There are lots of options for travelling without flying from Europe to North/South America. As you might expect, none are as quick or as cheap as flying. But if you have the time and money, crossing the Atlantic ocean flight-free can be a life-changing adventure as well as potentially saving a huge amount of carbon.
Here are the main options.
Sail cargo ships
A small but growing number of companies offers passenger berths on their cargo vessels, enabling passengers to effectively hitch a ride from one continent to the other. Your personal contribution to emissions is extremely low, given that your presence on the ship is not contributing to demand, and the ships themselves are wind-powered, keeping emissions as low as is practicable.
These are not cheap options – passage costs typically €3000-€5000 each way – but that covers full board for the days spent at sea. (That's not far off business flight prices.)
You have your own comfortable cabin, and eat with the crew every day. Bear in mind that this is a working vessel, so there's no 'organised' entertainment, and the crew will be mostly occupied with tasks at sea, but there's plenty of time to do whatever takes your fancy, or simply walk around on deck and marvel at the vastness of the ocean. It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT)
Towt.eu is a French company that offers passage on its sailing cargo ships. There are currently three routes open to passengers: Le Havre to New York, Santa-Marta in Colombia, and Santos in Brazil.
There is space for up to 12 passengers on each crossing. It takes 15 days to travel from Le Havre to New York, 22 days for Santa Marta and 22 days for Santos.
Find timetable and information here.
Neoline/SailCoop
Voila SailCoop has partnered with a Nantes-based shipping company to offer regular transit across the Atlantic. Sailings are once a month from Saint-Nazaire (on the French Atlantic coast near Nantes) to St Pierre and Miquelon (a French island off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada), over an 8-day journey. From there the ship continues to Baltimore in the US, taking a further 6 days.
Sailings cost €3,310 for the journey to Baltimore.
Cargo ship
In previous years, a common way for travellers to cross the ocean flight-free was by passage on a freighter. However, cargo ships stopped carrying passengers during Covid, and most haven’t started again.
There is no indication of if or when the practice might start again, but here are two websites where you might find out: www.cargoshipvoyages.com and www.cargoholidays.com
We have some inspiring stories here about people who have travelled by cargo ship:Â
- Christine and Peter cycled from Hadrian's Wall to the Great Wall of China, then got a cargo ship back from Singapore: "Had we flown, our bodies would have arrived home before our brains."
- Lewis took a cargo ship to South America to go travelling: "A highlight was seeing the stars at night, because when else are you going to be that far from human habitation?"
- Kate Rawles also journeyed to South America by cargo ship, at the start of an 8,000 mile bike ride through the Andes from Colombia to Cape Horn: "There are many ‘wow’ moments on a the cargo ship, like realising the size of the ocean, when you're travelling for days and days without seeing land."
Cargo ships aren't perfect, as the shipping industry is highly polluting, but being a passenger on one doesn't contribute to demand for the industry, so in that way, it's a lot better than flying.
Sailing ship
The greenest and most adventurous option!
Another World Adventures is a company offering transatlantic passages throughout the year, typically west to east in the spring, and east to west in the autumn, following the trade winds.
You don't have to be an experienced sailor to take part, although that can help.
Other companies include Voyage Vert, which aims to start transatlantic crossings under sail in the coming years.
Cruise liner
The Queen Mary II cruise liner is the only commercial passenger ship to offer regular Atlantic crossings. It takes around seven days to cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II and costs around £1000.Â
It's operated by the cruise company Cunard, and while it’s not the same as a cruise ship (it’s built for cross-ocean transit rather than bay cruising), it still has a sizeable carbon footprint.
Our calculations show travelling from the UK to New York is around three times more carbon heavy than the equivalent flight:
- QMII uses 1850 tonnes diesel (HFO) and 1000 tonnes gas (MGO) per transatlantic crossing
- One tonne HFO produces 3.114 tonnes CO2, one tonne MGO produces 3.206 tonnes CO2
- 1850 tonnes HFO x 3.114 = 5,760.9 tonnes CO2, 1000 tonnes MGO x 3.206 = 3,206 tonnes CO2, total tonnes CO2 (HFO + MGO) = 8,966.9 per transatlantic crossing
- Divide by number of people on board (3,864) = 2.32 tonnes each, or 4.64 tonnes for the return journey
- Flying London to New York generates 1.415 tonnes per passenger for the return journey
- That means QMII is just over 3 times the CO2 of the flight
Research done with assistance from T&E UK
Repositioning cruises
Cruise ships often need to reposition the boat after a cruise, ready to pick up the next cohort of holiday-makers, so the cruise line will sell cabins at a discounted rate.
It's a slightly cheaper and less carbon intensive way to cross the Atlantic – arguably the boat is going anyway so you're not responsible for the emissions from the ship itself, just for what you use on board.
The entertainment/swimming pools/restaurants won't be operational, which reduces the energy intensity of the ship, thereby reducing emissions. When fully operational, cruising is by far the most carbon-heavy way to travel – much worse than flying!
The future?
There are several companies looking into providing mass low-carbon boat transit across the Atlantic. These include ships more like a ferry service than a cruise, with modest accommodation and entertainment options, maximising passenger numbers and minimising energy use; and sailing ships. We are keeping an eye out and will update on developments as and when they happen.
