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ID is nice and very pretty, lots of open spaces, and nice mountains. Unfortunately when we were looking there 5 years ago, the prices for property were overblown - too many Californians moving there, and the locals were taking advantage of them. They also have a severely shortened growing season; not as bad as Alaska, but my brother who lives there finally put his vegies in large containers on a huge cart so he could wheel them in and out of his garage when the nights in June/July still dropped below freezing. Also much of the property for sale that we looked at there was rock; the arable land was either high-priced or not for sale. Lots of very pretty rivers and tree-lined streams, but still - we weren't going to spend $100,000 for a trailer on 10 acres on the banks of a rocky stream, nor $125,000 for 10 acres with 3 greenhouses and a 30 YOA 2 br brick house with a damaged foundation (due to earthquakes and slippage)
And yet, many surrivalist websites promote that region of the country for strategic relocation. I was there from 2006 - 2008 during the housing bubble. Californians were cashing out during that big "bubble" and running for Idaho and Montana, pushing prices well over the reach of the local working people. An acre with a crumbling trailer would run $100,000 min. Funny thing is, the bubble has now burst, but the prices are still well up there. The few local jobs do not support those kinds of prices. Also, due to the short growing season in that region, I could not get any good produce at all while I was out there, other than Cherries and Huckleberries which are grown there locally. I know many survivalist web sites promote that area of the country for strategic location, but I say unless you are well-to-do or can secure a high paying job, you will struggle out there.
Sorry long, had to be. I'll chime in with a perspective on Alaska. Missing, Gungir and others may add to the conversation.
We are in Alaska right now and have lived there for 30+ years. The area south of the Alaska Range is far more temperate than the northern half in the winter but we tend to get heavier snows and cool wet summers. Summers in the north are normally warm and dry. The southeast panhandle, Kodiak, the Aleutian chain is even more temperate in the winter but it pretty much rains year round. I had leather shoes grow moss/mildew in a closet in Juneau. We heated with wood but some of the storage areas stayed cool and the high humidity, combined with shoes stored in a box created fuzzy green shoes. No BS!
Alaska is quite doable but (big but) the state is almost entirely dependent on long haul shipping for almost everything. Because of this materials/goods are more expensive. The second downfall is the shortness of the growing season, the length of winter. Granny described her area as having 6 months of winter and 3 months of summer and that is accurate for a great deal of the state but winter is a dark and cold winter without warm respites (excluding a few chinook winds that might melt some snow to ice, not good) with short daylight periods, worse the further north you are or if behind mountains to the south and it is possible to have a year where summer is pretty much absent.
The term "cabin fever" is a real mental health phenomena. There have been cases in remote towns where someone snaps and the results weren't pretty leaving people dead. Solid purpose and a strong mental state as well as the ability to amuse yourself easily is a requirement. Women either love or hate Alaska. More often it's the latter unless the woman tends to be outdoorsy or has low requirements for social stimulation and excitement. I've seen more people leave Alaska because a family member (usually the wife) issues an ultimatum.
OTOH, the long daylight in the summer also creates problems for folks that have trouble sleeping. We adjusted to the wide daylight flux but like other Alaskans we tend to cram 12 months of activity into the 4-6 months of non-winter, burning the candle at both ends and setting fire to the middle to get things maintained, painted, repaired, replaced, planted, grown, mowed and harvested, picked and preserved, chopped, hauled and split, fished, smoked and frozen, hunted, cleaned and processed as well as trying to recreate once in a while.
By the time the first snow fall comes on, we are ready to call it quits and welcome the respite from the frenetic summer activity but at least for a great many of us, by late January, we have lost our sense of humor with winter and for us in south-central, shoveling snow so that by the time March rolls around (and we understand that summer is coming because of the rapidly lengthening days) each snowfall brings fresh despair because we know that we could have at least another month or two of winter. Spring or break-up is an ugly affair of mud and rotten snow and we always hope for a swift rather than drawn out break-up. Good summers and falls can't be beat but tend to pass quickly in the blur of activity.
I love it but my DH is done with Alaska. To credit his good sense, Alaska is hard on older transplants. One thing of course is the winter itself, falls on ice, lifting tons of snow, the cold, not good as one ages. And transplants having little or no family contacts close at hand slowly lose their social network as their friends and adopted family "go home" or relocate elsewhere. It gets harder to replace those friends with new ones as we age.
Finally and very importantly it is expensive to relocate to Alaska, buy land, set up a self sustaining system.
