Politics looks different to this Texan on a three-year cruise

DALLAS — You’ve heard about the folks who want to leave the country when their preferred presidential candidate loses. But in our latest episode of Y’all-itics , you’ll hear from a Texan who did something radically different. He decided to embark on a three-and-a-half-year cruise and says it has changed his perspective on American politics.

“It also reminds you that the struggles are kind of everywhere. The characters change. And the specific issues change.



But the larger battle of who are we as a people, what do we want, how welcoming do we want to be to outsiders, that stuff’s going on everywhere,” Joe Rhodes told us. Joe Rhodes is a retired Texas journalist. Not letting his former talents go to waste, he’s now writing about his adventure in an online blog called “ Unmoored ” on Substack.

Politics wasn’t the primary reason Rhodes left to spend his life on what’s called the world’s first residential cruise ship, only a factor. But he had already been traveling the country and living in his van for 13 years when he says he saw a report about a three-and-a-half-year cruise and decided it just might be the next logical step for him. “It’s a continuation of what I like most about living in the van, which is the idea that you’ve got your world with you, but you’re in different places all the time.

There’s something really satisfying about that. It feels safe, but at the same time, you know, you’re on an adventure,” Rhodes relayed. While Rhodes wasn’t explicitly escaping politics, he knew he still had a role to play.

So he got off the Villa Vie Residences in West Africa and flew back to Texas to vote in the Presidential election. “I flew from Dakar to Dallas, so I’m pretty sure I get the win for who came the furthest to cast their vote,” he said proudly. To say Joe Rhodes’ journey has been an adventure so far, would be an understatement.

During the first leg, nobody even got off the ship, leading him to name it the “SS Cluster----.” Rhodes explains why, and how everything is, hopefully, getting better. And he’ll tell you how the cruise works.

Listen to the entire episode to learn more. Cheers!.