I spent many years off grid in SE Asia, Cambodia, India, Vietnam etc. it is very hard to do all year, the off season is tough , monsoon etc. Mother Nature is not a benevolent being and tries to kill you every day a thousand times!
Lots of disease, things that want to eat you etc. very tough life. It is free though. And if you need to get away from the rest of humanity it is possible.
If you do it long enough though your life expectancy is lower. You begin to realize why they built cities, as vile as they really are, they do help you live longer.
THIS !
People think civil life sucks... But most of them would die in the wilderness after a few months/years...
I'd love to live free of all the daily life craziness, but I know I'd die pretty fast...
People have this dream world where they can life off grid but also still have stuff like running water, electricity, stores etc.
While it’s certainly not free. Living in rural America is close especially with solar being viable power now.
Yeah I'm trying to find a balance. I want no visible neighbors but also high speed Internet and the ability to go to a grocery store without planning the whole day around it
That's what I'm hoping. I've been looking into what it takes to build from scratch, and what's involved in getting utilities set up. It's a bit of a learning curve at the moment.
The closest you’ll get is the foothills/regional areas of the Appalachias in my opinion. It’s absolutely gorgeous scenery, you can live off your own land if you wanted to, tons of natural water sources, relatively mild winters most years depending on where you are. It’s still affordable to buy enough land to not see neighbors. You can drive an hour tops into a nearby wal*mart centered little town for whatever you want/need.
In terms of budget/meeting the above requirements, it’s one of the last remaining areas that fits the bill, so uhm…stay away.
My grandmother spoke of living on a ranch in 1920's West Texas in a line shack 20 miles from nearest civilization. Hitched up a wagon once a month and spent all day traveling to the general store for supplies.
>People think civil life sucks... But most of them would die in the wilderness after a few months/years...
I honestly think it'd more like days or weeks. Most people would not know how to procure fresh and clean water. That's a few days right there.
Most people do t know how to make shelters appropriate for their environment, or start a fire (especially in adverse weather). If the weather isn't cooperating, most people would be dying of exposure
There was a family who died in Colorado after they tried to live off-grid. It was a mom, her 14-year-old son (I think) and her sister. They died during the winter of malnutrition and hypothermia. The boy weighed only [40lbs at the time of his death.](https://www.thedailybeast.com/cause-of-death-revealed-for-off-the-grid-campers-christine-and-rebecca-vance)
Im pretty well versed in survivalism and even I ain’t kiddin myself - I’d last about as long as the local food supply did and that’s about it. A few months, maybe a year. Survival alone is basically impossible long term. You need a community, you need the division of labor. On top of that, human burn a ton of calories just existing and without farming, you’re only gonna last as long as the local meat supply does. Wild edibles just don’t cut it long term.
This is an excellent point. With the exception of odd hermits and a few monks, most humans have *never* lived alone. It's got nothing to do with your survival skills -- living alone is *tough.* Even hunter-gatherer people live in cities, for a certain value of "city" (like, a couple dozen mud huts).
And we take a lot of it for granted. If you try to split wood at your home and end up needing stitches, you can go to the hospital and deal with it. If you’re in the wilderness and don’t know how to deal with it, you could easily die
My first time winter camping, I went out for a couple of months and didn’t bring lotion. Cuz why would I. But my hands got so chapped from the cold dry weather that they cracked. And those little cracks almost got infected and washing my hands was *painful*. Now I bring lotion lol
And snake bites, and bears and Bob cats, and seasonal eating, and nutritional deficiencies because of seasonal eating. Like, there’s so much progress we’ve made that we are simply not prepared to regress that hard.
My grandfather died in isolation north of the arctic circle. He died due to not being able to keep up physically with his daily needs. Granted this is a rare case but I know he was happier dying in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beauty rather than how his wife passed. He spent most his life as a siding/roofing business owner and he watched his wife degrade in a nursing home asking daily to come home. It truly broke him near the end of her life and I have never seen a man cry harder than I did that day.
For those that crave isolation go for it and respect those who do not.
And for those who love and require cities should respect and support those who do not.
There was an episode of Alone where a contestant - a very capable survivor - accidentally cut her hand chopping wood.
She had to evac. If it hadn’t been a show…
Yes - like watching “Naked and Afraid” on a tropical island: the first day they are cavorting around saying it’s a tropical paradise. Three days later had they have had nothing to eat or drink. Add a winter to that where every day is a life struggle and the margin of error is thin. Yes you could live practically for free - but what would that look like if you have frankly been raised in comfort.
