You'd be surprised. Where I'm currently at (Montreal) there's a lot of 40-year old ~21 foot sailboats going for $3-4k. Me and a buddy planned to buy something this summer, but he spent his share of the money on travel. I was too lazy to learn to sail and don't like carpentry and other crap that goes into maintaining a boat, so I decided not to get a boat by myself.
Even when you factor in repairs, harbor fees and the possibility of having to write the boat off after 1-2 years because it's spending all its time in the water (most of the boats we looked at were dry docked for most of their existence), it's still cheaper than rent.
About touring bikes, it really doesn't matter what you tour on. I've known people who've toured on Wal-Mart bikes (not a good idea), 70s 5-speed bikes, track bikes (also not a good idea), double-stack welded tallbikes, etc. There was even a guy riding a BMX backwards across the USA for charity.
I have a bunch of friends that swear by the LHT, but I like to tour on late 80s-early 90s rigid-fork steel mountain bikes (all the rigid-fork mountain bikes made today are suspension-corrected, which makes them useless for just about anything). On mountain bikes the rear rack sits lower and handling gets smoother as the rear is loaded, which isn't always the case with road-type frames. This means you can go with rear panniers only, which is great because front panniers really mess up handling. As a plus 26" wheels and tires can be found almost anywhere, and are usually stronger than 700s.
You'd be surprised. Where I'm currently at (Montreal) there's a lot of 40-year old ~21 foot sailboats going for $3-4k. Me and a buddy planned to buy something this summer, but he spent his share of the money on travel. I was too lazy to learn to sail and don't like carpentry and other crap that goes into maintaining a boat, so I decided not to get a boat by myself.
Even when you factor in repairs, harbor fees and the possibility of having to write the boat off after 1-2 years because it's spending all its time in the water (most of the boats we looked at were dry docked for most of their existence), it's still cheaper than rent.
About touring bikes, it really doesn't matter what you tour on. I've known people who've toured on Wal-Mart bikes (not a good idea), 70s 5-speed bikes, track bikes (also not a good idea), double-stack welded tallbikes, etc. There was even a guy riding a BMX backwards across the USA for charity.
I have a bunch of friends that swear by the LHT, but I like to tour on late 80s-early 90s rigid-fork steel mountain bikes (all the rigid-fork mountain bikes made today are suspension-corrected, which makes them useless for just about anything). On mountain bikes the rear rack sits lower and handling gets smoother as the rear is loaded, which isn't always the case with road-type frames. This means you can go with rear panniers only, which is great because front panniers really mess up handling. As a plus 26" wheels and tires can be found almost anywhere, and are usually stronger than 700s.