Sailing and Socializing Kids – 8 Ways to Find Friends on the High Seas in 2024
What about the kids? Aren’t you worried about them not being in public school, not having friends, living on a boat, in the middle of nowhere?
Sailing and socializing kids is not a matter of chance. We have found many families at every anchorage we have visited. Simple research, being proactive and flexible will guarantee the children (young or older) will find and keep friends on the water.
We lived on a sailboat for four years and found tons of friends on the water. Most importantly, we kept those friends, for life.
So, Fear not!
Read below to find out lots of fun ways we are meeting and keeping friends on the high seas!
8 Useful ideas for sailing and socializing kids
Below, I am listing a few proactive ways, which have successfully worked for us, while sailing and socializing the kids.
Join “old-people” social media – Facebook
As much as we opposed social media, we ended up joining Facebook and it proved to be great help for us, while looking for families and activities.
Kids4Sail on Facebook – This is an amazing group, with thousands of members! We are all families currently sailing, preparing for the journey, or just keeping the spirit alive after leaving boat-life.
Each month, there is a special post called Location Roll. It is a life-saver.
It is divided into categories, corresponding with the geographical areas of the world (popular with sailing families).
Members find their area and log in their more precise location, as well as future sailing plans.
Be an active participant, ask lots of questions!
Once you join such a group, don’t be shy – ask questions.
There are countless tips and suggestions for those preparing to live on a boat! There is even more information and tips for those still dreaming.
Every possible question regarding living on a boat with kids has been answered! Especially when it comes to common concerns, we all share.
Words of encouragement and support abound, as are people willing to physically help, if nearby!
Let the kids join “young-people” social media – Discord
“Mom, Facebook is for old people!” I am continuously reminded, because the children have a different way to stay in touch:
Discord – Our children have made friends with boatkids from all over the world.
They have their own sailing groups on Discord, which allow them to share the ups and downs of boat-life from a boatkid’s perspective.
The only tricky part is lack of reliable internet, but that has not stopped ours from staying in touch.
Pick the right anchorage
Joining social media is not everyone’s cup of tea.
For those, who prefer to really leave the digital world behind, there are still possibilities to sail and socialize kids, while world-schooling on the water:
Find the right anchorages.
What does that mean?
Beautiful, calm and protected anchorages, with sandy beaches and fun hikes, or snorkeling spots are like magnets for cruisers. They always attract families with kids.
Often, people stay there just for a few nights, to wait out weather. Other times, these locations turn into a hang-out spot for a few weeks, even months!
Just being in one of these spots, guarantees company! With some luck, it will also help you find new friends!
Be proactive – sailing and socializing does not happen by chance.
Finding a boat with kids aboard does not automatically mean friendship.
Thankfully, most boatkids are in just as much of a need to socialize, as ours.
So, once at anchor, we take out the binoculars and look for other kids around! Isn’t that weird? Not at all, we have seen other kids spying right back at our boat!
Here is an episode where our kids are doing just that!
Just a Perfect Day, on a Boat, in Puerto Rico! (E27) – YouTube
If you know there are other boats around, or have connected via social media and see their boat near-by, jump in the dinghy and go say “Hi”.
It is the equivalent of sending the kids to ride their bikes down the street to hang out with friends.
Soon into our own journey, one of our kids, who would normally be too nervous to order French fries, was in the dinghy, going to check out the new kidboat in the anchorage!
Be proactive! Knock on the hull, and the hatch will open!
Look for the Kids4Sail flag!
We are such an awesome community on the water, that we have our own flag! It is a great little sign that there are kids aboard!
There are those who prefer not to announce that there are children aboard. However, sailing families rarely stay in one place, only families with kids know what that flag actually means!
Being on the water, with kids, is a lot safer than being on land, in many respects. Stranger-danger factor is not something we worry about, when in the company of new boats.
We have had no problem displaying the Kids4Sail flag, and we have seen other boats do the same.
Statistically speaking, mostly boats with younger kids fly the flag. Our teens have been able to connect with others just fine without its help. They are cool this way!
Here is a link to order one, on the website of one of the hard-working administrators for Kids4Sail.
Visit an area with a “Cruising Station”.
A few coastal towns are homes to families, who used to live on a boat and returned to land life. Some of them have agreed to be the local point of contact for other cruisers.
These are an invaluable resource, called “Cruising Stations”.
These families are quite familiar with all the possible needs and wants of cruisers. Besides helping with a car, laundry and even package receiving, they can give amazing ideas for local land trips, hikes and attractions.
Best of all, the children in such land families can offer the friendship world-schooling kids crave. They, too, know and remember what living on a boat used to be like – once a boatkid, always a boatkid.
While in St. Augustine, FL, for boat repairs, we were blessed with the company of one such family. We will always be grateful for their help, support, and friendship.
How do you find a cruising station?
The Kids4Sail Facebook group has all the cruising stations listed (I told you, they are an amazing resource).
Be flexible
But is a week, enough to make and keep friends?
Not really.
