[tomfakes]

I believe that some cargo ships have space for a very, very small number of paying passengers. I've read articles about this in the past, but have nothing to hand right now on how you can do this.

Not a core source of revenue, but possible for someone needing to travel without using planes.

You are traveling on a working ship, with a very small crew, and not a lot of provided entertainment,(or internet access), so be prepared to look after yourself during these passages

[jlgreco]

I looked into those sort of trips a while ago and was surprised by the large prices I saw quoted. I think the fact that you are basically paying for accommodations for several days keeps the price higher than you might expect.

[einhverfr]

And if you are going across the Pacific it might take a month.

[praxulus]

http://wikitravel.org/en/Freighter_travel

According to that page, ships must hire a doctor if they have more than 12 passengers, so it's just not worth it for most of them to carry more.

[techdragon]

Now that is a damn valuable link! I intend to look into this sort of thing a lot more for my future travels. Just being able to give the middle finger to luggage overages & have a bed to sleep on instead of an airport bench during a 6 hr layover from midnight till 6am might make all the difference. And I wont have to turn off my ebook reader when the ship starts moving!