The key to happy transplants anywhere is to be honest with oneself about one's financial, mental/spiritual and physical state. Any weakness in one area will put pressure on the other two. Having less resources financially will put a greater burden on one's physical and mental soundness (for example) to make a go of it.
On the positive side of Alaska is the relatively low statewide population that is isolated from large population bases and the large amounts of natural resources including ample water. The "grid" is isolated from interconnection with other grids and often runs on hydroelectric, natural gas, local coal. We are an oil/gas producing state. We have very few dangerous pests and the ones that we do have tend to be four footed and easier to see if not battle. No snakes, ticks, fleas, killer bees or naturally occurring poisonous spiders. No West Nile, no heart worm or other mosquito borne illnesses, though mosquitos are plentiful. Very few crop or vegetable pests. Plus it's a beautiful majestic place.
With the proper support systems (greenhouses, cold frames, moose fencing etc.) one can feed oneself pretty much year round but the diet will be fairly basic, cool season crops, absent grains except barley and possibly oats. Don't kid yourself into thinking that there will be crops of greenhouse tomatoes, peppers, keeper onions, garlic, beans (fresh or dried) corn. melons. It cost too much in valuable space and time to baby a crop that puts out a few specimens on a good year or in ideal conditions. Think German or Scandinavian food: Game meats, fish, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli and other cole crops, peas, pumpkins, rhubarb, some herbs and finally salad crops, greens, celery and summer squash in the warmer months. I grow apples, (crab, northerns and early season) raspberries, currants, strawberries and sour cherries but a really bad winter could wipe out some of the less hardy trees.
One has to look at the data, facts, and conditions that are and one's ability to cope with those conditions over the long haul. We decided on the wooded, rolling hills, damp/humid portion of Kansas for a sustainable lifestyle with all of it's drawbacks and plusses. We couldn't find what we wanted within our budget without selling wholly out and spending all of our coins in the Pac-NW which was our first choice. We looked hard at Montana next and decided that we'd be trading winter for winter there and again expensive for what you get. Ditto for winters on the UP Michigan and New England, though property prices were good in bath regions. We decided that we'd trade some comfort in the summer for 3-4 season gardening, zone 6a climate, relative proximity to family and water availability. Ultimately everything we like to eat (pungent and spicy foods) needs a warmer climate.
Like Nor'Eastah said and I paraphrase, know thyself and what you need/desire and choose accordingly.
What makes something "perfect" depends on your individual priorities and preferences. Any place you choose needs to meet your needs and desires without having too many drawbacks, and none that you aren't willing to put up with or work around. And believe me, no matter where you choose, the place will have some amount of drawbacks.
AK is, in fact, perfect for me. It's by no means "perfect" though... 100 days of near total darkness, 100 days of no darkness at all, 100 days of growing season (Memorial Day through Labor Day), temps that can reach nearly 100 degrees below freezing (Fahrenheit), winter pretty much from Halloween to Easter, monster mosquitoes & dangerous wildlife, minimal road & utility system, permafrost and muskeg. Most people would find those aspects VERY NOT "perfect", despite all the other benefits the state has to offer. For me, it was an acceptable trade
I'm going to suggest the OP read Joel Skousen's book Strategic Relocation and use it as just one of many tools in evaluating which state is the best for him/her.
I agree with AK-Cathy's post 100%. For us, in the middle of the state, north of the Alaskan Range, we don't have as much rain, humidity or heavy wet snow; our winter temps are much much colder... so we pray for a slow break up that allows the snow to melt a little at a time while the ground also thaws enough for it to drain. That's pretty much the biggest difference I've experienced between the SE and the Interior. Well, besides that the areas around Anchorage tend to be more built-up and accessible than most the Interior... the Fairbanks "burbs" are pretty much non-existent LOL.
About the food... it IS entirely possible to feed oneself a healthy rounded diet up here, but vegans need not apply. I'm not being harsh or anti-vegan, just honest. There is no way to grow enough plants to meet 100% of your dietary requirements unless you have a gajillion dollars to spend on a large heated greenhouse (HUGE -- like an acre or two per person), and a mega-watt generator & fuel for all the grow lights through the winter (or to have everything shipped in). At the very least, you would need unheated high tunnels to protect semi-hardy perennials, since very few edible perennials (fruit & nut trees included) can overwinter here -- no fall planted grains, so no spring harvests. No long season or hot season plants that require warm soil and more than 100 frost-free days unless you pay for season extenders (materials or fuel!)
