Postcard from Europe: Home’s where the boat floats

Above: Houseboats docked along a London canal

Tensions have been rising between the managers of Britain’s canals, others who use them, and the nomadic narrowboaters, revered by some as bohemian travelers and disdained by others as maritime squatters.”

“Britain’s Canalboat Nomads Fear New Rules Will Sink Their Way of Life,” Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post, August 29. 2025

I had seen canalboats before, yet London was the first place I became fascinated with the lifestyle of those who operated them. Clueless as to how the system worked.

Now I know, there are boats with permanent berths, and then there are “travelers,” wanderers required to shove off after two weeks in one spot. Many of these are not short-term vacationers but long-term residents who rove about the canals tying up their houses fortnightly.

Above: Houseboats in London, England. My favorite: Carpe Diem.

In Amsterdam, overcrowding of its extensive system of canals led the city to halt issuing permits for moorings. People who want to buy a permit for a berth must buy a boat already docked there. An aging boat itself might be cheap, but the parking rights that come with it skyrocketed its value – like quaint houses in desirous locations nouveau purchasers regard as teardowns.

Boats already on the canals have a license to permanently dock that is sold with the boat. A new boat can be moved in only if someone with an existing boat decides to upgrade, transferring the ‘water deed’ to the new boat and scrapping the old boat or selling it for use outside of Amsterdam’s canal system.”

“In Amsterdam, Floating Homes that Only Look Like Ships,” Christopher F. Schuetze, The New York Times, November 4, 2019

So now a common complaint is one of gentrification. Wealthy owners are displacing a community of eccentrics and artists; old barges are replaced with luxury versions.

‘It’s changing very fast. The guy over here thinks I’m the old hippie, and those neighbors think I’m the yuppie,’ said Juul Steyn, 42, who has lived on his boat, a converted concrete-hulled World War II munitions boat, for six years.” 

Christopher Schuetze, The New York Times

Above: Houseboats in Amsterdam, Netherlands

My favorite floating home business was that of a luthier spotted on a canal in Toulouse.

Above left: Yves Descloux, Luthier, docked in Toulouse, France. Right: Houseboat, Paris, France

There are rental companies for houseboats offering them as vacation retreats. No license required most places. You can pilot your own following a brief hands-on lesson demonstrating how to navigate a canal lock. A useful skill, second only to parallel-parking the thing, followed by yielding etiquette.

Hey, as an owner in London named his/her narrowboat, Carpe Diem.