Freighter Travel: A Complete Guide to Passenger Cargo Ship Voyages

Yes, cargo ships still take fare-paying passengers, though far fewer than a decade ago. Ships carry four to six travellers and never more than twelve. Maersk has withdrawn permanently, berths are scarce, and UK travellers book through a specialist agency around six months ahead for a slow voyage priced by the day.

Freighter travel has an image problem, and it is the opposite of the one you would expect. Every article about it reads like a discovery, when the truth is that the industry has been quietly closing the door for years. The ships are still out there. The cabins mostly are not.

The passenger fleet is shrinking, and Maersk is the proof

Maersk is the largest container line in the world, and it has confirmed that its decision to stop carrying passengers is permanent. Not paused, not under review. Done.

The same group killed the other big one. When Maersk took over Hamburg-Sud, that line’s long-running service between North America and Australasia ended with it, taking four Spirit-class ships and the Cap Capricorn out of the market at once. Two decisions, and a whole ocean’s worth of options disappeared.

What is left tolerates passengers rather than wanting them. Freight pays the bills, you are a rounding error in the manifest, and every line that pulls out makes the remaining cabins harder to get. Anyone pitching this as the coming alternative to flying has not checked who is still selling tickets. For how it differs from a holiday at sea, we have set that out in freighter travel vs cruise ships key differences.

Which services still take passengers

The whole list fits on a postcard, which tells you most of what you need to know.

Beyond those you are chasing one-off sailings that appear and vanish with the cargo contracts behind them. The routes that come round with any reliability are in freighter travel routes popular destinations.

What a cargo ship berth costs

Every guide that quotes a bargain crossing is recycling numbers from before the pandemic. Cargo Ship Voyages, a UK agency, publishes an average of around 150 euro per person per day for an en suite cabin with full board.

You are buying days, not miles. A slow crossing costs more than a fast one because it takes longer, and when the schedule slips you fund the extra nights rather than gaining a holiday. Euro is the invoice currency, with prevailing exchange rates applied to deposit and balance, so a weak pound quietly raises the bill between booking and boarding.

Against an airline seat the arithmetic is embarrassing. Against the same number of nights on a cruise ship it holds up, as long as you understand that the entertainment budget is zero and the itinerary belongs to the cargo.

Can you work your passage or sail for free?

No. Cargo Ship Voyages states it is not possible under any circumstances, and that is the end of it.

Crew are trained and certificated because the safety of the ship, the cargo and everyone aboard rests on it. Enthusiasm is not a qualification, and nobody is swapping a berth for your help with the washing up. Passengers travel as supernumeraries with no working role at all, which is a formal way of saying you are cargo that talks.

The dockside version, where you charm a captain into taking you to Valparaiso, died with the merchant marine that made it possible. Anyone still promising it online is selling something.

Crossing the Atlantic from the UK

Research for this page found no passenger-carrying freighter sailing from a UK port, and the transatlantic services that do take passengers start on the Continent. The wind-powered Neoliner Origin, for one, leaves from western France.

That is an absence of evidence rather than proof, and an agency might turn something up when you ring. Plan on a ferry or a flight to a Continental port as leg one, budget the time and the cost, and treat any UK departure you find as a bonus rather than the base case.

Getting to Australia by cargo ship

The main passenger service linking North America and Australasia went when Hamburg-Sud withdrew, and nothing has replaced it at that scale. No operator now sells a through passage from Europe to Australia.

Reaching Australia now means stitching together whatever sailings exist when you travel, absorbing long gaps between legs, or routing via the South Africa services and working onwards. It is closer to an expedition than a booking. If anyone is expecting you on a particular date, fly and save the romance for the return leg.

Who freighters turn away

Cargo ships screen passengers harder than any cruise line, for one blunt reason. There is no doctor aboard, and the nearest hospital might be four days astern. The limits below are those published by Cargo Ship Voyages.

