow margins’, available on Kindle. It seemed that there a lot of issues that aren’t immediately apparent, eg moorings ending and nothing else near the school. And keeping the boat riverworthy. If you get a hole in your roof in a house you can carry on living there, relatively minor damage to a boat can be a major disaster.

What s a zombie?

An old thread that has been revived. This one is from 2017. Presumably the OP has long since sorted out their problem!

I spent a big chunk of my childhood on a boat and yes, there are drawbacks (waking up to a frozen water tank was the worst) but we absolutely loved it. Ours wasn't a super top of the range boat, either - we had some friends, three kids and their parents, who lived on an incredible boat with power shower and Smeg fridge and internet, and this was the early 2000s.

If you're completely eyes open about the potential difficulties (and the costs - as PPs said, it is NOT a cheap alternative to owning a house with waterways fees, repainting, new anodes, fuel and gas, insurance, etc and a good, roomy enough for kids modernised boat running up to about £200k near me) then I would say go for it. It was an amazing way to grow up and I'd love to own my own boat in future (although maybe more for holidays than living).

Get yourself a sailing boat! You can buy a decent Bavaria or the such like of over 40 feet for around 50k. Marina fees Inc water and electricity down south (so pretty expensive) are about £6k p/a. You will get a proper master bedroom with ensuite, 2 smaller identical bedrooms under the cockpit, another shower room with toilet, a galley quite probably with fridge, freezer, microwave, oven and hob and you may well find one with a washing machine. It will also have a nice saloon or lounge and a large cockpit. You can use the marina office as the address and learn to sail! We live on a boat and have seen lots of liveaboards with children. They seem to have an amazing life.