Can You Travel the World as a Yacht Chef? (Yes — Here's What That Looks Like)

This is the question with the happiest answer. Yes — your job is literally travelling the world. Let me tell you what that actually looks like, because it's better and stranger than the brochure.

The standard circuit

At a minimum, yachting runs on seasons: summers in the Mediterranean — the French and Italian Rivieras, the Balearics, Greece, Croatia — then across the Atlantic for winters in the Caribbean and Bahamas. That's the baseline. A "normal" year in this job outdoes most people's lifetime travel list.

Then there's the good stuff

The boats that go further are where the magic lives. My career has taken me through New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Zealand on my very first yacht, cruising past the island where Castaway was filmed. Papua New Guinea, face to face with whale sharks. Raja Ampat in Indonesia — the most remote, alive place I've ever anchored; that one was special. You will experience places and moments that only the top one percent of the world ever get to see, and you'll be getting paid to be there.

How much do you actually see?

Honest answer: it depends on the calendar. With guests on, you'll see the inside of your galley and a beautiful view through a porthole. But between trips, on repositioning legs and in the off-season, the boat is yours to explore from. Provisioning is secret sightseeing too — my job sends me to local markets in every port, which is my favourite way to know a place. As a chef, when amazing local produce surrounds you, it's hard not to dive in — it all ends up in my dishes at some point.

The traveller you become

Freelance and rotational work changes the game again. On rotation you fly home — or anywhere — for weeks at a time, salary continuing. I've spent my leave eating my way through Mexico, Brasil, America and Australia. Follow the high seasons around the world and you have geographical independence plus financial freedom, all year round.

Fourteen years in: whale sharks, royalty in my galley, six-day storms, remote islands with no names on the chart. I fell in love with the ocean growing up in Noosa — this career let me make it my address.

Want the sea to be your office too? Start with the free Module 1 of Become a Yacht Chef.