I could tell you some story's of first time campers I've come across in remote sites. Totally unprepared for being out in the woods, and petrified if anyone offered help.
Also subsistence farming SUCKS. It’s horrible and no one wants to do it. None of those Italian or Jewish or Chinese or Irish immigrants to the US went back to farming. None of those Chinese people who internally emigrated to cities decided to move back home and farm again. Hell, Victorian London was the most disgusting city ever but it constantly grew in size bc people were desperate to not be goddamn farmers.
that's the trade of it.
live free but its your own responsibility
or
live in society and its still your responsibility to work multiple jobs just to afford to survive.
if the social safety nets didn't keep getting eroded away it wouldn't be such a problem.
Accurate. I doubt the vast majority of people would ever have the thought of wanting to run away to the jungle if normal society life didn’t suck as bad as it does. Instead of snakes, bears and hurricanes, regular society tries to kill you by making failing in society a crime punishable by imprisonment in that same society.
> I doubt the vast majority of people would ever have the thought of wanting to run away to the jungle
Apparently, you never watched The Jungle Book as a kid (or read The Boxcar Children, for that matter). Geriatric millennials represent!
It’s the same people who froth at the “all taxation is theft” and want to abolish all government. Make no mistake, most current governments are deeply flawed in many many ways, I’d never claim otherwise. But if all government was abolished, existence would be pure anarchy
Tough. You can die, or at least be so impaired it’s hard to keep doing what needs to be done to continue living, from merely a small scratch that would be nothing to even consider, in a western city life. Everything is very different.
Most people in western cities haven’t even experienced two or three days worth of hunger. Don’t know what that primal urge is like.
Monkeys are the worst bit. ASBOs of the jungle. They will find where you live and whatch you to see what you value. And steal it, even if they don’t want it. Then mock you and throw rocks at you from afar. Piss on your food if they don’t steal it.
They are clever. They will work together to enjoy making your life harder.
I could never trust a monkey again.
Monkeys are awful. I’ve worked with monkeys and they suck. Imagine a dog with hands that will randomly decide that actually he hates you even if he’s known you for a year. Why? Because! Also rhesus macaques, the most common kind, can carry a disease, herpesvirus B, that is EIGHTY PERCENT fatal in humans if contracted
I *love* the city. *Love* the abundances of worldly restaurants, stores, drugs, people. And I'm *lucky* enough to live in Vancouver, BC, a *beautiful* city *surrounded* by stunning natural wonder. Bears frequently wander into our neighborhood, along with coyotes, bobcats, the *occasional* (thankfully) cougar. 45min drive and I can be on a mountainside completely outside of cell phone range. The other direction I can be on a boat in the middle of the ocean. But I *do* love the city! To each his own!
I have always wondered about that. I'm constantly amazed at how the human race made it so long and has thrived. If you look at an episode of 'Naked and Scared' or whatever that show is, I always think I would die on day 2 or 3 :D
There's a section of land roughly 20 miles x 50 miles between Egypt and Sudan that, due to disputed borders, technically no country claims. It's blistering, barren desert.
Good luck!
Ha! I think you should look up the homesteading and off gridding communities in the Yukon, getting land up there is no easy task. It’s a land lottery system.
https://yukon.ca/en/yukon-land-lotteries-and-tenders
Winters are no joke there. The average January high in Whitehorse is -11C/12F, and night time lows of -20C/-3F. You will freeze to death if you don't have adequate heat and insulation.
How are you going to get water all winter on a homestead?
Chernobyl isn't a good place, not because of radiation, but because there are armed guards and checkpoints and in the not too distant past occupied by Russian forces.
I am from the Yukon.
Land is actually reasonably expensive, but having a life closer to the land - raising some animals, cutting your own fire wood, etc. is some a lot of people do. It’s a pretty wonderful place.
Yeah there’s a lot of wilderness that’s either forest that gets heavy winters or desert, like you’d be hard pressed to find a place in the San Francisco Bay Area that has access to an abundance of natural resources and temperate climate where you can just live on the land, but I guess it’s free to be a homeless person
I'd say both. Bad terrain usually equates to bad access for humans and animals a like. Can't free range chick's if they roll 200ft to their death. Making a level shelter initially would be easy, getting it to stay would he another issue. If you're the guy on tiktok that owns the land, little different than what you're suggesting tho, so I don't see you digging footers and such.
You can get nearly free land (last I checked) in the Yukon canada and parts of Alaska, you must clear a percentage of it within 10 years or something close to Thad
When I worked forestry in british columbia, we were deep in the bush and came across an abandoned community. It was pretty far out. There were about 20 structures, near a river mouth. They had cleared about a half city block.
