Paula Gonzalvo, the adventurer who has crossed the world doing 'barcostop'
She was going to be an architect, but when she graduated, she changed the family studio for the sea. For four years, Paula Gonzalvo crosses the oceans of the entire planet jumping from sailboat to sailboat. And she does it thanks to the barcostop: working on board in exchange for a cabin, in experiences that she recounts on her blog, Beyond the seas .
For those who don't know, Paula Gonzalvo explains that the barcostop is “a way of traveling similar to hitchhiking on land, but by sea. Surely you must have adventurous character and surely more patience and time - because it can take a long time to find a ship, and crossings usually last days or weeks. It consists of embarking on sailboats as a crew member.
That yes, instead of seeing it as a transport, as we would do with a car, it also happens to be your home during the crossing. You live together and collaborate in daily tasks”.
The architect assures that she became a sailor “satiating the desire to know. I found the sea by chance. Just graduated, I decided to start traveling without a specific destination or plans . A trip with very little budget and a lot of time. My first experience in crossing, the Atlantic crossing , captivated me so much that I continued traveling by sea”.
In this way, she enrolled in her first sailboat: “The crossing of the ocean to South America could be done by air or by sea; I decided to bet on what I still did not know and try my luck embarking as a crew member. I arrived in Gran Canaria with the intention of leaving the island by sailboat. I hung posters around the laundromat, bars and harbor walls, I talked to people in the area and after three weeks there, I found a boat”.
This is how she remembers her first trip to Latin America: “It was my first long trip and before knowing that you could travel by sailboat . I traveled all over Brazil during my university exchange (the summer there happens during the European winter), before finishing my degree. It was when I found out that you could travel with very little , collaborating on projects in exchange for room and board. Its about collaborative journey , very similar to the barcostop”.
Like any traveler, Paula had to face her fears before she left, although she maintains that "the desire to travel exceeded or canceled the perhaps most common fears when traveling alone . My main concern was not knowing how long she would be traveling, being absent from family and friends events, in addition to carrying the disappointment what it meant for other family members to make a decision with such an uncertain course.”
Gonzalez did not have no previous experience aboard a boat, but since then, she has learned to do everything: “As with everything in life, you learn from scratch. Only maybe in our culture we are used to going guided , backed by certificates, courses or master's degrees... We are very lucky to live in a time when information and the possibilities of gaining experience in almost any field are available to anyone who wants to try it. It's funny then I learned to sail sailing and, nevertheless, in the architecture career they never encouraged us to step on a work”.
Currently, the traveler lives sailing the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. In fact, we have managed to talk about her with her through her contact on her land, who has sent her our questionnaire via satellite : “I am just now writing on board the sailboat Copernicus Doubloon; we are sailing about three miles from Cape Verde, where we will make a stop to visit, loosen our legs and stock up on provisions . Five days ago we left La Gomera (Canary Islands) with the intention of reaching Brazilian coasts in one month about".
The sailor does not have her own sailboat, and, at the moment, she is not considering buying one either: “I have been traveling as a crew member for four years, embarking on other people's sailboats or renting sailboats exploring places by sea that would otherwise be inaccessible. Having your own sailboat would mean to finally have a home after four years of nomadic life, but the freedom that I feel now, traveling in this way, I would lose by having to take care of my own sailboat, also economically -well, at the moment I have no income to pay for ports, permits, repairs...-. I free myself from the worry that its annual maintenance implies, and besides, right now I prefer to rent almost new boats. I do it, for example, with GlobeSailor , choosing a location: today in Cape Verde, in three months in Brazil and, in half a year, in Turkey”.
Last December, Gonzalvo participated as a speaker in the second edition of traveling alone , and recognizes that it was "a good opportunity to be able to share this lifestyle and verify that more and more of us dare to travel alone, both women and men".
Your recommendations for someone who wants to venture out to sea? “Have a good attitude, ability to adapt and patience . It is a very active, in the sense that you have to be attentive almost 24 hours a day, and the rhythm is set by the weather and the state of the sailboat and crew. The changes they are constant; In counterpart, personal growth is indescribable . Every day you learn and improvements as a person".