A cargo ship to Europe, with a spare cabin

Every summer, as Arctic ice thins, a few container ships sail from China to Europe over the top of the world. The trip takes about 20 days, half the 40 it takes via Suez. This year, Chinese carriers began running it as a scheduled service, with the Dubai Tower leaving Ningbo in mid-August for Felixstowe, Hamburg and Gdynia.Tourists do visit the Arctic, but on cruise ships built for the purpose, with expedition jackets and a lecture on polar bears. Nobody, as far as we could find, sells a berth on a working container ship making the same crossing. It is an odd gap, considering how many people will pay good money to be somewhere remote.The idea is simple. A handful of passengers travel on a real cargo vessel, and not in a separate deck with better curtains. They bunk with the crew, eat in the mess and, if they like, help out with light duties. The ship is carrying batteries and solar panels, not guests. The passenger is cargo of a rather unusual kind.The timetable would be just as honest. Arrival depends on ice and weather, so a ship due on the 7th may turn up on the 6th or the 9th. Most holidaymakers would baulk at that. Some would find it the best part. In an age when an app tells you the food will reach you in 11 minutes, a journey that refuses to name an arrival date has its own appeal.There is evidence such travellers exist. Freighter travel is a small but loyal trade, with cabins going for around 150 euros a day including meals, and popular routes selling out months ahead. Fewer than 3,000 people a year travel this way worldwide, and big lines like Maersk have stopped carrying passengers altogether. Demand is steady, supply is shrinking, and the Arctic version does not yet exist.The catches are real. The navigation window runs only from late July to early November. Insurers will need convincing. Cargo ships usually carry 12 passengers or fewer, and no doctor, so age and fitness limits would apply. And cargo will always come first, so a route or a date can change at short notice.None of that is fatal. A shipping line does not have to build anything. It needs a spare cabin, an insurance policy and the nerve to print "arrival date approximate" in the brochure. Indians, who have spent generations on overnight trains that arrive when they arrive, may be better placed than most to enjoy it.The first ticket should not be hard to sell.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.