After his mother died, Stephen Payne was keen for a change. He now travels around Europe and considers this one of the best decisions he’s ever made

After his 92-year-old mother died in 2019, Stephen Payne decided it was time for a change. But having spent the previous six months at her home in Torquay, where he is from, and the 27 years before that living in Los Angeles, Payne, a 60-year-old photographer, wasn’t sure where to go next. “I was complaining too much about Trump while living in the US and it felt like it would be a struggle to get work in the UK with Brexit,” he says. “I woke up one morning and had an idea to buy a boat. I knew nothing at all about them but thought it would allow me to live cheaply and be free to move wherever I wanted. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Payne bought his 11-metre, nine-tonne motorised boat in January 2020, and has lived on it full-time since, travelling solo across the Channel before making his way along the French coast and through the country’s rivers to reach the Côte d’Azur, the Italian coast and finally Malta. “No one ever says on their deathbed that they wish they hadn’t travelled as much, since it’s the best way to become a better person,” he says. “I’ve experienced new cultures, become more accepting of the ways people live, and I’ve met fantastic people.”