What is America's Great Loop?

A few years back, I had this crazy idea that I would move my family out of our house and into a boat and we would explore the Eastern United States by waterways on this thing called America's Great Loop.

That crazy idea that I had a few years ago took a little convincing (and a few raised eyebrows) but my family was willing to commit and we turned that crazy idea into a real adventure. Our Waterway Adventure involves navigating the Eastern United States by boat.

There is a collection of rivers, lakes, and canals that form a continuous waterway called America's Great Loop. This measures out to about 6,000 statute miles (that's the miles that you're measuring by on the road). If you want to say that in boat miles, it's about 5,200 nautical miles.

This trip normally takes about 12 months to complete but you can do it however you want. You can do it 12 consecutive months, you can split it up and just do it during your summer breaks... Most people will follow the seasons of the calendar year. We can take the spring to "spring" up the east coast and then during the summer we spend our time in the Great Lakes. In the fall we "fall" down the river system and then in the cold winter months we spend our time in Florida, maybe the Bahamas. Chasing the seasons is a convenient way to stay in pleasant weather.

Fika, our boat, is a sailboat, but there's a variety of boats that travel the Loop. Trawlers are a really popular style because they have spacious living quarters and they're pretty fuel efficient, but the Loop has also been traveled using personal watercrafts, canoes, speedboats, narrow boats... If it floats and it's safe you can use it on the Loop!

A lot of people will do this trip for the adventure, but what they find is that a lot of friendships are formed and these friendships can be as memorable as the scenery. Flying The AGLCA burgee fosters those different encounters and makes a really easy Avenue for forming new friendships and we've met so many people not only from the Loop group but also as we go to different places is we meet people from those towns and share our story and they love getting to be part of our story too.

If you see a boat that's flying the white AGLCA burgee, that means they're on their first Loop they haven't completed the Loop yet. If you see a gold burgee that means they've completed the Loop, or what we like to say, they've "crossed their wake."

As we've been on this adventure, we've had a lot of different navigational challenges that we've had to learn how to deal with like different water conditions, changing tides, weather patterns, learning how to navigate locks and bridges... All of these things add elements of adventure and lots of new skills. We are constantly learning as we go and it's been a great growth opportunity for me, my husband, and my kids.

Watch the video to learn more about the route!