Take a ride with GoBoat: inside Birmingham’s fun, self-drive boating experience

Birmingham is known for its canals - and for good reason.

With more miles of canals than Venice, the network is an icon of the city’s rich industrial heritage.

While they fell into disrepair by the end of the last century, recent years have seen a restoration of the surroundings, making them a perfect place to explore the city from a new perspective.

GoBoat Birmingham offers people this opportunity, with a unique boating experience in the heart of Birmingham. With no boating experience necessary, anyone can captain their own boat and explore the city from a whole new perspective.

GoBoat Birmingham’s Location Manager Steven Illidge believes that seeing the city by water is the best way to really experience all that Birmingham has to offer, saying that it gives people an opportunity to  witness.

“The fantastic industrial heritage and industrial architecture that sees the city’s past still being lived today,” he said.

“There’s a massive regeneration going on within the city all over the place. But along the water side, you’ve got new affordable homes being built, you’ve got new communities coming up, mixing in with that sort of old heritage of the canals as well.”

Victoria Dove, who works in marketing for GoBoat, says that their goal is to make the waterways accessible to everyone. Too often, she says, people live in Birmingham their whole lives without ever experiencing the canals.

She said: “So many people live in Birmingham, and perhaps they’ve never been on a boat before. In fact, just this morning, a customer who is from Birmingham, lived here his whole life. Said it was his first time he’d ever been on the waterways. So that really makes us happy because you know, not everyone can afford a boat of their own. But this is like a sharing economy, they can just have one two or three hours on a GoBoat. Go for an explore!”

The benefits of being out on the water are well documented, and Dove says that they are proud to offer a service that can help people relax and de-stress. With GoBoat, she says, people can have their own adventure, exploring the city at their own pace.

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