The Great Loop, answered.

The best boat for your purposes. A trawler, motor yacht, cruiser, sailboat or houseboat may be right, depending on your budget, the time you want to give the trip and what else you need. The trawler is the most popular, for its comfort for its size and its fuel economy. If you are short of time, or want to make the many side trips, a motor yacht or cruiser is better.

Yes. You will lower the mast in Chicago and raise it again around St. Louis to continue down the Mississippi to New Orleans; heading up the Ohio River for the Tombigbee Waterway, you will wait until Mobile to raise it. In upstate New York you will also unstep the mast for the Erie Canal.

At mile 300.6 on the Illinois River, a fixed railroad bridge with 19.7 feet of vertical clearance. Some boats get under it by lowering masts, radar arches and antennas — just be sure, because it is a long way back through the Great Lakes.

Five feet or less. Any deeper and you may have to detour around shoal areas — sometimes by a few feet, sometimes by many miles, sometimes not at all.

Many people have made the Loop without it, after lessons from the United States Power Squadrons, another boater or a professional coach, or by learning locally before setting out.

Travel with the seasons. The spring flooding on the Mississippi doesn't subside until fall, so wait until fall to enter the Illinois River at Chicago heading south. Winter is best spent in the Southeast, with side trips to the Keys, the Bahamas or around Florida. Spring starts the trip north to the Mid-Atlantic, with summer on the Great Lakes and in Canada if you like. Following the good weather is always best.

Your route passes cities, towns and marinas with both. Most Loopers use their phone as a hotspot, or get online ashore or at anchor.

You are in the right place: Curtis Stokes & Associates specializes in Great Loop boats. Our Great Loop boats for sale page groups boats suited to the Loop by type, and some of them are veterans of it. If they have done it once, they can do it again with you.

Many. In summer: New England, Long Island Sound, the northern lakes of New York, all the Great Lakes and Canada. In fall: the Mississippi's many tributaries, if you have the power to push upstream — but don't get caught by late-fall weather. In winter: the whole Southeast, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas, and for those with time, the lower Bahamas and the Caribbean; you needn't do the Loop in a single year. In spring: the run up the East Coast through a greening landscape, with pleasant days and cool nights. And all along the way, museums, nature preserves, restaurants, architecture and waterfronts worth stopping for.