An ovo-lacto pescatarian could probably survive, but it would take careful planning to do it self-sufficiently. A large portion of the Alaskan nutritional needs are met with animal products... when you get at least 500lbs of meat off a single moose and can catch a couple hundred lbs of salmon in only a few days, you can understand why. And you can't be too squeamish about nose-to-tail eating either because some of the nutrients that other folks normally get from plants, we need to get from tasty bits like bone marrow, brains, livers, hearts and other organs. And if you have your heart set on corn or wheat.. hang it up now... potatoes, rye, barley and oats are pretty much it for your starches. I think the recommendation to look up German and Scandinavian cuisine is excellent advice... also check out Scottish, Polish, Russian and other northern Slavic cuisines. If you can't eat and enjoy a diet primarily of frozen/canned/dried meat, fish, dairy (mostly goat), eggs, potatoes, brassicas and a variety of fermented pickles then AK probably isn't for you unless you want to spend A LOT of money having things shipped in to you.
Don't dismiss the shipping issue... remember only a small portion of the state is accessible by road, so not only do you have to pay shipping to get the stuff to AK, but then you have to pay even more to get it to your place if you're remote. Unless you have oodles of cash falling out your backside every day, you aren't getting heavy materials or equipment to many of the remote areas. Seriously, it is not uncommon at all to need materials and equipment BARGED or AIR-LIFTED to your site because there is absolutely no other way to get them there. So, if you think UPS or freight shipping is a pain, or that the cost of getting a cement truck to your place, is a PITA and expensive where you're at in the L48, just think what it's going to be like when you don't have a road and there are no daily deliveries and the nearest town of any consequence is over 100 miles away.
BUT... if you're creative devising alternate solutions and good at figuring out new and unique uses for materials and equipment other than their original and intended purpose, it ain't so bad you just have to be aware that these are necessary skills and be willing to practice them without getting too awfully discouraged. Nothing is entirely impossible, you just need to maybe scale things back, extend the timeline, or tweak the design or your expectations a bit.
With that being said, if you're honest with yourself and realize that you don't really want to live a life where you have a seriously challenging mad rush for 3 months and 9 months where you're pretty much cooped up trying not become a Popsicle, where you have to work hard & smart and make do a lot... well, then perhaps AK isn't for you and you might want to consider some of the more rugged areas of the L48, or plan to set up shop near one of the 3 AK cities that are at least a little closer to civilization.
... ID is nice and very pretty, lots of open spaces, and nice mountains. Unfortunately when we were looking there 5 years ago, the prices for property were overblown - too many Californians moving there, and the locals were taking advantage of them. They also have a severely shortened growing season; not as bad as Alaska, but my brother who lives there finally put his vegies in large containers on a huge cart so he could wheel them in and out of his garage when the nights in June/July still dropped below freezing. Also much of the property for sale that we looked at there was rock; the arable land was either high-priced or not for sale. Lots of very pretty rivers and tree-lined streams, but still - we weren't going to spend $100,000 for a trailer on 10 acres on the banks of a rocky stream, nor $125,000 for 10 acres with 3 greenhouses and a 30 YOA 2 br brick house with a damaged foundation (due to earthquakes and slippage). ...
Everyone has their own criteria.
Idaho is downwind from a lot of nuc power plants, nuc weapons launch platforms, nuc warhead maintenance facilities, and Idaho is home to INF [our nation's primary retired nuc reactor storage yard].
Utah has been brought up a couple of times and I'd have to agree... though I may be a bit biased about it.
The main reason is location... Utah is still pretty much in the ass end of nowhere and far from any "cultural and/or power centers" or "strategic locations" that people would be inclined to fight over.
Second, the people here a long tradition of independence and self-sufficiency... it's basically built into the local culture. Where else in the country can you go where almost everyone has cache of food storage in their basement? How about dozens of specialty stores that cater survival and prepper customers?
Beyond that are decent gun laws and a heavily-armed populace that is also generally non-violent and cooperative with each other, not to mention very protective of their homeland.
Third, it's a good place for resources... this may be one of the few parts of the USA that could actually support modern civilization if the rest of the world suddenly dropped off the map. We have basically every resource close by, from coal, oil and natural gas to timber, forests, fertile agricultural lands AND the means to process, power and utilize them, all independent from the rest of the country.
