The actual Atlantic crossing was 14 days

It’s possible to crew for others. When we sailed across the Atlantic ten years ago (on a sail training ship), one of the people on board was for the first time on a sailboat.

There’s plenty of ways to visit countries that won’t involve flying. Some of those quite CO2 neutral.

We were there a couple of weeks ago. Seems different neighbourhoods had different flags. We elected not to fly a courtesy flag on our boat as all the alternatives were partisan one way or another.

The tablet does have an LTE modem, but in this case it’s getting internet from the boat (Teltonika RUTX11 modem)

I have a Raspberry Pi running Signal K on the computer. This transmits all boat sensor data (depth, wind, GPS, AIS targets, etc) to the tablet. On tablet I can then run a chartplotter app, for example Navionics, SeaPilot, OpenCPN, or my current option, Orca CoPilot.

Nexus 7 (FHD, the better model) was the best tablet I’ve had. I used it even as a phone replacement for a couple of years.

Now I’m using a Galaxy Tab Active 3 as a chartplotter on the boat. Also quite nice, but would be too slow for a “main device”. Not to mention camera quality.

I’ve been to both Petsamo and Karelia, and trust me, we don’t want them back. To clean them up and bring them into modern standards of infrastructure would be ridiculously expensive. Not to mention the Russian population that has integrated in them over the last 80 years.

The previous year’s flagship is one option. Samsung’s S22 and S22+ both fit in this range, and even the S22 Ultra is not too far off. And those still have a few OS updates left. Pixel 6 Pro seems to sell for the same price as 7a in Germany.

This has been my strategy for the last two phones (Note 8 and Note 10) and it has worked great. Following this thread with interest as this is the year I’m due to upgrade.

I’ve been traveling with one bag for years, sometimes for multiple months at a time, ranging from tropical islands to the arctic. Some quick tips:

• Pack light. If you cannot carry your full one bag for a day out in a foreign city, you’ve packed too much
• Have your bag with you. Don’t check it in while flying, don’t leave it in a hotel or a train station locker if you can avoid it
• You can do laundry while traveling. Sink wash, use a laundromat, etc
• Layering is key in cold or variable climates
• You generally don’t need fancy gear to onebag, but for example merino is quite practical
• Keep track of what you pack (lighterpack is a great website for doing this). Refine, eliminate, consider what worked and what didn’t

I recently read the Bobiverse books, and those were quite fun.

Daniel Suarez is another good one (start with Daemon), as is Ian McDonald (Dervish House, the Luna series).

This was my primary device for a couple of years. I didn’t have a phone at all. I could do everything I needed to do. Camera quality was of course terrible, but I had one of those Sony “lens cameras” paired with it, and that worked great.

I even sailed across the Atlantic with the Nexus 7 as my only media device (I packed a Kindle but it died a week in).