Elizabeth Earle’s life almost sounds like the stuff of fiction.
The author and illustrator from Warwickshire, England, has lived on a 70-foot narrowboat that traverses the country’s canal system since April 2022.
Earle purchased the narrowboat from a friend for £35,000, or about $43,620, and is still funneling money into renovating the century-old vessel she nicknamed Maggie.
“This boat’s absolutely rinsed me,” Earle told Insider. “I’ve barely got enough money to buy tea bags.”
Earle, 34, chose boat life for a few reasons, chief among them the savings over a traditional mortgage. “This is why there’s a stereotypical view of the starving artist,” she quipped.
Earle is also in it for the adventure.
“I just want to lead an extraordinary life,” she told Insider. “My story won’t be better by getting a two-bedroom flat or a three-bedroom semi-detached house in the country.”
See inside Earle’s unique and historic living quarters.
Earle bought Maggie in April 2022 and has been living on the historic boat for a year.
“Her official name is Malvern, but I nicknamed her Maggie because it’s far more friendly,” she said.
Earle sold her previous 32-foot boat and used the proceeds to buy Maggie. With more space, she’s able to travel with relative comfort through England.
Earle bought “Maggie” for £35,000. Elizabeth Earle
“I mainly cruise the Midlands,” she said. “The waterway system is pretty much all around England. It was established several centuries ago. It was a transport system, so I could go anywhere within reason, really.”
Earle has been boating since 2017 and believes that the adventure of living on a boat is too rich to give up just yet.
Elizabeth Earle
That said, she would undertake another interesting lifestyle if the opportunity presented itself.
“It’s like with exes,” she said. “You split with someone and you have to get with someone better, haven’t you? You can’t go with someone that was worse than your ex.”
Earle decided that a more traditional home-owning experience was not for her. Because of her career, it would be hard for her to pay — or even qualify for — a mortgage.
Earle is happy living on a boat and has no current plans to settle on land. Elizabeth Earle
“The prices of a house in England are a bit ridiculous at the moment,” she said.
The average home price in the UK was £290,000 in January 2023, according to The Office for National Statistics.
However, living on a boat is not without cost. Regular fees, like buying coal for £8 per bag, which lasts her about 2 1/2 days, and diesel, which she buys quarterly for £350, replace monthly rent for her. Her expenses add up to £300 a month, she said.
Instead of docking in a marina, Earle goes for a more adventurous style of living on the canal. She has to move every two weeks.
“It is a harder way of life, but it forces you to travel,” she said. “It forces you to see more of the country.”
While on a sailing trip from South Africa to Brazil in 2017, Earle made a stop in the Caribbean and picked up a co-captain: her dog Leela.
She said she had to make the choice between selling the hurricane-destroyed sailboat she was living on at the time “and keeping the dog, or getting rid of the dog and carrying on with this worldwide trip.”
“I chose the dog,” Earle said.
Leela is not the biggest fan of sailing, Earle said, so she compromised and opted for the narrowboat. It’s a steadier ride.
“I adopted a street dog who hated sailing,” Earle said. “I returned to England and made the compromise with the canal boat.”
While Maggie is the most spacious boat Earle has lived on solo, there are still renovations that need to be done. But she’s back-burnering those for now as she recoups from the purchase.
“For now I’m living very much old school live-in,” she said. “It’s the compromise I made. It’s the agreed hardship that I took on to have a roof over my head and my own place.”
Maggie is equipped with some of the same living amenities as a home ashore like a stove, a shower, and even a fireplace.
Earle’s boat runs on diesel, just one of the regular expenses she must pay. “I have to have my diesel to run my engine and that tops up my batteries,” she said.
On top of paying for diesel, Earle must also buy coal for her fireplace, gas for her stove, and various other expenses like insurance and a river license.
The boat was built in 1928, and was used to transport goods from wood to food through the canals.
Earle also said Maggie carried coal and steel during World War II to contribute to the war effort.
