The rise of the superyacht sabbatical

There was a time when taking a gap year was the preserve of school leavers with backpacks and deferred university places – a chance to step away from everyday routines and find yourself before getting on to the career ladder. Today, a different generation is also stepping away from the day to day.

Increasingly, yacht owners – entrepreneurs, business leaders and young families alike – are pressing pause on their shoreside routines to embark on journeys lasting anywhere from a few months to upwards of three years or more.

And these gap years are more fluid than they used to be – some take time off from work completely, others continue running companies from anchorages in the South Pacific. And families travelling with school-age children may weave lessons around safaris and archaeological sites. It seems as if the gap year has grown up.

Duncan Over, founder of Joro Experiences, which works hand-in-hand with Burgess on its yacht-focused trips, says demand for these grown-up gap years rise. “We’ve seen a fundamental shift in people’s priorities over the last five or six years,” he says.

“Covid-19 was undoubtedly the catalyst, but it was followed by continued geopolitical uncertainty, economic instability and a growing awareness that time is ultimately our most limited resource. For many successful professionals, the traditional model of working relentlessly to enjoy retirement no longer feels particularly appealing. They’re asking a different question: why wait?”

Across the industry, specialists are seeing the same shift. Pelorus has recorded a 75 per cent increase in enquiries for yacht charters lasting more than 14 days compared with the same period last year, while EYOS is increasingly designing journeys spanning 12 to 18 months – or even years – as clients map out their lives around exploration rather than squeezing travel into annual leave.

Flexible working and connectivity technology such as Starlink have undoubtedly made longer journeys more practical, but just as significant is a growing willingness to reshape life around experiences.

As Ben Lyons, CEO of EYOS Expeditions, puts it, clients increasingly approach them with the intention of “setting off to do something epic” – not fitting in another holiday, but planning the next chapter of their lives around a long-held ambition.

What truly sets apart this type of trip is intentionality. The journey becomes a fulfilment of a larger life goal. “For clients, it’s ‘I’m organising my life around this for the next 18 months,’ rather than here’s my usual life and slotting in a vacation,” says Lyons.

He notes that the clientele attracted to these sorts of trips are often “younger” owners and charterers, in their forties to sixties, many with children. Other clients include couples and, on rare occasions, the solo sabbatical.

While some cruises might involve travelling constantly, others unfold in chapters, combining time aboard a yacht with time ashore in villas and lodges and on overland expeditions – or even a quick jaunt home to reset.

The minute you start looking at a month-plus, the way a trip is planned changes. Instead of asking how much you can fit into a holiday, travellers are asking: how long should we stay? Can we work from there? What do we want to learn? Where do we want to linger?

For many professionals, the traditional model of working relentlessly to enjoy retirement no longer feels appealing

Richard and Ali Hadida, owners of the 27-metre Oyster 885 Lush, know those questions well. The couple had long planned to sail around the world as part of the Oyster World Rally. The voyage was originally pencilled in for the future, but then they changed their minds.

“We had this philosophy of ‘Why put it off?’ You know, carpe diem,” says Richard, CEO of Oyster Marine. “We were going to wait until 2028 or 2030 but then said let’s do it now.” The timing worked out well for Richard and Ali, who are halfway through a 16-month circumnavigation with their two-and-a-half-year-old son.

Ali, a doctor, realised the timing worked for another reason. “I felt like I was achieving something while also bringing up my son at this young age by sailing around the world,” she says. She has also learned to sail and became an accomplished scuba diver on the trip. Richard continued working remotely for part of each day, while the rest of their time is spent exploring together.

Far from disrupting family life, the voyage reshaped it. Others have become part of the journey, too. “We tell our friends and family, ‘Don’t just come for a week – come for a month, or three months!’”

Richard’s two sons from his previous marriage have taken their father up on this offer. “My middle son came out for a month at the beginning of the rally and wound up staying four months – and I don’t know when a father gets this chance to spend so much time with his 19-year-old son and having adventures every day.”

Richard’s oldest friends also met them for an extended stay, and his sister came with her three children. “You’re sharing adventures together and living in a fairly compact way, and I feel more bonded with my friends and family than I ever did,” he adds.

Perhaps the greatest reward, however, has been watching their youngest son experience the world in a way few children ever do. “I can see his understanding of the world grow,” says Ali. “Even at this young age, he has encyclopaedic knowledge of animals and people.”

