By Guy Span

A number of freighters have small accommodations for passengers and if you want to get an intimate look at life on the sea, this should be considered. The ships are mostly container and bulk carriers who have this accommodation due to a quirk in the laws governing most ports. The quirk is that if you carry passenger accommodations, you go to the head of the line at the Panama Canal and get the first available berth in most ports. This major advantage is enough to justify a fair number of passenger cabins being offered.

A major cost for ship owners is the downtime at ports waiting for an open berth and having passengers puts you first out, ensuring consistent schedules, regardless of the landside problems. But life onboard a freighter is not quite the coddled cruise on a regular passenger liner. You dine with the international crew, the library is small, and you are lucky if there is a gym or a pool. In some cases, you aren’t even sure of the itinerary, as ports of call may change with the cargo (tramps). There could even be a container in front of your cabin’s window.

And port calls are held to the minimum time needed to load and unload, but if you can live with these disadvantages, you will have an amazing experience. Here are some of your choices: Australia New Zealand Direct Lines (ANZDL German Owned), sailing every three to four weeks from Oakland and Los Angeles, with stops in Tauranga, NZ, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, back to Tauranga, then to Suva (Fiji) or Manzanillo, Mexico and then back to San Francisco. Prices run from $1,275-$2,125 per person one way and $3,570-$4,990 round-trip.

Some companies charge by the day so your fare may vary. Hanjin and Senator Lines works in this fashion, sailing from San Francisco and other West Coast ports weekly to Pusan, South Korea, Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, with a return to one of the West Coast ports. The average voyage is 35 days with a rate somewhere between $100 to $113 per day.

Hanjin and Senator Lines also offers a more exotic 84-day round-trip that takes in the above itinerary with a side trip which adds Singapore, Sri Lanka, and then through the Suez Canal to Le Havre, France, Hamburg, Germany, Holland, England, back through the canal to Viet Nam, then Yantian, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and then back to Los Angeles. There is space for five to eight passengers and amenities sometimes including a pool, exercise room/spa, and bar lounge.