Living The Dream: Making Lemonade From Lemons

After losing all their possessions to Hurricane Sandy in 2013, instead of moving to a new home, Christel moved her family onto a sailboat and they have been sailing the world ever since. They truly decided to make lemonade from lemons and are Living The Dream.

Christel Astin

What was the first country you visited? Who with and why did you choose it?

My husband, Jarad and I were in our early twenties when we took our first trip to Amsterdam. A week later we drove to visit and attend our friends wedding, which was beautifully set on the North Sea by the village, Bergen Aan Zee.

When did you start a travel lifestyle? What inspired that change?

We began our travel lifestyle 8 months after we lost all our possessions to Hurricane Sandy, October 29th 2012, in the Rockaways, New York. Instead of finding a new home to relocate, we decided to enable our dream of living and cruising on a sailboat with our family. We moved aboard our 43 ft. C&C Landfall, Catherine the first week of June 2013 and have been sailing and traveling every since. It was our way of “making lemonade out of lemons.”

Do you have a base you travel from? Or is it continuous travel? And why do you choose that style?

Since we moved aboard, we have made 5 offshore passages between NYC and the Caribbean, where we leave port in NYC the first week of November, cruise and work all over the Caribbean Islands, and make our way north back to NYC for the summer months. We stay on the boat until mid September, then stay with our family while we haul out the boat, and do maintenance before we shove off again. We have chosen this way of traveling because we are musicians, and our style of music attracts people from the French Island of Saint Baarths to our respective hometown soil of NYC, where we have been working for over 10 years now.

How do you fund your travel lifestyle? Is it something you do when travelling or are you a saver?

This is something that we can comfortably do while traveling. We thank our lucky stars that we can sail from port to port and share our music as we travel. If I could give anyone any advice, It would be to have some money saved up for their first extended trip, make a “working” plan, and give it a trial run. Do whatever it takes, but do it. It you fail, try again, and tweak your plan.

If you could tell yourself one tip before you started your travel lifestyle, what would it be?

This may sound really simple, but boy, did I ever wish I had stuffed some Christmas decorations onboard before we left port the first year. It wasn’t easy finding some good ol’ ornaments or even Christmas bows while anchored in Antigua!

What does "Living The Dream" mean to you?

“Living the Deam” means freedom, less possessions, working in your passion, and being always present for your family. Thank you Travel With Bender for this opportunity to share with you all!

You can find Stell & Snuggs here -

Website: Stell & Snuggs

Twitter:  @Stellandsnuggs1  

An acoustic gypsy soul band tour by sail.