Jim and Lisa Favors are pretty sure they coined the term boaterhoming.
As Jim tells the story, it all started after they picked up Kismet, their Ranger Tug 27, in Anacortes, Washington. They hung out with their fellow Ranger owners at a rendezvous in Roche Harbor, the way so many other boaters might do in the stunning San Juan Islands. But after that, the Favors did something most boaters never do. They made a beeline for, ahem, dry land.
“We trailered to a casino where they had motorhomes parked out back,” Jim says. “We pulled in with our boat, trailer and truck, and we backed in to camp out for the night. We were walking around talking to other people, and one guy said, ‘What are you boater homies doing?’ We took that and converted it to boaterhoming.”
What they’re doing—what they’ve been doing since 2011 aboard three different sizes of Ranger Tugs—is using such locations, along with RV parks, as stopovers between cruising destinations from coast to coast, in America and Canada alike. Sure, they also trailer Kismet, park the truck and trailer, and do a round-trip cruise. Or they park and do a one-way cruise, then rent a car or catch a ride back to their land transport. But they find that using the boat as a hotel gives them access to a whole lot more of what they bought a trailerable boat for in the first place: pretty much any cruising destination they want, including spots where other boats simply cannot go.
“In the 14 years we’ve been doing this, using these RV parks just as a means to get from point A to point B as a place to camp out overnight without paying for a hotel, I would say we’ve been turned away a handful of times,” Jim says. “When we show up, they’re not questioning the boat. They’re curious, and they like to look at the boat.”
The Favors are far from alone. People who buy trailerable cruising boats are seeking out all kinds of cool places to take them, in ways that don’t require buying a second boat or chartering.
“I think that’s one of the things that makes our boats really popular for people who want to have boating adventures,” says Sam Bisset, vice president of marketing for the parent company of Ranger Tugs. “Maybe they want to do Alaska, but also the Bahamas and the Great Loop, and they also want to do Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona. You can throw the boat on the trailer and do all of that.”
Here’s a look at five destinations that experts in trailerable boats describe as some of the coolest places to go.
LAKE POWELL, ARIZONA & UTAH
Bisset says that about 50 percent of the people who own Ranger Tugs trailer them. He hears from folks who have trailered their boats everywhere, including to an edge of the U.S. mainland and then beyond that, to places like Alaska and the Bahamas. Of all the destinations he’s seen people put their boats onto trailers and go, Lake Powell is among the most mesmerizing. It’s a reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, a region known for its richly colored sandstone canyons, photogenic rock formations and hideaway coves.
“It’s beautiful. It’s sand and stone that drops right into the water,” Bisset says. “You can stern-tie to the land and drop an anchor, and it’s just a beautiful setting. It’s a standalone destination.”
ROQUE ISLAND, MAINE
Penobscot Bay in Maine is the stuff of boating poetry: spectacular scenery, oodles of islands to explore, and protected spots to duck and cover. And within that well-known region is a far less-visited place called Roque Island—a spot that a lot of folks with trailerable boats set out to reach.
“Penobscot Bay is obviously a core cruising ground for many people living in New England. It’s so incredibly picturesque with the granite coastline,” says Ben Knowles, president of East Coast Yacht Sales, which sells Nordic Tugs, among other brands. “That’s where a lot of people try to get to, and maybe to Roque Island, which is a little farther. It’s a very remote island, absolutely picturesque beaches, incredible scenery, and it’s quiet. There’s nothing around.”
The trip to Roque Island isn’t hard, he says. It’s just not on a lot of boaters’ radars. But with a trailerable boat, it’s easy to put in at a more popular spot and then make your way there, watching the stress of civilization fade in your wake. “From Penobscot Bay to Roque is a couple hours by boat. It’s not really a big deal,” Knowles says. “And it’s absolutely off-the-charts awesome. It’s outside Jonesport, so you could bring your boat to Bar Harbor and then run over to Roque Island and hit Jonesport along the way.”
CHESAPEAKE BAY
Another big-name spot for a lot of boaters is Chesapeake Bay, which offers a dealer’s choice of cool places to explore. Trailering there gave the Favors a chance to do something they didn’t expect: Cruise to the nation’s capital and see it from a perspective that most people can’t even imagine.
“When we first had visions of going to the Chesapeake Bay, we thought of Washington and Baltimore and assumed it would all be built up, but it’s not,” Jim says. “We were in anchorages where cows were pasturing and coming right down to the water.”
They ended up spending a whole summer there, checking out all the things to do in midsize cities like Norfolk, Virginia, and roaming through smaller charm-filled streets in spots like St. Michaels, Maryland. But out of all the places they saw in that region, Jim says, Washington, D.C. was a real surprise. Far from being a bustling metropolis, the couple discovered it’s a place with many fun nooks and crannies to explore.
“Washington, D.C. by water is a lot different than it is by land,” he says. It’s less congested with cars and people. You can go all the way up the Potomac, where there are a lot of little anchorages along the route.”
HUDSON RIVER, NEW YORK
Ben Wilde, president of Wilde Yacht Sales in Essex, Connecticut, says one of the regions he hears about from people with trailerable boats in the Northeast is the one that stretches from New York City up the Hudson River. His company sells boats like the Nordic Tugs 26, and he hears from a lot of boaters about a veritable cornucopia of places to put in along the stretch of the Hudson that runs north from Gotham. There are many fun towns and historical sites to explore on the shoreline—especially in autumn, when the green leaves all around explode into a cascade of beautiful reds, oranges and yellows.
“It’s an easy trip, and once you leave the Tappan Zee Bridge, it becomes a gorgeous trip,” Wilde says. “And you can do it in just about any kind of boat. We had a group of six boaters a month ago who went as far as Troy. They made a lot of smaller stops along the way—to Kingston, for instance. Once you leave New York City, you’ve really left the city. And it’s a trip that almost anybody can do.”
Some folks with trailer boats, he says, consider this stretch of the Hudson part of the Triangle Loop. It’s like the Great Loop that encircles half the continental United States, but smaller. “You do half the Hudson and the Erie Canal, then to Oswego and the Thousand Islands, then you turn into Lake Champlain,” he says. “You’ve done this triangle back into the Hudson River. You can do that in any size boat.”
And, he adds, it’s an economical trip. “The great thing about the Erie Canal and Lake Champlain is that most of the stops are free. In addition, you’re tying up on the side, and things like electric and water are free.”
ST. JOHNS RIVER, FLORIDA
Jim Favors says another of his favorite regions is the Southeast United States, particularly the coastal stretch from North Carolina down to Florida. In the Carolinas and Georgia, they anchor out quite a bit.
“And with a shallow-draft trailerable boat, you can get into a lot of places the bigger boats can’t go. You get to see a lot of things,” he says.
“In South Carolina, you’ve got the grasslands where these rivers meander back in there,” he says. You throw an anchor out in the river, and you’re surrounded by cattails and grass reeds. It’s just a beautiful environment.” In Florida, his must-visit spot is the St. Johns River—particularly its southern leg that’s chockablock with alligators, eagles, fish and manatees.
“We’ve done that twice,” he says. “We came in all the way from the Intracoastal Waterway and cruised down to Jacksonville. We then went all the way down to Sanford before trailering into Deland. We launched Kismet from there. We cruised up and down and into some of those backwater shallow areas just to listen to the birds in the morning. For us, the experience was just phenomenal.”
September 2025