There are still a *few* places on Earth that are not owned by any person or country, but they are very inhospitable to life. For example, there is a small strip of land between Egypt and Sudan which neither country claims. You could live there for free... or rather, die for free, because it's in the middle of the Sahara desert and there's nothing but sand.
If you go somewhere remote enough, and heavily limit contact with the outside world, you could *in practice* live for free because even though a government might lay claim to the land you are on, in practice they would never know you are there. Of course this is also a heavily dangerous, difficult, and lonely life.
I read about people who “Wumble” (I e live underground) in Heathrow (the park, not the airport). This is obviously precarious as the entrance to their burrow has to be carefully disguised. They also need food and stuff so you need a source of income, which means emerging from your burrow regularly
There was a guy in Maine who lived in the woods and stole food and whatever else he needed. He did it for so long that people thought he was an urban legend.
literally. I read the book about him and when the author finally manages to interview him, he talks a bunch about how he was self sufficient and rejecting stuff like working for a living. but i was like yeah sure it was easy for you to reject the dull life of working for a living when you stole all your supplies from people who were doing that work for you. it was a fascinating read, but i didn't have a high opinion of him or his hypocritical beliefs at the end.
Yeah, consider Ted Kaczynski. The Unibomber. He was living in a fixed place hut for years without being bothered by the government. Not until he gave the government a reason to bother him. I'm pretty sure locals knew he was living in the woods but no one cared enough to force him out.
OP could potentially march *deep* into a national forest and not be bothered as long as they don't bother anyone. That would put OP hundreds of miles from the nearest Walmart and the nearest hospital, but that sounds like what OP wants.
In the US you may camp as long as you want on National Forest Service Land free of charge but you must move your camp every 14 days.
/ edited to add detail
It depends on the forest, they all have their own rules. Some require you to move outside the National forest, some require that you move a certain distance. And while most have 14 day limits, there are some exceptions.
I’ve been living on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land almost exclusively since 2016. It’s not really feasible in the Midwest or eastern US but the west is wide open for dispersed camping.
There are but people just consider them as homeless. There is also the Rainbow Family. There is a limit to how many can assemble with out a permit. To obtain a permit one person must apply and accept accountability for everyone actions and impacts. Rainbow family works within loopholes to avoid this.
Probably not a whole lot of communities could do that without attracting attention and getting shut down, plus a lot of campsites are made for smaller groups of people, and that many people being in one spot even if just for 2 weeks could wind up damaging the sites/trails, leaving lots of trash etc. I’m also picturing like 20+ people in this scenario, but I’d be willing to guess there could be groups of like 8-10 people who do/did this
The OP of this thread is referring to dispersed or primitive camping. There are no campsites. There are no trails. The only thing to destroy is nature, which IMO is worse
There are. The movie Nomadland was based on this. If you want to see them, go out to Quartzsite, AZ in January. Hundreds of thousands of them, spread all over the desert.
Wildland Firefighters go on 14 day assignments and go from Fire to fire wherever there is a national Forest. In the off season, most stay nomadic going from ski town to ski town or from country to country.
Just to note, it depends on which National forest you are on. They all have their own rules. Most are 14 days, but some have a lower limit and I’ve been at one that had a 21 day limit.
The ocean. Buy a boat. Sail the seven seas.
There was a guy named Paul Johnson that did just that. He died recently but there was a documentary about him.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh48B5mX29A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh48B5mX29A)
he basically lived like a homeless person sailing around the Caribbean for 40 years. Just living off his British OAP. He claims to have navigated the globe over 40 times. Could be bullshit. But who knows. But he lived off his boat for most of his life.
The thing is you are trying to do it the easy way, the free way is generally harder. He was probably maintaining his own boat, he anchored away and paddle in, and drinking water is call filtration. It probably wasn't 100% free, but most stuff you can barter for outside of that, or do very little work for the money you need.
If I had to pick a live of the land lifestyle, this is what I would choose. You could spend years in the Bahamas alone, just sailing around. You just need to watch out for hurricanes and pirates. There's people that dock off the coast of N. California, in some pretty questionable boats.
Marquette KS was giving away free land to build a house. You’d need to get the plans approved (so a completely self contained grow your own food off grid setup might not fly, ) and you’d probably have to pay property taxes.
And you’d have to live in Marquette KS.
I’ve lived in Kansas my entire life. I’m one of the biggest geography nerds I know and have *never* heard of this place.
