Best place to go off grid and find land? (farmer, houses, water)
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Hey there! My fiance and I want to go off the grid, but are having a hard time trying to find the best place to do that in. We want to find somewhere that doesn't have building or zoning codes and permits. First we plan on living in our Airstream on the land and slowly working on other things on the land like setting up a place for a garden to grow our food, build a chicken coop, root cellar, storage shed, etc and then build our own little cabin. Then the Airstream would become a guest house. We want to be completely off grid with the exception of internet since we run an online shop. Does anyone have any ideas on where we can find a place that will allows to do what we want? Preferably we don't want to go any further than Missouri. We live in Pennsylvania right now and would love to stay here, but I feel as though it would be too hard to do what we want to do here. Too many restrictions. Any help would be much appreciated!
There are places in northern Maine where this is possible. But I don't recommend it in an Airstream, as it's too cold for living in a tin can with virtually no insulation.
There are also places in Appalachia, in the Carolinas or eastern TN, where some people have done this. Still not comfortable in a tin can (scorching hot in summer), but it can be done.
Look into western Colorado. Areas like Delta and Montrose counties have lots of off grid land and few building permits if any are required. Some places you have to park at the end of your road and ride a snowmobile up. Good luck to you.
Much of west Texas does not have building codes. You can build what you like. Land is cheap, there is ground water in most places, so you can have a garden etc. We get lots of sunshine and the winters aren't too cold so you can off grid. Its a great place to be left alone. Biggest problem would be internet service. But I would think anything remote without building codes is also going to be hard to find internet service.
...I would think anything remote without building codes is also going to be hard to find internet service.
It depends. I'm in a remote area with no building codes except septic; However, there's a fiber optics line that terminates just over three miles away. That gives me decent DSL service. The equipment that allows this great a distance is relatively new, but there will be improvements. I was fortunate in that I only had to run the telephone line a bit over a half mile. When I first moved here I had to rely on wireless line of sight service which is slow and not always reliable. Landlines are a must where I live. I can use a cell phone in my house, but service is very spotty.
There are no trailers in my area. We receive 80-100 mph winds on a fair number of days each year; 40-60 is common.
West TX (Lubbock to Midland) - no water, flat and boring to death. Infested with oil rigs and fracking wells. Ozarks - too many hicks and camo wearing, shoot-anything, ATV riding folk. Much the same anywhere south (TN, North FL, MS, AL, MO, KY, KS) - the "camo crowd" can get aggressive if they don't like you and in that case they can forget about your property rights, you can lose livestock, they can get vengeful and so on.
Some places to look at: SE OK - cheaper land, plenty of water, low population density. It is mostly Choctaw and Cherokee country so yes, there will be poverty (although I personally think the Choctaw are an amazing and well organized/run tribe that takes care of their own!) but not so many of the white poor trash. I prefer the company of the native Indians to the roughnecks.
West TX - Terlingua / Big Bend area - if you have the money to drill a well, you can collect water and grow a garden for 2-4 people. East TX is full of the same hicks as elsewhere in the southern states. This is too bad since the south has some pretty and fertile lands.
New Mexico - plenty of public lands and remote land is cheap. Make sure you buy a place with a proven well. Land of "manana" though and TONS of rural crime. You will be an outsider to many small, remote communities but this goes for most places.
Avoid Arizona, Colorado and California altogether. Same for all north eastern states (too cold, some are too invasive into your rights etc.).
West Virginia around Blacksburg and the national forests has some cheap and pretty land. Nota bene - lots of coal mining runoff, Christmas farms runoff etc. Some serious hillbilly country! You will be an outsider in all small places.
WY has the best population make up but you have to be ready to endure months of extremely cold weather. Definitely not for everyone. MT has some nice areas but harsh climate and water is an issue.
Some people here advertise Maine - I do not like the wet cold so not my choice but it seems to be a nice place for them.
Internet is almost always going to be an issue in rural areas. Sometimes you find fiber in the most remote places (like Terlingua, TX), there is sometimes DSL in some rural places like in NM. Don't count on cable. Sometimes you can get 4G coverage through AT&T or Verizon but they rape you - $90 for a 10GB plan...
As a rule, the closer you are to a main, asphalted road, the more chance of high(er) speed internet.
Some areas will also have line of sight internet - depending on topology and coverage with routers and antennae - this may be a good option or it may be one of those scenarios where you pay $80/month for theoretical (but not practical) internet connectivity...
If you intend to have a farm to be a real farmer (like a CSA etc.), living in a place that has water is a must (as in abundant rainfall and surface water). If you just want to feed a small family - it can really be done anywhere...
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I agree definately not Arizona or western Colorado. They are infested with rattlesnakes, and Californians and there's just no space left until the Bundy's chase the BLM out.
Maine is the place to go for sure.
Posted from my winter bunker on the Colorado river... leaving soon for the summer bunker in the Rockies.
The challenge with Maine will definitely be the temperature. Cold weather requires a lot of effort to deal with if you're not on the grid(extreme heat does as well, but you won't find the death level temperatures in most places east of Missouri). The cold in Maine can kill you pretty easily during a bad winter.
If your focus is just regulations, that might actually come down to something a bit more granular than a state vs state decision. Often things like building codes vary by individual town.
Before looking at what you want to do as far as "going off the grid", you need to be honest with yourself as to what do want that is not off the grid. You mentioned internet service which in not normally associated with being in an area with few or no regulations.
Internet service is by it;s nature is in constant flux. What is available to today in an area may be abandon next month as financially unstable. What is planned may just a easily be de-planned. Fortunately, with government tax requirements to support rural internet services, companies (providers) will ultimately expand some form of high speed internet to rural areas because the government requires them as a condition of getting this development money.
Another item is medical. How close to a hospital, clinic, doctor do you need to be? There are many people who talk off grid but their medical condition forces them to be closer and closer to medical services. This limits the range they can look especially if specialized care is needed. Likewise, you may be in such a health condition where the local old family doctor will be just fine. Not needing close in medical care expands where you can look.
As you envision this lifestyle, is there anything that is going to be needed that you won't be able to supply yourself? This can require that you locate where those supplies or service are available. Do you need a reasonably stocked hardware store within a hour or few drive? Do you need overnight package pickup and delivery or can running to the post office be enough? So, think a bit about the civilized needs you may have and how important in time, distance and availability it is to you.
You can grow your own food from Maine to California including the deserts of the southwest. But, what can you grow, when and for how long? Based on your own needs, how long of a growing season do you require? Can you get by on a short season supplemented by greenhouses or would you rather a open air long or constant growing season? If you are not looking for complete self sufficiency on the food side (most people are not fully self sufficient when it comes to food and they do rely on farmer's markets, grocery stores or mail order for supplies) what is the limit you can place on being able to acquire food supplies for restocking? If you don;t need a Costco or Safeway and some small grocery store will do, you have much more options.
I also remind people not to discount their own political needs, religious desires, social environment and just plain old wanting to blend in. Since those involved in self sufficiency range from liberal tree hugging vegans pot-heads to wild eyed radical right wing hawks; you have to ensure that you are comfortable with the area you want to reside.
So these are the types of things I generally ask people to think about because they help you think beyond the end vision and more into the next steps to narrow down possibilities from 20 states to maybe a dozen.
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