• Amanda Williams and her boyfriend are spending $1 million to live permanently on a cruise ship.
• She told Insider about their plans to reside on the MV Narrative when it sets sail in 2025.
• The couple intend to keep managing their 25 properties while they voyage around the world.

This as-told-to article is based on a conversation with Amanda Williams, a real estate investor who has bought a 12-year lease on an apartment on Storylines’ MV Narrative. Insider has verified her income and her place on the cruise ship with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity. 

My boyfriend and I love traveling, and one of my dreams was to buy a boat and go sailing around the world. We did a test run a few years ago with our friends’ yacht in the Bahamas for a month, and fixing all the items that broke on it was more expensive than the trip itself.

We must have spent $25,000 fixing the broken engine on the yacht, and fuel cost between $15,000 and $20,000. 

So instead, we decided to buy an apartment with a 12-year lease for $1 million on the Storylines’ MV Narrative that launches in 2025. It’s a cruise ship that will let us live permanently at sea.

I’m 39 and split my time between Raleigh, North Carolina and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I’m planning to keep running my property empire with my boyfriend while we sail the world.

Picking living on a cruise ship over a yacht

It was a lot of work taking care of our friend’s boat. Then we spent all day navigating and we were exhausted when we got into a port. Having all that done for you on a residential cruise ship made sense.

After seeing an ad for Storylines, I booked a call and handed over a $10,000 deposit there and then. I make decisions quickly.

What really interested me about Storylines is all the hard work is done for you. Maintenance fees are $4,800 a month, but at least you don’t have to worry about paying $25,000 for a broken engine.

We’re staying in a one-bedroom apartment. The walls are mostly glass so it’ll feel bigger, and the balcony is really big, so we’ve got a lot of good outdoor living space there too.  

I think the small space will be an adjustment, but I’ve stayed in a tiny home I own in North Carolina and I love it.

Yes, $1 million in Raleigh could get you four or five bedrooms, but I don’t want to be stuck there, or anywhere else for that matter.

We can’t make many changes to the interiors. Everything is supplied by Storylines because it has to be fireproof.

But I’ve asked for the couch to be replaced with a Murphy bed so my mom can visit. We’re also planning to let guests stay there. Storylines charges $70 a day for an extra guest. 

We’ll pay 40% of the costs before we get on the boat, and the rest will be paid in installments. Hopefully, interest rates will have fallen by then and financing will be a little less expensive.

Managing our properties from the sea

I’ve been in some form of real estate since 2008. I started out helping a friend flip homes, then bought my grandma’s home in 2013 after she died. 

I got my real estate license in 2013, and have been flipping ever since. My boyfriend and I have 25 properties in Raleigh and one that’s being built in Belize – an overwater bungalow.

Each property brings us around $1,000 in cash flow a month. The last time I added everything up for 2022 numbers it was about $680,000 in revenues.

My boyfriend does all the day-to-day handling of properties and the guests and tenants that live there. We’re hoping to hire someone to take that on, but we’ve got a couple of years to do that.

But I’m also planning to build out a new business. I partnered up with a company called eXp Realty, where I get a share of the commission from each of the agents I refer to the company. They’re in 23 countries so I’m planning to build out my business when I visit them on the cruise ship.

It really piqued my interest to be able to have a vessel that’s going to take me from country to country and actually give me enough time in those countries to do presentations and host events. I’m building out contacts in Spain, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico right now.

A new life

Beyond the appeal of building out my business, I’m just really excited about traveling and living on the boat. 

We bought the 12-year package. Right now I’m thinking we’ll sell it after six years, but that could change.

And as weird as it sounds, I’m actually really looking forward to still having a home base while traveling. You just get off the boat, go and have fun, and you come back and everything’s exactly the way it was when you left. To me that feels comforting.