Man lives on cruise ship for 300 days a year because it’s cheaper than renting and bills

Sounds like the dream

Ryan Gutridge spends the vast majority of his calendar year on Royal Caribbean cruises, having first started pursuing a life at sea in 2021.

Because he works remotely, he realised he could work from the cruises and that it may even end up being a cost-effective way of living.

Speaking to Insider, he said: “I work in IT as a cloud-solution engineer for a cloud-solution provider and started working from home in 2012.

“But because of the pandemic, my team was able to work from home and access the data they needed from anywhere.

“At that time, cruise lines hadn't announced when or if they were coming back. I thought that if they returned, I'd want to try taking my job with me on a short cruise. I wanted to see how the WiFi would work and if I could access some elements of my job with heavy security.”

So, in the summer of 2021, Gutridge booked two four-night cruises on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, enjoying both of them in September that year.

“Everything worked great, and since then, I've been on a cruise pretty much every week, except for a few weeks due to the holidays,” he said.

He didn't just dive straight into the cruise life though. Before deciding to fully commit, he crunched the numbers to see whether it would be a financially wise decision.

After some totting up, he realised that the cost of living at sea for 300 night a year was "almost neck-and-neck" with what he was paying for his apartment and trash service.

When he took into account what he would save on bills - along with perks such as free drinks and internet - it was a no-brainer for him.

He now has a spreadsheet to record all his expenses and sets himself a budget every year.

This year, his "base fare budget is about $30,000."

After doing his research, Gutridge decided Royal Caribbean were the cruise line for him, because they had the "most valuable benefits" for his lifestyle: "Discounts, free internet and free drinks."

His advice to anyone looking to do the same thing is to "try different brands because they all offer something different," but to then commit to one so that you can "reach those loyalty levels."

Gutridge is not far off reaching Royal Caribbean's highest loyalty level of 'Pinnacle', which customers can achieve after completing two years of cruising.

And he has a great social life as well. Once he's completed his meetings in the morning and afternoon he can use his lunchtimes and evenings to socialise with others or meet people at the gym.

“I've even met people that I stay in contact with and that have come back and cruised on this ship with me multiple times since,” he said.

“Working from home was isolating. I don't have kids or pets, so it's easy to become somewhat introverted, but cruising has really helped and made me a lot more social.”