What is the Great Loop?
It's a circumnavigation of the eastern part of the US by waterways. It's approximately 6000 miles (plus many opportunities for side trips). It's typically followed seasonally - winter in the warmth of Florida, spring traveling up the ICW, summer in NY and Canada and then fall heading down the riverways of the mid west. Many loopers complete it in a year.
Here's the official map as published by the American Great Loop Cruisers Association:
Some of our key Great Loop posts:
- Our Great Loop Plans
- Great Loop Boat Specifications
- Shopping for and Buying Our Boat
- Why we Selected our Bayliner 4788 for the Great Loop
- Tour of our Bayliner 4788 — Y-Not
- Sloopers Slow Looping: Eight Years on the American Great Loop and More to Go!
Our Interactive Great Loop Map
We set off on the Great Loop in April 2017, intending to completed it in 2-3 years, taking it slowly. When it gets too cold to boat, we planned to put the boat in storage and return to our RV-home waiting for us in the warmth of the south.
Reality has been - we just love living aboard & cruising in our boat, and are finding even a slower pace of travel is suiting us better. And of course, in 2020 the pandemic put us on pause for a few years having us turn back to a favorite side trip - Sanford, FL.
We officially returned to active looping April 2024, picking up where we left off in Charleston, SC later that summer.
We find we love actively cruising for a few weeks, anchoring out along the way. We're also frequently taking as many side trips as we can, and stopping in places many faster paced Loopers skip. And then finding our next cool coastal city with a marina with easy access to stuff and a great monthly rate.
Click on the area of the map you're interested in to start browsing our travelogues & videos about each stop (individual posts also at the bottom of this page).
The map & routing above is provided by the WordPress plug-in Nomad World Map that utilizes all of our blog travelogue entries.
The Dismal Swamp & Norfolk, VA – Great Loop Cruising
After an exciting crossing of the Albemarle Sound, we enjoyed a couple days just swinging on the hook off of Goat Island – at the entrance of the Dismal Swamp. It was delightful, and just what we needed to recharge. With some weather developing off of Carolina coast that might impact us, we decided it […]
New Bern to Elizabeth City, NC – Crossing the Fabled Albemarle Sound: Great Loop Cruising
We rode out the Labor Day holiday weekend in New Bern, NC – a side trip off the Intracoastal Waterway up the Neuse River. We ended up extending our stay by a day, as windy conditions had small craft advisories on the Neuse River for our journey back down river. As the Neuse opens up […]
Back to Wilmington, Kiki Crosses the Rainbow Bridge and then Onward to New Bern – Great Loop Cruising
We left Wilmington after a delightful month full of new friends, great food, entertainment and just immersing ourselves in an enchanting city. But we left with a little bit of concern for Kiki and her starting to not finish her meals – a fairly normal sometimes behavior. After cruising back down the Cape Fear River, […]
Conway, SC to Wilmington, NC – A Week Turns into a Month
First of all, a big huge thank you for all of the supporting and loving comments to the passing of our Admiral Kiki. It’s been a tough few weeks, but it’s time to resume the blog. This entry takes us back to the before times, when Kiki was still healthy and everything in our world […]
Charleston to Conway, SC Great Loop Cruising – Are We Cut Out for This?
After leaving Charleston in our wake, we took a turn to the north and were officially resuming our Great Loop. It was a windy day with some sporty chop on the harbor, but once we turned into the protected waters of Isles of Palms, things smoothed out considerably. But now we had a narrow channel […]
Resuming our Great Loop Four Years Later – A Quick Refresher
A few weeks ago, we left Charleston in our wake and officially picked up where we left off on our Great Loop back in 2019. We thought this would be a good time to recap what the Great Loop is, our history with it, why we went on an extended pause and what our intentions […]
Cruising Savannah to Charleston – Murder Scene or Steering Pump Failure?!!?
After a marvelous couple of days in downtown Savannah, we were excited to continue northbound up the ICW. We thought we were getting back into our cruising o, and enjoying the variety that life on the water can bring. Time with friends, time in remote gorgeous anchorages and being in the heart of amazing downtowns. […]
Sanford to Savannah – First Two Weeks Back to Cruising, and Rejoining the Great Loop Route
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few weeks since we left Sanford in our wake, resuming our active cruising lifestyle. I originally thought I’d do one post wrapping up our segment up to Charleston, our turn around point of our first attempt at the Great Loop. But we were already starting to forget […]
Farewell Sanford – Dropping the Lines & Resuming Nomadic Life Without a Basecamp
It’s hard to believe 4 years have flown by since we pulled into Sanford, FL as our pandemic shelter in place location. We knew that COVID wasn’t going away anytime soon, and Sanford felt like the right place to hunker down to ride it out. We’d be near family, friends and have decent hurricane protection […]
Our Fitness Journey – Goal: Geeks Avoiding Being Called Couch Potatoes
Over the past many months, we’ve gotten so many compliments on how we’re looking these days. If that includes you, thank you so much! Yes indeed, we’ve both lost a good deal of weight since our highs at the start of the pandemic. It’s been a slow gradual process over the past three years, and […]
Back to Sanford: Cruising Southbound on the St. Johns River & Exploring New to Us Anchorages (Crescent Lake, Mud Creek Cove)
Our final project at Lamb’s Yacht Center was replacing our front deck hatches. Our original Bomar hatches were now over 20 years old and had several parts failing, and they needed to be re-bedded to fix a leak that had developed. We opted for replacing them instead of trying to rebuild – as it would […]
Escape from Boat Projects – Cruising St. Augustine, Cumberland Island, St. Marys & Fernandina Beach
When last we left you, we had just arrived back to Jacksonville after about a month out adventuring in the van. Y-Not had just been splashed after a bottom job and other projects that she needed to be hauled out for, and we had a project list ahead of us. We’ll catch you up on […]