• Lower age limit is over 16, and under-18s are refused
• Upper limit is 78, to the 79th birthday, with Grimaldi the outlier at 85
• A doctor’s certificate confirming you are fit to sail on a ship with no doctor, required from 79 by some operators and from around 65 by others
• You must manage the gangway and internal stairs unaided
• Wheelchairs are not permitted
• More than six months pregnant means a medical certificate issued within seven days of departure

The twelve-passenger ceiling behind all of this is law rather than preference. Take a thirteenth and the ship is reclassified as a passenger ship under the international safety convention, which drags in construction and certification requirements no container operator will entertain for the price of one more cabin.

Cabins, meals and the vegetarian problem

Cabins are roomy by cruise standards, with an en suite shower and WC fitted to a decent standard. There is basic laundry. There is no entertainment programme of any description, which is either the appeal or the dealbreaker.

Food is where people come unstuck. Meals are served in the officers’ mess at hours the Master sets, cooked by the ship’s cook for a crew of working seafarers, and special diets are not possible. If you are vegetarian, you are in trouble. Same for gluten, dairy or anything else needing a separate pan, and there is no second restaurant to bail you out at eight o’clock at night.

Days run to the ship’s working schedule and nobody is arranging anything for your benefit. The detail on cabins and facilities is in what to expect on a cargo ship accommodations facilities, and how the hours pass at sea is covered in life aboard cargo ship daily routines activities.

Booking a berth, and how early to start

Specialist agencies hold the relationships with the shipping lines and know which sailings have a cabin free. Booking direct with a line works in some cases, and both routes are weighed up in how to book freighter travel agencies vs direct booking.

Start six months out. With four to six cabins on a ship and a shrinking fleet, the person who rings in March for an August sailing is not getting one.

Then make peace with the terms, because they are not negotiable. Neither the agency nor the shipping company accepts liability for schedule changes or delays, described as the nature of cargo operations rather than as an apology. Cancellation insurance is strongly recommended, and on a trip whose departure date can move by a week it is the difference between an irritation and losing the lot. First-timers should read planning your first cargo ship voyage essential tips before any money changes hands.

What to pack for a working ship

No shop, no pharmacy, nobody to borrow from, and a fortnight to regret whatever you left at home.

• A European power adapter, since you are boarding on the Continent
• A high-capacity portable charger, because cabin sockets are few and awkwardly placed
• Compression socks, for a fortnight with nowhere to walk and no doctor aboard
• Everything you intend to read or watch, downloaded before you sail
• Seasickness remedies, in larger quantities than pride suggests
• Prescription medication for the voyage plus the delay

Leave the formal wear. You are eating with officers who have come straight off watch.

Is a freighter greener than flying?

It is the argument people reach for first, and it rests on the ship sailing with or without you, which makes your share of the emissions small. How far that reasoning holds up is worth its own examination, and we have given it one in eco-friendly travel freighter ships more sustainable.

Who should book one, and who should not

Most people should not. It is slow, it costs what a comparable stretch of cruising costs, the departure date can move without anyone owing you a penny, there is no doctor, no entertainment and no menu. Two weeks with five strangers and a container stack is a specific taste.

For the right traveller nothing else comes close. If you want to watch an ocean cross itself, if you have time you do not need back, and if an empty schedule is the point rather than the penalty, this is the last passenger transport on earth that has not been optimised for you. That is precisely why it is worth doing, and precisely why so few people manage it.

Common questions

How many passengers does a cargo ship take?

Twelve at the absolute most, and four to six on the majority of ships.

Is there a doctor on board?

No, which is the reason behind the medical certificate, the upper age limit and the requirement to manage stairs alone.

Can I pick my route?

Only from the sailings that exist. Cargo decides where the ship goes and when it leaves, and your preference does not feature.

What if the ship is delayed?

You absorb it. Nobody accepts liability for delays, so leave slack at both ends and insure whatever you cannot afford to lose.

Can I bring a wheelchair?

No. Wheelchairs are not permitted, and every passenger must manage the gangway and internal stairs unaided.