Anyone can go on a sailing holiday. You don’t need to have sailed before and there are no age limits. All you need is some money! But it’s cheaper than many people imagine.
Whether you want to sail the boat yourself, or have someone else do it, there’s a holiday waiting for you. There are holidays for singles, couples, families and groups, for the fit and the less able. You can sail all day long, or just do short hops. You can explore the sights and culture ashore, or just hit the bar. You can go somewhere hot or somewhere cold, in calm sheltered waters or more challenging areas.
It could be you!
But not all the options will suit everyone, and you need to consider which holiday type is best for you and which areas most closely match both the sailing you want (and are capable of) and the facilities and attractions you want ashore.
So chose your holiday carefully or risk a mutinous crew. Skippers beware; you may enjoy an extreme challenge on holiday but your friends or familiy may not. Which can create challenges of its own, both during and after the holiday!
In particular, some holidays, such as Flotillas are better suited to children and young people than others, the converse being that teachers wanting a break from it all may prefer to avoid this option!
The same applies to some sailing areas – youngsters don’t always appreciate the attractions of such a slow mode of transport and may not realise the pleasure is supposed to be as much in the journey as arriving. So best avoid areas that involve long passages.
You may also want to consider the health facilities in different destinations if you’re not 100% fit, (or anticipate you might become so when sailing)! You might be pleasantly surprised at how good facilities are even in out of the way places but they are not always free and more mature sailors or those with pre-existing medical conditions can experience difficulties getting travel insurance, which is usually a requirement of most package bookings.
There may also some legal considerations, some strictly enforced, such as passport and visa requirements, some less so, such as who can skipper your boat. The latter may not prevent you sailing but it’s probably best you know what the rules are so you can decide whether you want to take the risk – apparently some companies get confused between sailing certificate numbers and credit card numbers, so may not rush to point out a possible problem!