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Photo by Alex GrossmanWe made a rough plan to pick up the boat in the town of Sari-Solenzara on the east coast of Corsica, a French island that could have just as easily ended up Italian. For centuries, it was under Pisan and then Genoan control, and didn’t come under the French flag until 1769. (Its most famous native son was Buonaparte before he became Bonaparte; meanwhile, Corsican, which much of the population still speaks, is closer to medieval Tuscan than to French.) Then we’d explore Corsica’s eastern coast before crossing the Strait of Bonifacio to reach the northern coast of Sardinia - which, like Corsica, defies its nominal nationality: 400 years of Spanish rule gave its food and dialect a distinct Spanish air. Next, we’d take a few days to poke around the Maddalena archipelago, seven mostly uninhabited wind-swept islands and countless islets with empty beaches and clear water more reminiscent of than nearby Antibes. From there, we’d sail back to Corsica and return the boat.This seemed a refreshingly—and a tad frighteningly—loose agenda.

There was no real schedule aside from the boat rental deadlines, no rushing from one town to the next in fear of forfeiting a prepaid hotel room or hard-to-score dinner reservation. Surprisingly, going by luxury sailboat in my early 40s felt more like backpacking around Europe in my early 20s than any traveling I’d done in between.

If we pulled into a marina and didn’t like the vibe, or a certain cove had too many sea urchins to swim in, we could move on. And, like the train travel of my youth—winding up in after a 12-hour ride smoking cigarettes out the window while chatting with a semi-pro Spanish soccer team—travel by boat is rarely about the destination. This isn’t to say we totally winged it.

In fact, we gave certain aspects of the trip a lot of thought so we could fully give in to wandering once we were there. Photo by Alex Grossman Size Matters: Get the CatamaranWe really wanted the sexy monohull with polished teak decks, a towering mast, and elegant lines, but were strongly encouraged by everyone who’d done this kind of trip to go with the roomier catamaran (the nautical equivalent of road tripping with a GMC Yukon instead of a vintage Alfa Romeo). Cats are a bit like floating South Beach condos: light and airy with easy-to-wipe-down surfaces; a little soulless, but also really comfortable. And, when there’s no wind and you have to motor, they go faster than a monohull. (This ended up being no small thing—we got skunked on the wind a lot.) With six people on a weeklong sail, the cat was the right, if less romantic, call.A lovely intimacy develops when you travel by boat with friends - one that easily could have turned tense on a smaller vessel. Our group included Jason and Kelley, our hard-core sailing friends who live full-time on a sailboat in New Jersey while commuting into Manhattan, and who spent months cruising the Caribbean a few years back; and Lee and Gillian, who, while having little sailing experience, are desert-island people: game for everything, quick studies, and really fun.

There’s a lot of passive time when you’re on a boat for a week. If you can learn to be with a group while doing your own thing, it can be deeply restful—reading, fishing off the back of the boat, jumping in for a swim, or just watching for hours as the water cycles from cyan blue to a deep, rich purple.

(I like to think it’s what Homer meant when he referred to the Mediterranean’s wine-dark sea.) Even though our cat, a brand-new 45-foot Lagoon, was spacious by sailboat standards—four bedrooms with private baths, a big open galley and living area, and two levels of outdoor seating—we were still six adults constantly sharing space in a way that you just don’t in other forms of group travel. (There’s no ducking out for a solo walk or a drink at the bar.) Perhaps because of this, rhythms and routines were established quickly, and nooks throughout the boat nonverbally claimed. Lee would wake up and make the first early-riser round of coffee. An hour later Alex would fry some eggs. Gillian would plow through stacks of unread New Yorkers at the back table, while I would sit at the bow with my coffee on the lookout for dolphins. Photo by Alex GrossmanWe were similarly charmed by the sherbet-hued town of Maddalena on the island of Maddalena in the mostly uninhabited archipelago. We were coming off of two full days of sailing, swimming, and snorkeling; we hadn't seen many boats, and all of the beaches we floated into were empty except for Tahiti Beach on Caprera.

It wasn't exactly crowded, but it did have a vibrant local beach scene that looked straight out of a Slim Aarons photograph: perfectly bronzed topless women who must have swum or hiked in, but still looked coiffed; old men in sandals and sun-bleached Speedos; and gorgeous Italian teenagers dunking one another in the shallow water. After too much sun, a few epic dinners on the boat (cleanup without a dishwasher gets old), and two nights with minor anchor issues, we were happy to dock in Maddalena town, to wander the streets, popping into cheese stores to buy just one more wedge of the perfectly salty and smoky pecorino Sardo to sneak into our suitcases, and to go out for dinner. We weren't so lucky, thought, with Castelsardo on the northwestern coast of Sardinia. It turned out to be a relatively ugly port town made memorable by the only horrible meal we had on the trip, and even more memorable by Alex intentionally ordering horse and the 'nay and hay' jokes that followed. Renting Isn't CheatingI wouldn't change the ramble of our trip but it did mean that we didn't get to see as much of Sardinia as we'd hoped. When we were in Castelardo, it became clear that we would not have enough time to sail farther south and still be able to hit the Maddalenas before returning the boat in Corsica.

So we rented a car for the day, cutting inland to see a 12th-centruy Romanesque church before heading south to the town of Alghero, where we had lunch and chatted with the owner in Catalan, which roughly a quarter of inhabitants speak. Then we drove northwest to the Capo Caccia headland and hiked down to an enormous cave (named, naturally, the Grotta di Nettuno). We passed through a dozen villages, sped by countless century-old homes and churches, and paralleled a beautiful stretch of jagged coastline on the drive back.

In just a few hours, we covered ground that would have taken days to sail - without any anchor issues, without lamenting the lack of wind, or worrying about water depth. And yet, despite this ease and efficiency, I couldn't wait to get out of the car.

When we pulled into the harbor and I saw our boat—what had been our transportation, our kitchen, and our hotel for almost a week—I had the undeniable sense of arriving home. Photo by Alex Grossman SAILING HOW-TO'SWhen To GoLike much of the Med, Corsica and Sardinia are crowded in July and August. We picked up our boat in Corsica during the last week of September, which is the tail end of the season (some businesses close in October). The weather and water were warm, the marinas weren't crowded, and the restaurant and shop owners had time to chat with us.Charter OptionsWe used, which operates around the world and has a large range of boats. Note: When you charter a boat for a week, it's more like five days—you typically don't sail the first day, which is spent learning about the boat, and many companies require you to have the boat in the marina the night before you're due back.

Prices vary depending on boat size, season, and whether you have a captain. To bareboat charter a four-cabin catamaran for a week in Corsica costs $4,000 to $15,000. Add $2,000 for a captain and $1,600 for a host who will handle meals.Docking UpUnless it's high summer, you can usually radio the marina the day of and reserve dock space.

Mystery manor cheats chapter 6. We paid $50 to $90 to overnight. In the you pay a daily park fee; ours was around $40, which you can pay in advance online, or the park ranger will pull up to your boat so you can pay (with credit card) on the spot.