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July 2025: First Press Release
Internet Pioneer Goes Full Sail: Couple Sells Everything
to Live and Work Full-Time on a Residential Cruising Ship

[July 6, 2025] — Cruising the Inside Passage to Alaska — Many people dream of retiring and going on a cruise. Randy Cassingham is doing it differently: he’s still working while living full-time on a cruise ship — and he’s not retiring anytime soon.

Cassingham, creator of the long-running weekly news commentary newsletter This is True, and his wife, Kit, a long-time life coach, have sold their house, cars, and nearly all personal possessions to move full-time onto the first true Residential Cruising ship — a refitted vessel too small for modern cruising, but perfect for permanent residents. The couple plans to live aboard indefinitely while continuing to work remotely as they slowly travel the globe.

“I started working online in 1994, when the Internet was still new, so the idea of being location-independent isn’t new to me,” says Cassingham, a former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee turned digital publishing pioneer — he’s one of the first people ever to quit his day job to work online. He and Kit lived for 20 years in rural western Colorado. “But this takes it to the next level: we’re literally working from everywhere now.”

Their new home, which left Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the end of September 2024, is a residential vessel adapted for long-term living. It’s equipped for “digital nomads” with high-speed satellite Internet and co-working spaces. It’s populated by a community of like-minded people who have chosen a new lifestyle that, until recently, wasn’t available to ordinary working folks …and the co-working space is well utilized.

Cassingham rents private office space onboard, where he continues to write and publish This is True, which is starting its 32nd year. Kit continues her work as a coach, helping clients live intentionally — which she and Randy are modeling.

The couple also chronicles their journey on the article-heavy ResidentialCruising.com, offering insight into the practicalities and philosophy behind their radical lifestyle change.

“We’re not on a vacation,” Kit emphasizes. “We’ve created a life we don’t want to escape from. It’s not early retirement — it’s endless engagement.”

Cassingham believes this lifestyle reflects a new kind of freedom, made possible by digital tools and global connectivity. “Readers asked, ‘How can you live on a ship and still work?’,” he says. “It’s why I’m here! It actually costs us less to live on the ship than it cost us to live in Colorado. So why wouldn’t we?”

For journalists covering lifestyle innovation, remote work trends, digital entrepreneurship, or the future of living, Randy and Kit’s story is a ready-made feature — blending real-world adventure, radical minimalism, and a reimagined definition of Home.

For interviews or questions, contact Randy and Kit here:

Images

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B-Roll

Coming Soon.

Countries Visited

(So far! Date is first entry except N. Ireland, which is departure)

    1. 9/30/2024 — Northern Ireland
    2. 10/5/2024 — France
    3. 10/7/2024 — Spain
    4. 10/12/2024 — Portugal
    5. 10/17/2024 — Morocco
    6. 11/2/2024 — Senegal
    7. 11/5/2024 — Cape Verde
    8. 11/14/2024 — Barbados
    9. 11/15/2024 — Grenada
    10. 11/16/2024 — St. Lucia
    11. 11/18/2024 — Martinique
    12. 11/20/2024 — Dominica
    13. 11/22/2024 — Guadeloupe
    14. 11/24/2024 — Antigua
    15. 11/26/2024 — St. Kitts
    16. 11/28/2024 — St. Maartin
    17. 11/30/2024 — British Virgin Islands
    18. 12/4/2024 — Dominican Republic
    19. 12/12/2024 — Jamaica
    20. 12/14/2024 — Panama
    21. 12/21/2024 — Ecuador
    22. 12/29/2024 — Peru
    23. 1/7/2025 — Chile
    24. 1/28/2025 — Argentina
    25. 2/14/2025 — Uruguay
    26. 2/24/2025 — Brazil
    27. 3/27/2025 — French Guiana
    28. 4/3/2025 — St. Vincent & the Grenadines
    29. 4/10/2025 — Trinidad & Tobago
    30. 4/13/2025 — Bonaire
    31. 4/15/2025 — Curacao
    32. 4/17/2025 — Aruba
    33. 4/25/2025 — Colombia
    34. 4/27/2025 — Costa Rica
    35. 5/2/2025 — El Salvador
    36. 5/3/2025 — Guatemala
    37. 5/5/2025 — Mexico
    38. 6/1/2025 — USA
    39. 6/28/2025 — Canada
    40. coming next — Japan

