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Been toying w/ a friend re this. So what's min dist from bigger city -- is it 100 miles?! Max is 200 mile as may need it -- if city is even operational after a disaster. Also, raw land & physical labor & yanking stumps, chopping trees, & pouring rds makes it feasible & act as workouts. Quiet & peacefulness/sanity is good tho due to location.
A tank of gas to get anywhere long dist is needed, if poss, when finding a spot. If your vehicle can't w/stand an emp (aka as newer than '81), remember its harder for those foraging to find & eat you, thus finding your food -- but also tough for you to get goods/food/resources in rurality. So, anyone comment on min vs max parcel size in acre vs dist from pop centers -- should we have ANY type issues be it -- SHTF or emp or just hoardes of crazed folks storming out of cities to forage in rural locations?
The distance from a city depends on how big the city is. A city of 50K is better to have close, than a city of 500K+. I'm about a half hour from Bangor, less than 50 miles, and I feel very comfortable with that. Bangor has most everything we need on a regular basis. Unusual items I can pick up in my travels, or online.
Don't go thinking you need a ton of acreage. If you just want peace and quiet, a big garden, and maybe some chickens, 1 to 5 acres will be enough. You may WANT more than that, but you don't NEED more than that. If you're raising sheep, goats, pigs or cattle on pasture, obviously you'd need more, and if you're in the Redoubt you'd need more, due to lower rainfall in that area.
I think what's more important than just distance from cities, is distance from major highways and routes of travel. When you look at a land parcel, use Google Earth to check out the surrounding area. Note highways, railroads, airports, navigable waterways, and anything that would be public attractions -- ski areas, golf courses, etc. Try to stay away from those. Realtors will point out the advantages of these attractions, and try to sell you higher priced properties to be near them.
Property abutting or near state land will often give you more privacy, and having seasonal or absent neighbors will do the same. So while you should do your homework regarding the land parcel itself (wetlands, hilly terrain, access roads, zoning, etc), you absolutely need to consider the surroundings.
One other thing: I would not pay extra for water frontage, views, babbling brooks, or any of that, unless those things are really important to you. Our 33 acres in Maine could easily have cost quadruple the price, if there was a paved road, power poles nearby, or a view. As it is, there's a nice fishing lake about 5 minutes away, more peace than I ever dreamed of, plenty of space to build on and stretch out, and our only nearby neighbor passed last year at age 94!
I think you are very wise to consider the thought that you want to be far, but not too far. Just consider some possible scenario where roads are impassable for some event (EMP, CME massive grid down etc..) the roads would be gridlocked with stalled disable cars even if you had one that still was operational. You don't want your BOL to be so far that you can't walk it if it came to it, then your BOL would be a waste. 200 miles to walk in a major grid down might as well be 2000. Especially if you have kids. I bet most people wouldn't make it more than 75 or 100 miles and thats even knowing where they are going.
Think how much food and water the average person would need to carry with them for that type of walk. Think how out of shape the average adult is. Think how desperate and weakened people would have to be before they choose to leave their houses and just hit the road. My prediction is by the time they make that decision they will have already consumed most of their resources and will be weakened. I don't seem the golden horde making it as far as others
I think for a metropolitan area less than 1 million population you are good to go 50-100 miles from the city provided you are out of the way and you are not near interstates, highways etc.. If you are tucked away in a sedcluded area off the beaten path on the way to nowhere I don't think many people will venture your way
As a general rule for me, the farther away from a city the better, and the bigger the parcel the better. It depends on the size of the city as well. 50 miles is way too close to a major city, while it could be a perfect distance away from a smaller "city". I'd want to be at least 200 miles from a major metro area.
I don't think you can be too far from a city these days if you're financially independent. Get some medivac insurance for possible health emergencies, and shop online and the cities really aren't necessary. I have no desire to be anywhere near a major metro. If SHTF, I'd rather die than head towards the cities to be rounded up with the masses to wait in line for my FEMA rations. The further away from the masses the better.
The biggest city in Montana is 100,000, and I'm about 250 miles from it. There are only about 5 cities in the state that are over 30k.
My cabin is roughly 20 miles from the nearest town of 8000, and that's too close most days.
In this area, water, not area, is a huge factor when looking at land. If you don't have water, it doesn't matter how big your place is, but if you have a good supply of good water, you can provide for yourself well on a very small place of say 80 acres or so.
Our growing season is really short, about 90 days average, so you compensate with one big crop instead of a smaller garden you can harvest over several weeks. A greenhouse helps, but they have limits too in this climate.
If you have livestock, you need ground for pasture, plus you need sufficient crop ground to grow enough hay to keep them through the winter, so your need for a larger piece of ground will be directly proportionate to ty number and type of livestock you raise.
In this area, water, not area, is a huge factor when looking at land. If you don't have water, it doesn't matter how big your place is, but if you have a good supply of good water, you can provide for yourself well on a very small place of say 80 acres or so.
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Only in Montana is 80 acres considered a relatively small piece of land . I'd consider 80 acres a pretty healthy chunk of land.
Only in Montana is 80 acres considered a relatively small piece of land . I'd consider 80 acres a pretty healthy chunk of land.
The old saying during homesteading days was that 160 acres was too small to live on, too big to die on.
When it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 acres per cow/calf pair just for pasture, and about the same to raise enough hay to feed them through the winter, doesn't take too many cows for the acreage requirement to add up fast.
Most of Montana is pretty dry, the acreage requirements are even larger.
If you're trying for self sufficiency here, you better have no preconceived notions about how much ground you will need just to keep enough food to see you through from one harvest to the next.
Yes, if you have good ground and lots of water, you could get by on less using chickens, rabbits, turkeys, ducks or geese for your protein, or maybe a couple goats or a pig on 20 acres or so, but don't kid yourself, on those tiny places you will be living real close to the bone, and you better have outside income of some sort too.
Winter rules here if you're trying to go self sufficient, so you will also need a woodlot that can produce roughly 8 to 10 chords of wood every year, or a coal seam so you have enough heat.
Most of Montana is a hard place to make a living off the land. We share a lot of similarities with Alaska, but don't have nearly as much water.
I've seen too many people come here and think the ground will be as fertile and rich as where they came from, and lose everything.
I just try to bring some reality into the situation. Montana isn't Iowa or Pennsylvania, it's a place where sometimes it seems the only moisture sprinkling your crops is the sweat dripping off your brow.
One animal unit (cow and calf) requires 150 acres in Wyoming and other parts of the arid west. It's funny to hear easterners outsiders talk about dripping sweat out here. Sweat evaporates immediately in the low humidity. That's fine because it makes people feel cooler. The Heat Index where I live is normally a degree or two below the ambient temperature. This increases with an increase in temperature. The hottest days are the driest days.
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