The decision to bring their plans forward reflects a mindset shared by a Joro and Burgess client who embarked on an 18-month, multigenerational journey in 2024. “Our children are at a good age to be able to enjoy the experience before schoolwork gets more intense,” the client says.

“We wanted to spend more time together as a family and give the kids an opportunity to learn about other cultures in a more tangible way than the classroom – it’s been incredible to watch them grow in confidence.”

What they remember most, however, wasn’t a particular destination or sight, but how this type of travel affected their children. “I have loved watching our pre-teen loosen her grip on her phone and start to pick up new skills and hobbies – learning watersports with the deck team in Thailand and spending time with safari rangers in Kenya. There have been a million small moments that will stick with us.”

Choosing to take the time to reinvent the everyday is indicative of a bigger mindset shift in luxury travel. “The shift usually happens when the question changes from ‘where should we go?’ to ‘how do we want to live for a while?’,” says Erik Hasselman, head of yachts at Cookson Adventures.

It’s a subtle distinction, but one that changes almost every aspect of planning. Rather than trying to fit as much as possible into a fortnight, clients are looking for a different pace: longer stays, fewer transitions and enough time to become immersed in a place. Whether the journey lasts two months or two years, the destination is often only the starting point.

For one Joro client, that meant spending eight weeks over two and a half years earning a Yachtmaster qualification, training in Norway, Scotland and the Mediterranean before completing an Atlantic crossing.

Another family replaced traditional classroom learning with private access to museums in Cairo alongside an Egyptologist before continuing to Norway and East Africa, where wildlife and conservation became part of the curriculum.

Others are pursuing ambitions that can’t be compressed into a conventional holiday. Gayle Patterson, director of yachting at Pelorus Yachting, says clients increasingly arrive with an idea that’s too ambitious for a week or two away: following the Spice Routes through Indonesia, crossing the Northwest Passage or spending time alongside scientists and conservationists.

“The yacht tends to do the moving, and land stays do the settling,” says Hasselman. “The yacht handles the parts of a region that are best reached by water and lets guests wake up somewhere new every day without repacking a single bag.”

For owner Anil Thadani, whose family has spent years exploring aboard the 45-metre motor yacht Latitude, that’s exactly the appeal. “The yacht was really our floating home rather than our destination,” Thadani says. “One of the greatest pleasures of travelling this way is that there is no pressure to move on. If somewhere captures your imagination, you simply stay another day – or another week.

The crew notice the difference too. One captain described sabbatical guests as noticeably more relaxed than traditional charter clients. Rather than a tightly scheduled week, the atmosphere becomes closer to everyday life, with familiar crew, established routines and the flexibility to decide each day’s adventures as they unfold.

The logistics for these sorts of trips, unsurprisingly, are considerable. Joro, for example, breaks long journeys into chapters, often organised by region – and certainly governed by seasonality. Every travel specialist interviewed stressed the importance of resisting the temptation to overfill the itinerary.

“The biggest temptation when people suddenly have three months instead of two weeks is to keep adding destinations,” says Patterson. “That often creates a longer itinerary, but not a better trip.” Instead, she encourages clients to define the purpose first and leave enough flexibility for wildlife, weather and unexpected opportunities to shape the journey.

That freedom fundamentally changes the experience. Rather than racing between highlights, travellers can follow wildlife migrations, spend weeks exploring a single archipelago or dive beneath the surface of places many visitors only glimpse from afar.

After more than 1,000 dives around the world, Thadani still counts Raja Ampat, Komodo and the Banda Islands among his favourites, while some of his most memorable moments were the quiet evenings spent at anchor with family and friends after a day of exploration.

Despite crossing oceans, Richard insists that the voyage they are currently on is not merely about circumnavigating the globe. “Our goal was to not just go around the world, but to see the world,” he says. “We’ve spent the last six weeks in French Polynesia, and I could’ve spent six months here. We have still only scratched the surface.”

For many undertaking these journeys, the reward lies not in the miles travelled but in the moments along the way. “Luxury travel is increasingly shifting away from simply consuming experiences towards creating meaningful ones,” says Joro’s Duncan Over.

For EYOS’s Lyons, that desire for meaning is at the heart of the trend. “People are seeking something deeper – a deeper understanding of the world, and a deeper understanding of themselves. We hear from clients, ‘What we’re looking to do is build memories with our family that will last years and years.’”

First published in the October 2026 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.