Houseboat
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A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point.
Houseboats are common as permanent dwellings in Southeast Asia; in some other areas, they may serve more frequently as secondary or vacation homes.
In India, houseboats are common on the backwaters of Kerala - see below - and on the Dal Lake near Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir].
In Australia, especially on the Murray River, there are many motorised, pontoon-based houseboats with two or more bedrooms; some of these houseboats have levels or storeys. Some are privately owned as either a primary residence or a holiday shack. Many are also available for hire (rent) as self-driven holiday destinations with accommodation for four to perhaps a dozen persons.
In Europe, some of the finest and costliest examples of houseboats can be seen along the canals of Amsterdam (in the Netherlands), which even has houseboat hotels. Houseboats are very expensive nowadays in Amsterdam because of the limited number of moorings; this expense has reduced the likelihood that the approximately 2,400 families that live on the inner waters of Amsterdam will find themselves confronted by new neighbour boats.
In the United Kingdom, canal narrowboats are used as homes and also as mobile, rented, holiday accommodation. Narrowboats were orginally used for bulk transport of raw materials and fuel on canals constructed at the start of the Industrial revolution. Nowdays, the canal network is mainly used for recreation and has the advantage of being inland and passing through many former industrial urban areas.
In coastal regions of the United Kingdom, the beached hulls of old boats and ships have been used as homes in the past, for example, Peggotty's houseboat of the 1840s in the novel David Copperfield. The few that remain today are more likely to be used as holiday shacks than as homes.
In USA, houseboats are gaining in popularity. Houseboating in the United States started in the late 1940's when people were looking for the ability to stay on the water for longer periods of time. Lake Cumberland in Kentucky, is considered the birthplace of Houseboating in the USA. Today one can find motorized houseboats with over 2000 sq. ft. of living space. Seattle is home to a relativley large collection of floating houseboat neighborhoods, particularly in Lake Union and Portage Bay. Most houseboats are designed and built for inland lakes and waterways only. Renting houseboats has also become a popular vacation idea for Americans.
Kerala houseboats
The houseboats in Kerala, south India, are huge, slow-moving, exotic barges used for leisure trips. They are a reworked model of Kettuvallams (in the Malayalam language, Kettu means "tied with ropes", and vallam means "boat"), which, in earlier times, were used to carry rice and spices from Kuttanad to the Kochi port. Kerala houseboats were considered a convenient means of transportation.
The popularity of Kettuvalloms has returned in the function as major tourist attractions. Many find the Kettuvallom an ideal means of exploring the beauty of the Kerala backwaters.
Such a houseboat is about 60 to 70 feet (about 18 to 21 meters) long and about 15 feet (about 5 meters) wide at the middle. The hull is made of wooden planks that are held together by ropes of coconut fiber; the usual wood is 'Anjili'. The roof is made of bamboo poles and palm leaves. The exterior of the boat is painted with protective coats of cashew nut oil.
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