In order to make the most out of socializing on the water, you have to spend a bit longer in the company of other sailing families.
How do we do that?
We constantly change our cruising plans. Being flexible is a major socialization skill. It helps us let go of rigid planning and enjoy the ride. It also allows us to cruise with other families for longer periods of time!
At the start of our cruising journey in the Bahamas, we quickly changed plans to visit a different set of islands, just because we ran into another boat with kids aboard.
That was more than two years ago. The kids are friends up to this day.
We have even changed an entire destination country!
What was supposed to be a trip to Guatemala, ended up in the Dominican Republic, because the other boats in our group were all headed that way, and we wanted to stay together!
Sailing and socializing kids is for all ages!
Little attention is paid to age differences amongst boatkids.
Teens laugh at tween’s jokes (unless they come from siblings). Six-year olds play Legos and board games with the far more mature eight-year-olds!
If there are enough of them, the children form an “older kid” group, and the younger ones stay out of their way. It is understood that teens need their space for teen secrets.
More often, however, everyone plays together. Hide-and-seek is not a childish game, and younger ones sometimes add fuel to the fire, by revealing overheard teen secrets too exciting to not be shared.
Valuable social skills on the water.
Living an adventurous life of travel and exploration can truly bring the best in young people.
It might sound like you have read this somewhere else, because I am not the first one to discover it.
World-schooling alone offers plenty of skills in problem solving and multi-tasking. Socializing, while living on a sailboat throws in an extra layer of responsibility and adventure.
As much as we love letting our kids be kids, they are also expected to be responsible and helpful, because our safety (and, sometimes, lives) depend on it.
When kids get together, we have overheard passionate discussions about engines, solar power, water conservation, fishing, and even types of heads (boat toilet).
Adults make excellent boat friends too!
Other kids are not always a given and there are plenty of adults, which are just as fun to be around (as long as they are not the parents).
We have met fishermen, policemen, physicians, nurses, business owners, craftsmen, teachers…
Kids make excellent apprentices, and adults are always eager to share knowledge, even if just for a week, or two.
Tweens and teens enjoy being the center of attention, and adults are always full of questions and curiosity.
Oh, and lots of adults have pets aboard – we love pets!
A brilliant idea that needs you!
I propose that the word “boatkid” be included in the dictionary. Here is why:
- It is unique, semantically.
- It is spelled in a cool way, disregarding many traditional rules of grammar.
- It is used frequently amongst the members of a certain community.
- Unlike many new words, “boatkid” rarely, if ever, causes any controversy!
So, go for it! Turn one of those kids around into a boatkid – they are smart, funny, adventurous, extremely adaptable, helpful, and very well-socialized! It is fun, and it is not hard to do, because…
What we do, you can do too!
Pin this post for later, if you like friends
Questions we Frequently Answer:
Read more about world schooling, sailing and traveling with kids
Are the children lonely, on the boat?
Not at all, and we ensure it stays this way!
We have met children and adults from all walks of life and schooling, on the water. Living on a sailboat can be as lonely, or as social as you wish to make it.
While we love exploring quiet anchorages and try to stay away from chartered boats, finding other sailors for company often determines and, sometimes, changes our course.
It does help that we have three kids, close enough in ages. However, we have met parents with only one child aboard, who have also made it work and ensured their child had friends around.
They are on their phones, all the time.
We have met kids, who preferred to be alone. Mostly keeping company with their cell phones and remote friends back on land.
From our experience, sailing and living on a boat never becomes quite enjoyable for them.
One must exercise some effort and willingness to detach and seek adventure and friends. Same is true for those who live on land, by the way.
Being alone, while sailing, is a choice, not a given.
Is it hard to socialize, while living on a boat?
It is not difficult to find other people sailing and living on their boats.
But the water is a big place.
Relying on chance might bring few new friends.
But we want friends all the time, not occasionally!
How do they create lasting friendships?
Sailing families already have plenty in common. Sailing kids adapt very quickly.
Since everyone is leading a nomadic lifestyle, kids figure out that no time should be wasted in unnecessary drama and details.
The friends we met years ago are still very close to us, and we find ways to stay in touch. Boatkids tend to focus on the benefits of finding and keeping friends.
They just have way too much in common – those unique memories, when their crazy parents stuck them on a boat to travel the world.
Isn’t it hard to always say “goodbye”?
It is.
We never know when and if we will see our friends again, once we part ways. Sometimes we end up meeting again, either by chance, or with pre-arranged visits.
We hosted our dear boat-friends in our home outside of DC, before we sold it. Another lovely family came to visit us all the way in Bulgaria.
The water gathers people from all over the world. So, we have a perfect excuse to visit other countries now, having been invited to Colombia, Australia, Canada, Spain, to name a few.
Exquisite and vivid peek into boatlife! My new word;)
Love to you all!
Come aboard for an even closer look 🙂
Great post with a fantastic theme and beautiful photos. Mina, I hope you’re saving all these notes and more for a book.
Thank you, Father, a book has been on my mind, but I need to have enough to say first! More sailing is needed!