Living on a boat; ? or even holidaying on a boat…

Lots of people live very happily aboard narrowboats, personally I couldn’t, I find them quite hard work and I like more space. We have had a boat for about 15 years, love the boat but not boating! The constant filling of the water tanks and emptying of foul waste is a chore, and they do require a lot of maintenance if you want to keep them looking nice. The waterways have become very busy now and it is a nightmare in the summer, both with the locks and finding a good spot to moor up. Maybe hire one for a couple of weeks to see how you get on. Good luck, it might be the life for you.

I agree with others who say hire before deciding to buy. It's not a cheap way of life with licence, mooring fees, fuel, etc. and if one lives aboard there is a liability for council tax. We owned a narrowboat for about 20 years spending about half a year afloat. We really enjoyed it and visited much of the UK that we would not normally see and we made many friends, however, it can be a very lonely way of life especially during winters.

Nephew lived on a boat for a few years. He had a touring licence so had to move on every few days and couldn't go back to that spot for so many weeks. As he worked he had to be close to places where he could park. He got broken into a few times, his generator nicked, and coming home on a cold winters night was no fun. Not as cheap as you'd imagine, he had to have the boat bottomed and find somewhere else to live while that was going on
Hard to register with a doc, and you need someone onshore for your post, and an address, so he had to officially live at his dad's for things like that and being able to vote. Lovely when the weather was nice.

We had narrow boats for years and it was lovely but as someone above has already mentioned it has become 'mainstream' and not like it was. There are many more rules and regulations these days and boating is not a cheap option any more. Hire a boat and give it a try, I wouldn't want to put you off. In fact, if DH was keen (and he isn't) I would be tempted to get another one.