By Stacey LeascaFeatures correspondent
More people than ever before are travelling through the UK’s canals. Here’s what it’s like – and how you can plan your own canal getaway.
Four miles per hour. That’s the perfect pace of life for Jo Caruana, and it’s a good thing too, because that’s as quick as her narrowboat will travel.
Caruana owns one of the 35,000 boats – including narrowboats – made for the rivers and canals across the United Kingdom, and she spends part of each year living on it. It’s a way of life that became increasingly popular post-pandemic as more people were looking to get out and explore while remaining socially distant. It even has a growing social media audience, with the hashtag #narrowboat inching towards 250,000 mentions on Instagram, and its sister tag #narrowboatlife hitting just over 134,000. And as the busy season for narrowboating kicks off in earnest in April, it’s the perfect time for travellers curious about trying the lifestyle for themselves.
Since less than half those 35,000 boats are occupied by a live-in owner, there are plenty of vessels available for laypeople to hire for their next vacation. But, as Caruana notes, there are a few things to consider first – namely, the need to embrace that slower pace.
“We thought a boat would be the perfect way to cruise through the country, live an eco-friendly life, and then find where we eventually wanted to end up,” Caruana says. “We did it for 18 months. We didn’t go anywhere near as far as we thought we would.”
Still, Caruana says, “we did end up in the most beautiful English village.” That village is Great Bedwyn, a community of fewer than 1,500 people about two hours west of London in Wiltshire, and a world away from the city’s hustle and bustle. “It’s been a wonderful way of life,” Caruana says – and one she likely wouldn’t have found were it not for her boat.
But while Caruana waxes poetically about her life on the water, such as cruising down the river in spring surrounded by baby ducklings and blooming flowers, she adds that it may not be for everyone. “It’s not a mode of transport. So, that was something I had to get used to,” Caruana says. “A journey that takes you two weeks on a narrowboat you can do in 10 minutes in the car. So…t’s a lifestyle. And it has taught me so much.”
Living on a boat has given Caruana a renewed sense of calm and an appreciation for perseverance, she says.
“It’s taught me patience. It’s taught me all about nature. It’s taught me all about downsizing,” she says, noting how reliant she is on Mother Nature in the boat, since her narrowboat’s instruments and equipment – including her engine – are solar-powered. “If the sun doesn’t shine, I don’t get a cup of tea. It can be really frustrating if you want to get somewhere. It all has to work. The engine has to be working.”
For travellers preparing to take a canal boat getaway themselves, Caruna has some good news: They don’t need any background in boating. In fact, she had never operated a narrowboat before buying one. Plus, there are plenty of places that will hire out boats for a weekend, a week, a month or more, including spots like Kate Boats in Warwickshire.
“You don’t need to have any certification or anything like that,” says Cheryl Howes, who’s operated Kate Boats for nearly 25 years. “But [for] anybody that hasn’t been on a boat before, we’ll spend quite a long time showing them how everything works.” This includes operating the boat at the mooring and on the water, and they’ll even take you through your first lock so you don’t get stuck en route to where you’re going. “It is accessible,” Howes adds. “People always worry about how they’re going to cope. Those first few hours are a bit of a baptism of fire, but once you get out, you get used to it all. And after that, you can start to relax and just enjoy it.”
Narrowboating is really a choose-your-own-adventure getaway. Howes notes the company typically provides guests with routes, but you can go in any direction you’d like. Her dream journey is to complete what’s known as the “Thames Ring,” a trip Howes says would take about four weeks, and which connects London’s famous River Thames to the Oxford Canal and the Grand Union Canal through 245 miles of waterways. Highlights include views of Windsor Castle, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, 176 locks to pass through and Blisworth Tunnel, one of the longest navigable tunnels in England. You can moor your narrowboat just about anywhere along this path and all the others throughout the UK if you’re on holiday (those looking to permanently moor a boat full-time must pay a fee if they plan to stay for more than 14 days).
Howes says narrowboat busy season, which goes from April through October, is just too hectic to get away for that long as they are busy helping clients navigate the waters for the first time, rather than focusing on their own adventures. And, though it would extend their busy season, Howes notes travelers should look past peak travel times because “it’s still nice out there through the winter,” too.
Howes and Caruana both agree that narrow boating is ideal for those craving slowness and simplicity. “It’s a bit like a caravan holiday on water,” Caruana says. But the payoff is that you get to sit on top of the boat as it goes along with a pure immersion in nature. Owls and herons and kingfishers and ducks and all the baby animals. You are just immersed in it. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever had the privilege to experience.”
Oh, and Caruana has one more piece of critical advice: “You have to really like the person you’re with. It’s a very small space,” she says. “Luckily,” she added with a laugh, “my husband and I get along.”
Want to get out on the water? Here are three ways to give it a try.
Private boat rentals: Prices at Kate Boats run from about £1070 ($1354) to £1700 ($2152) for a week and include the boat hire, fuel, collision damage, linens, towels and lifejackets. There are also other companies across the UK that hire out narrowboats for a few days or weeks at a time, such as Black Prince, Drifters and ABC Boat Hire.
Narrowboat holidays: Travellers unsure whether they want to drive the boat themselves might consider a narrowboat holiday chartering company. Companies like Chiltern Canal Boat Holidays offer skippered getaways, while Waterways Holidays helps guests book narrowboats plus waterside accommodation if they wish to sleep on land.
Moored vessels: For those who are merely interested in spending all day and all night calmly docked, there are plenty of boats for that, too. Your best bet is to search vacation rental sites like Airbnb for narrowboats for rent. And, you’ll find the same option in other canal-friendly destinations around the world, including Amsterdam and Rhone-Alpes, France.
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