How a Digital Nomad Decided to 'Divest of Everything' and Live at Sea for 14 Years (Exclusive)

"In 2001, Linda Jackson decided it was time for a break. After the dot com bubble burst and in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, she was looking for a new path. Having developed a love of boating in college, the management consultant and her husband departed on a year-long "sabbatical" sailing from Northern California to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and back. The couple set off on their 34-foot-long performance cruiser and quickly fell in love with life on the water."

"Over the next ten years, Jackson and her husband - who she affectionately refers to as "the Captain" - did whatever they could to make this dream a reality. She left her job as a sales and marketing executive to start her own consulting firm. They also purchased their first live-aboard vessel, a 50-foot cruiser, which took about a year to fix before even getting into the water."

""We started to divest of everything," Jackson says. "We digitized all of our documents and photos. Everything that we owned, when we moved aboard, was on the boat. We didn't keep a storage container, we didn't keep anything." They officially set sail in 2011, leaving their California lives behind. Over the years, they developed the skills necessary to live an "autonomous life" on water."

Linda Jackson left consulting after 2001, took a year-long sailing sabbatical with her husband from Northern California to Zihuatanejo and back. They bought a 34-foot cruiser, then pursued full-time cruising, divesting possessions and digitizing documents and photos. They purchased a 50-foot live-aboard that required a year of repairs, then officially departed in 2011. They developed autonomous living skills, often sailing with small crews of friends, family, or local crew found online. In 2019 they upgraded to an 80-foot SV Duende, transited the Panama Canal, and spent five years refitting it for extended voyages.

Read at People.com