Best of Book Riot: The World’s Largest Floating Bookstore
Carrying more than 5000 books and measuring more than 430 feet long, the Logos Hope is the world’s largest floating bookstores. The Logos Hope is operated by a German charity organization, and its mission is to take books, education, and community outreach around the world.
All crew is unpaid and signs up for 1 or 2 year cruises. The Logos Hope has visited more than 42 countries in its 8 years of service, and usually stays in a port for several weeks, which allows the volunteer crew to take on community projects and bring on board as many visitors as would like (the ship can only hold about 45o people at a time).
Part of the ship’s mission is to make low-cost books available in parts of the world where books are hard to come by–this includes not only selling books below retail prices, but also establishing libraries in local schools, children’s homes, and other community organization wherever the Logos Hope sails.
In addition to book-distribution, the Logos Hope hosts educational programming about fitness, AIDS prevention, and a variety of other subjects. Since it set sail in 2004, the Logos Hope has distributed more than 3 million books and had more than 2.5 million visitors onboard.
Currently, the Logos Hope is in port in Subic Bay, The Philippines. On November 30th, it will sail for a month-long stay in Hong Kong. (Its schedule for the next six-months is available here).
