Asklemmy

Well this is just off the top of my head, but… bribe the captain with beer and cooking.

You could find someone planning a sailboat crossing and volunteer to be a crew member using one of the crew finder sites. Although it might be difficult with no experience unless you're a hottie

It's been a while since I've looked into it but you can hitch a ride on a cargo ship. https://www.cargoshipvoyages.com/

Although that site says no one is offering Transatlantic travel anymore.

Cruise ships sometimes have repositioning cruises where they go one way across an ocean to start operating in another region, and they can offer significant discounts. I'm sure there's cheaper ways but it's an option.

I think you can just purchase a passenger ticket on some freight ships. I remember stumbling on the subject on YouTube like 3 years ago. Try doing a search for "passenger on freight ship" into YouTube.

Edit: more like 5 or 6 years ago apparently. I'm old.

Cargo ships are your cheapest paid option. I've yet to do it, but contact the shipping companies and see what their passenger policies are. There are also shipping agents who coordinate with those companies as intermediates.

There's also the potential of crewing a small boat if you have any skills or show them you want to learn fast. I did a lot of sailing around Panama just by sitting in a marina at either side of the canal and chatting with people who are about to sail somewhere. The work was either poorly paid ($50-100 per day) or free in exchange for a bed and food. For transatlantic/transpacific sailing though, I don't know if you're going to find as many yachters as I did who were just sailing in the Caribbean. That's also a fun option if you want to build those skills since they need a certain number of crew to even transit the canal and they're all going somewhere after.

edit: And for the latter you'll also have luck on boater forums. I can't remember which I used, but there was a designated subforum where people would post if they have or want crew work specifically for linehandling.

Work your passage.

Stowaway.

Log

Many freighters rent cabins for passage. No idea how expensive this is, tho.

Which ocean? Do you care where you start and/or end your journey? Miami to Barcelona is going to be very different than Long Beach to Shanghai.

You can find some repositioning cruises for close to the price of a flight, but you'll be in a shitty cabin and you would need to get to the departure port.

There's plenty of free spare styrofoam and plastic in the great garbage patch in the Pacific, I hear that stuff floats...

Sometimes ships get sold to another part of the world, like a Mediterranean Ship gets sold to the USA. The cabins for this one way trip are extremely cheap

Join the US Navy. They’ll pay you to cross an ocean on a ship and pay for your college tuition.