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An Idaho family is on the adventure of a lifetime after selling everything they own in order to explore the high seas.
Despite never having sailed before, Brandon and Amber Morse and their children now live on a catamaran in the Caribbean.
And while it hasn’t always been easy, they say the experience has changed them all for the better.
The family tells Realtor.com® why they’ve chosen to live life a little differently.
In 2020, the Morses were a typical family living in Idaho with both parents working full-time jobs and a busy schedule of educational and extracurricular activities for their four kids. However, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that the family first started toying with the idea of “escaping” their normal.
“I was working as a nurse at the time, so there was an incredible amount of stress that I was carrying around. Plus, we were also just generally fed up with the 9-to-5 grind—it felt like it was stealing the single most important thing we have in this life, our time, especially from our kids,” says Amber.
“We felt like we were kissing them to bed each night only to send them out the door in the morning not really seeing them until the next bedtime kiss.”
So, the couple first started talking about what life would be like if they quit their jobs, sold one of their cars, rented out their home fully furnished, homeschooled the kids—and then packed everyone into an RV to travel the country.
They then turned it into a reality.
“When we were three months into our RV trip, we started thinking about going back to the status quo … and it almost felt like a waste because it had taken so much work to cut ties with our former lives,” says Amber.
It was Amber and Brandon’s eldest daughter, Jadyn, who actually started the sailing conversation because she’d had a middle school friend whose family had done it for a few weeks.
They found themselves “down a rabbit hole into YouTube and finding families that were living full time on their sailboats, sailing the world.”
“What I’ve learned is courage begets courage, and it was only because of the baby steps it took to go RVing that we could even see ourselves doing something else,” says Amber.
Selling everything to gain a life filled with adventure
The Morses had purchased their Idaho home only nine months before their pandemic-year RV trip.
The five-bedroom home with a pond in the back and a neighborhood pool on their cul-de-sac was the largest home they’d ever owned.
“Nicer cars, a nicer house—none of it felt fulfilling,” says Amber. “I kept dreaming of being able to travel with our kids and experience adventures that really stretched us beyond our comfort zone.
“We knew that we’d need the equity from our house in order to afford a type of sailboat that could fit six people comfortably,” says Amber.
They put their home on the market and sold it in three weeks.
Transitioning from a home to boat living
The next step—aside from sending Brandon to sailing school—was to buy a boat.
“Boats are like houses in the sense that you can find a boat that matches your budget—from trailer park style to super yacht,” says Brandon. “For us, since we knew we were using our equity in our home to purchase a depreciating asset, we wanted to go for a used boat, since most of the depreciation happens in the first five years.”
However, they also knew they’d need a boat that was big enough to comfortably “house” a family of six.
Ultimately they chose a Lagoon 450, which is a four-cabin model, with each cabin having its own bathroom and shower.
“For our family of six, this felt like a size that we could manage for sailing but also for living spaces for the family,” says Brandon.
“Since the older kids all have their own cabins, they get to have their privacy and they can treat it like their room, so they brought the things that felt most special with them,” says Amber. “Brandon and I also have our own cabin, and thankfully, we all have locking doors.”
Along with the four cabins, they have a main “saloon” area that includes the galley (kitchen), navigation desk, and their “living room”—which houses an L-shaped couch. There is also a cockpit area that holds a dining table and additional seating. The boat’s flybridge (an elevated deck and observation point) is on the upper deck and includes a lounge pad plus seating for eight people.
Making the financials work for a family of six at sea
Figuring out how to make their new lifestyle work took financial planning, especially since Brandon and Amber quit their jobs. However, by being entrepreneurial and sustainable, they’re coming out ahead.
To begin with, the Morses used the money from their home sale to pay cash for their catamaran, which eliminated a mortgage payment, property taxes, and utility bills.
Now their only “utility bill” is diesel for the boat engines and generator, but they can go months without having to “fill up.” Brandon also installed a massive solar charging system that charges a large battery bank, which allows the family to live off grid.
“We don’t go into marinas, and we rarely have to run our generator,” says Amber. “We do everything with free solar power—from cooking, to making water with our saltwater desalination water maker, to running our water heater.”
For money, in addition to living off their savings for a while, they also rent out a duplex they own.
More recently, they’ve started getting content creation work from a few companies and brands (thanks to their large Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube followings), and they have an Amazon page for “essential items for boat life” from which they earn a little commission.
“Cooking in a small galley has its challenges, but I also didn’t realize how much I would enjoy using whatever resources we have on hand as a creative outlet,” says Amber. “I even took up making sourdough bread for the first time, and actually before boat life, I had never made bread in my entire life.”
Amber says there is also something truly magical—almost like a “reclaiming”—that has happened with having the time to make homemade food and then sit around their back table eating it together as a family.
“This is quite the contrast to the busy life we used to live on land, eating granola bars in the car, going from one activity to the next,” she adds.
High highs and low lows when it’s all hands on deck
While their lives are definitely picturesque, the Morses say that, just like life on land, they have good days and bad days on the boat.
“Something that we learned very quickly is that all the romantic moments are earned,” says Amber. “It’s hard work maintaining and managing a self-sustaining, floating city.”
All the boat’s operating systems are rather complex, and Brandon has to oversee two large diesel engines and a generator.
“When a system isn’t working correctly, it can completely put a damper on our living situation,” says Brandon.
Plus, there are weather issues with which to contend.
“Our lives are completely dictated by it,” says Brandon. “We’ve now weathered several tropical storms and had to outrun hurricanes.”
But on the flip side, their days are filled with wonder and new experiences. Mornings usually begin with a snorkel, and the kids—now aged 19, 14 (the twins), and 8—have made friends from all over the world.
“Even though the ocean was so foreign to us, it’s provided us with some of the most magical moments I could ever fathom as a family,” says Amber.
“When there’s no land in sight and you have a pod of dolphins playfully swimming at your bow—how can that be topped? The ocean has truly changed us, and living on a boat has changed us.
“When you cast the dock lines, you’re leaving all the conveniences of land and trading them for potentially the hardest thing you will ever do.
“But the coolest thing—after four years, 15,000 nautical miles, and 21 different countries—our kids have grown so much and built character in ways they never would have if we’d just stayed in our little cul-de-sac.”
English (US)