About Randy and Kit

  • Randy outside his office on the Villa Vie Odyssey, 2025. (Kit Cassingham, ResidentialCruising.com)
    Randy started This is True® in June, 1994 — its the oldest entertainment newsletter on the Internet, and he was one of the first people in the world to quit his Day Job (at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory) to work full time online. He turned down syndication offers from the Creators Syndicate and the now-defunct Paragon TSA. True is social commentary with “weird” news as its vehicle so it’s fun to read. Its mission follows Randy’s life mission: to provoke more thinking in the world. Hence True’s motto, “Thought-Provoking Entertainment”.
  • The Honorary Unsubscribe (founded January 1998) is a subfeature in the True newsletter featuring “The People You Will Wish You Had Known” — but, lamentably, you cannot meet: each honoree is recently deceased.
  • Get Out of Hell Free® (founded April 2000) started as a response to a reader who told Randy he was (without any doubt) going to hell for a story he wrote. Not a content site per se, “GOOHF” turned into a viral offline/online phenomenon with actual printed Get Out of Hell Free cards: to date, more than 2.1 million have been sold and, presumably, mostly given to others.
  • True Stella Awards® (founded February 2002) turned an urban legend on its head: If crazy lawsuits were an actual problem, then why did everyone online cite fake cases to illustrate that problem? Randy figured he could easily find enough true cases to create a publication out of them. Book rights went up for auction among New York publishers; that was won with Dutton (a division of Penguin/Random House) paying a six-figure advance. Having said everything he wanted to on the subject, Randy stopped issuing new awards at the end of 2007.
  • Dvorak Keyboard (founded June 2002) reveals the basics behind Randy’s prolific output as a writer: the language-based keyboard layout allows for much more rapid, and much less error-prone, typing.
  • Residential Cruising (founded May 2023), Randy and Kit’s first joint venture, reports on the new travel sector of living full-time aboard a Residential Cruising ship.
  • Kit is a life coach, including more than 20 years working with bed & breakfast innkeepers. Her site is Live in Focused Energy.

Suggested Questions for Media

About the Lifestyle

  • What inspired you to sell everything and move onto a residential cruise ship full-time?
  • How does daily life on a residential cruise compare to life on land?
  • What are the biggest challenges — and rewards — of this lifestyle?
  • How do you handle basics like mail, healthcare, and shopping?
  • Do you ever get “cabin fever” or miss having a home base?

Affordability and Access

  • Is this lifestyle only for the wealthy?
  • What does it really cost to live on a residential cruise ship long-term?
  • Are there ways for “regular people” to try this without a huge commitment?
  • How does the cost compare to living in a traditional home or renting in a major city?
  • Where is the ship right now? [here!]

Work and Connectivity

  • How do you stay connected to the Internet and your business while at sea?
  • Are you able to work full-time from the ship without disruption?
  • What kind of setup do you need to run a business or work remotely from a cruise ship?
  • What happens if your computer dies? [It already has!]
  • How many of the Residents work full or part time while aboard?

About the Ship and Community

  • What’s the ship like? How is it different from a traditional cruise ship?
  • How many people live on board, and what’s the community like?
  • Are there common areas or amenities for residents?
  • Can people come and go, or do residents commit to a long stay?

Travel and Destinations

  • Where does the ship go, and how often does it move?
  • Do you get to explore the ports, or is it more like living on a floating apartment?
  • What are some of the most memorable places you’ve visited so far?
  • Do you get off the ship at every port?

Broader Context

  • Do you see Residential Cruising as a growing trend?
  • What types of people are drawn to this lifestyle?
  • Are there environmental considerations with living on a ship full-time?

Personal Angles

  • What surprised you most after making the transition?
  • What advice would you give to others considering residential cruising?
  • What do your friends and family think about your new lifestyle?
Originally Published July 2, 2025 — Last Updated July 5, 2025

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