Are you a city dweller who longs to relocate to a small town/rural area?

[TamaraSavannah]

Originally Posted by harvestmoon77

Are you ready to escape the rat race, but feel overwhelmed at the prospect and aren’t sure where to start or what to expect?

If so, I would be very grateful if you would share your experience with me. Your responses will help inform the development of my new relocation coaching business.

Here are a few questions, but please feel free to provide any other information you feel is relevant:........

..........Many thanks for your help!!

I could qualify I suppose on this. Lived 25 years in apartments in a small city to move out to country of said city. Now, two or three reasons why I didn't move far, far away are:

A: I am established in this region. So many people know me, so many people recognize me and that would be a hard thing to give up.

B: This is where I have worked, where I work, where I have lived for a quarter of a century.

C: My work benefits are tied up in the public sector of this state; that's a hard think to walk away from.

Now, to the questions.


What are your reasons for wanting to relocate to a small town or rural area?
Basically, I want lots of room and little restrictions to do algae experiments. Texas water law requires that one owns at least 5 acres for free pumping.

How do you envision your life changing as a result of relocating?
Longer commutes into the city, greater risk of being cut off from work, greater needs to be self sufficient.

What are you struggling with most around relocating?
Two things. First, a far, FAR greater cost in doing so. Secondly, before I got the project off the ground, it was one of my sources of greater background stress which lead to things like weight gain and something like depression. I wasn't doing what I wanted for my dreams but rather, was just going day to day.

In what ways are these struggles affecting your life?
It wasn't that the struggles were affecting my life but rather in the necessary energy it took to come out of that pit as oppose to continue "living there" because it was as it always had been, it was something I was use to.

What steps have you taken so far toward relocating?
Well, since the relocation is done, let's go over the past:

The agent who sold my mother's house put me in contact with an agent who worked with ranches. I bought the ranch from him.

There was about a 3 year period before house design started. In that time, I went through my dream state of how to build a castle, looking at the surplus building supply industry (ie, bricks on auction), developing something in transportation to move said supplies, looking at house plans (if they were well beyond my means), toying with log cabin kits, having a well drilled, exploring my land.

Then, spent about a year designing the house. One thing I had learned in the years before was just how much of a house I could take care of.

Then, spent about a year getting the house built.

Some things in the dream state paid off. For example, when it came to powering the well, I had a choice of solar, wind, or the grid. In the dream state, I said solar and that seems to have been a great notion. Now, a down side is that when it came time to build the house and bring the grid in, it took a while to get that going.

What do you need to follow through with your relocation plans, once and for all?
Landscaping around the house. Put in a gate opener. Put in irrigation for horticulture, livestock, wild fire protection, a hot tub. Extend my multiple power systems such as windmills for the catfish pond (also needs to be built), maybe fire pumps based on fly wheels. Put up a barn. Probably better fencing.

If someone could swoop in and help you through the relocation process, what kind of help would you really want?
My clone grabbing me by the shirt, shaking me, and saying, "LISTEN TO ME! If you don't pull up, you are going to crash!". Well, maybe not crash, but someone to pull me out of my entropy state, of just going day to day.

[maus]

Great thread, I'm thinking about moving to a rural area. I'm just in the planning stages right now. The majority of places I have lived in were either large cities and suburbs/exurbs. I experienced rural life in small amounts when I was very young. When you are an adult, obviously your perspective (stage of life) is quite different.