In my estimation, Utah and the nearby areas around the Intermountain West stand the best chance for preserving and continuing the continuity of civilization in the entire country, should it collapse. It's remote enough, unified enough, decently populated... but not TOO populated and has the material resources to do it.
I'm going to suggest the OP read Joel Skousen's book Strategic Relocation and use it as just one of many tools in evaluating which state is the best for him/her.
Joel Skousen's book is a pretty good one--fairly comprehensive and blunt in reasoning. I don't agree with everything in the book, but I do think it is a good resource, perhaps even the best. He has definitely done a lot of research and has given it a lot of thought.
Skousen's two highest rated states are Utah and Idaho. I'm in Utah and I've lived here a long time--long enough to see my area of the Wasatch Front change from largely rural to largely urban. Of course, Skousen does not recommend the high-population area for retreat purposes, although he does look on it favorably as a safer urban environment to live and work. I would begrudgingly concur with this. However, there is no way it's a good choice for a prepper who is also interested in self-sufficiency and agriculture. That's largely gone from the Wasatch Front region unless you are very, very rich. Even then, you are living in the middle of a couple million people.
Now, having said this, Skousen also rates several other Utah locations as his top picks for the entire country. One thing you have to understand is that, although most of Utah is about the driest in the nation, there are some areas that are very well-watered by winter runoff and summer rains. They are typically the higher mountain valleys and have traditionally been agricultural communities in nature. Skousen's top pick (presumably for the entire US) is the Sanpete Valley. I'll agree it's a gorgeous higher altitude valley that is quite lush and has traditionally been heavy on farmers, ranchers, turkey farms, and other rough do-it-yourself survival types of folks. But it is growing. And land is ridiculously expensive unless it's up in the junipers and pines where there is no irrigation. Bottom line is, it probably IS one of the top spots... if you can afford it.
Skousen also mentions the Uinta Basin (containing the towns of Vernal, Roosevelt, and Duchesne) as being a great "prepper" destination. Again, I would agree. It's about the coldest area in the state during the winter (with subzero nightly lows not uncommon), but it's fairly sparsely populated, property prices are a bit more reasonable, and the folks are generally pretty friendly out there.
He also mentions southeast Utah (around Monticello). Another good choice. In my opinion better than the others.
An area that I am fairly enamored with is not mentioned by Skousen. Again, it's a traditionally agricultural area. It is a bit farther west in the foothills and edge of the western deserts. It is considerably drier. The area is blanketed with dry wheat farms, irrigated alfalfa, and pasture land. It is less populated than the other areas Skousen speaks of. Property values are generally less, even for ground suitable for dryland farming (with irrigated areas a bit more pricey). Basically, it's an area that rich folks from other parts of the country have not really discovered yet. It is basically the region west of the Pahvant mountain range and on the east flanks of the Sevier Desert. It includes the (all small) towns of Holden, Fillmore, Flowell, Meadow, Kanosh, Oak City, Leamington, and Delta a bit farther west and actually into the desert. Most of it is climatologically considered semi-arid steppe. But, as I said, agriculture is possible if handled wisely--especially if you are dry farming. Wells (sometimes even artesian) are common in the area and are nearly always successful. There are a number of canals in the area diverting the runoff from the mountains to the farming areas as well... but shares of that water are $$$.
I've traveled pretty extensively over almost all of the state (except the hottest areas of the south) over the years. If I end up staying in Utah (which is looking more likely), that is the area I will be strongly attracted to. Summarized, Agriculture is the traditional livelihood, it's still quite sparsely populated, Millard County (which contains all of the towns mentioned above) is very friendly to "homesteader" types and has relaxed and friendly codes for building, and if you admire the desert or steppe scenery, it really is quite a gorgeous area. I have actually been scouting out the region the past couple of months (of course, I've been in the area many times over the years as well). I've visited all the little towns and driven around most all the rural roads through the fields and over the foothills. I'd have to say if you are the hardy type and want to be out largely on your own (I guess you could call it a little house on the desert setting) or if you wish to be in a small rural town for safety, this area might be worth looking into. It's certainly far, far away from the urban masses around here.
Whew, sorry about the novel. But I just got back from the area this afternoon (I went out there this time to see Delta's rather large display/collection of century-old farm implements and technology), so while it is fresh in my mind, there's my plug.
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you just have to be aware that these are necessary skills and be willing to practice them without getting too awfully discouraged. Nothing is entirely impossible, you just need to maybe scale things back, extend the timeline, or tweak the design or your expectations a bit.