Even though Maggie was historically used to transport materials, Earle is not the first person to live onboard.
“In the photos, she looks like a houseboat, but back in the day, the roofs were completely open and they would only have a 5-foot by 7-foot cabin at the very back,” she said. “Families of up to six would’ve lived in there together.”
Today it’s just Earle and Leela on board, so the two of them have plenty of room to stretch out.
Earle said she’s content to stay on Maggie for the time being.
Maggie is long enough to house separate rooms, like a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and even a kitchen.
Earle has a compost toilet where she uses sawdust to compost. She then finds a compost station to dump out the waste.
“I can’t believe that I have a compost loo,” Earle said. “If you asked me five years ago, I’d have been like, ‘Absolutely not a chance.’ But it’s fantastic.”
Earle is able to fit a decently sized bed onboard
.
“More and more young people are looking at alternative ways to live, whether in boats, vans, sailboats,” she said. “There’s a guy in London that’s living in a skip for £50 a month.”
A skip is a dumpster typically used to hold construction and demolition waste.
Nights on the canal can get chilly, so Earle is grateful for her coal fireplace.
“I have a fire to keep me warm,” she said. “I have a roof over my head, I have a bed, I have a shower — which is a lot more than what I had in my previous boat.”
Earle’s boat has a 700-liter water tank that pumps water into her shower.
“You can’t shower as much,” she said. “You’re always covered in coal oil, soot, or whatever that gunk was in the bilges.”
Earle is a freelance author and illustrator, specializing in watercolor, and has a dedicated space onboard to write and paint.
“I write history books and I love writing fiction,” she said. “I’m such a nerd — I love writing fantasy fiction.”
“I have a beautiful way of life,” she added. “I’m sitting here drinking tea, painting a humpback whale, and I get to go to bed when I choose. I don’t have to sign in for my boss tomorrow.”
Earle’s never in the same place for more than two weeks, so she must be mindful when grocery shopping.
“You definitely have to forward-think a lot more with your food,” she said. “It’s not just about doing a weekend shop. When we shop, we do a heavy provision. If you get stuck anywhere or if something goes wrong with your boat, you need to know that you’ve got enough food in the pantry.”
“It’s like you’re preparing for ‘The Last of Us,'” she said. “For provisions on boats, the luxury items are going to be the fresh produce that you can get like onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, fruits, veggies. And then the more long-term stuff is every single canned good that you can think of. There’s a reason why spam was popular in the 1940s. It’s still popular now. It’s saved me many a time when I’ve been starving.”
Earle said she’s faced misogyny from male captains and other dangers as a solo traveler.
“One of the biggest things is traveling solo as a woman on The Cut,” she said, referencing the nickname given to the network of canals. “Not only do you face misogyny, you face the danger of being a woman on The Cut.”
“You do feel very vulnerable as soon as someone knows that you are alone and you are a girl on a boat. That’s why I have a dog. But I don’t want the fear to stop me from doing my own life story.”
She chronicles her journey on her YouTube channel for her over 23,000 subscribers.
“I try to encourage other women to get out onto The Cut because a lot of men seem to try and gatekeep canal boating,” she said. “More women are coming onto The Cut and they do face this misogyny.”
Earle recently announced on her YouTube that she’ll be writing a book exploring the history of women in the canals that will also be interlaced with stories from her experiences.
She isn’t letting the naysayers stop her from fulfilling her dreams while on The Cut.
“My choice for this way of life was to pursue my dream of being a writer and being an artist,” she said. “I chose this way of life so I would be able to work in a less restrained work environment for myself.”
Earle’s alternative lifestyle is one that she made by choice, and she’s very happy with her decision.
“I’m incredibly happy — this is the happiest that I’ve ever been,” she said. “There are so many hardships that come with this way of life. I really do believe that you do grow from hardship and there are great lessons” that come from this lifestyle.
She added, “I’m so much of a better person from living on a boat.”