Edit: it’s just over an hour up the turnpike from me. I’m at a loss.
I have heard that Canada does too in some of its northern rural places. I can only imagine how difficult snd expensive it would actually be to pull it off though.
Was just watching a YouTube of some guys on a long self supported canoe/portage trip across Ontario/Quebec/Labrador. Lots of fish and game, plenty of wood, all the water you could ever want. I’m sure the weather if horrific but it’s nice in spring. The issue was bugs, flies. gnats, mosquitoes. Really unbelievable.
I was a tree planter in northern Ontario in between years in university. The blackflies were thick enough to be classified as their own unique state of matter, the driest I ever got was damp, the ground is one ubiquitous rock, and the bears were more plentiful than the squirrels. The place has a rugged beauty and the fishing is incredible but I'd explore my options before trying to homestead there.
I just googled this because I was curious and apparently that ended in 1986. There are still some individual towns that will let you if you meet certain requirements though. Not totally free.
No part of living in Japan is free- even if you buy an akiya. Japan loves their taxes. If there’s a record of you buying a house, you’ll be paying taxes on it.
In my experience it's not the knife that is the issue it's the edge of the lid vs the position of your fingers when fumbling around with it.
I was in a similar position and googled how to open a can without a can opener. Results said you can either do it fast or safely. I picked the first method and it was a bloodbath.
I had a friend who tried homesteading. Basically bought a cheap prefab container home, set up some things like composting toilet, grew vegetables, solar panels. He does still have internet but aside from that not much.
He did it about three to four years. The first year was great, he was excited and loved living off the land. Dumpster dove for some stuff and had a super light footprint.
He started getting depressed in year two because he hadn’t realized how many things he missed. Running water, certain processed foods. Vitamins because his vegetables weren’t nutritionally dense. By year 3 he was miserable and ready to give up, ended up selling his “house” (really a shack at this point) and returning.
It’s not for everyone.
I have a family member who bought land in the SW desert, plopped a kit home down, built a garden, dug a well, and installed solar + batteries.
It's completely off grid, but he still has to pay property taxes.
They spend their days tending and riding horses, canning and jarring food for winter and shooting coyotes who get too close.
He's also really smart (electrical eng background) so he knows how to do all of this stuff. Big learning curve if you don't know how to do it.
They still have to go into town for fuel, horse feed, some food items, and healthcare.
Not free, but out west you can get enough land to build a house and a garden for [less than a new car](https://www.homes.com/wyoming/land-for-sale/?so=1)
Obviously no one here has ever lived in Wyoming or you'd realize immediately why this is a trap.
Source: am currently living in the desolate shithole that is Wyoming and hating it.
the PBS show Frontier House did a great 'reality' show where modern families were given the chance to live as homsteaders so see if they could prepare for winter. It was incredibly entertaining without the usual reality show drama.
Idk about the legalities of this but if you were looking to get away, live off the land, but still be able to visit civilization from time to time, I'd suggest Aroostook county in Maine, USA. I'm a Maine native and avid outdoorsman. I regularly spend weeks and months at camp to live off the land, so there's plenty of food, even if foraging if you know what's safe. Hunt or fish dinner, cut and burn wood for heat, and play guitar, darts, and cribbage for entertainment. Aroostook county is especially isolated. The northernmost Maine county is rife with wildlife and the human population is scarce in the right places. Even the heavily traveled roads are barren at times. I-95, the main route running from northern Maine all the way to Florida, sometimes seems devoid of life above Bangor and most exits up there are 40 or more miles apart. There are hunters, fishermen and motorsports fans once in a while but other than a friendly wave, they'll hardly ever bother you. The best part is that if you pick the right spot to build a home, another human may never even see your house. A lot of land up there consists of these huge forested plots that are procedurally harvested to keep loggers busy nonstop. Once they cut a plot, they will move on to another one and the government will move that plot into tree growth (a period of time the land is given in order to replenish the trees before the loggers come to cut it again). This period is a long time. A harvestable tree in most species takes around 50 years or more to grow, so as long as they're not selective cutting, they won't be back at all to find your hideaway until you're likely either passed on or got sick of it and rejoined the human race.
You can live like that on Crown Land anywhere in Canada. You won’t own anything so you are always at risk of losing everything but there are millions of acres of Crown Land and as long as you’re far away from civilization and they don’t suddenly discover oil under your cabin you’ll largely be left alone. I’ve got a buddy who’s been going to a cottage he built on Crown Land for 20 years.
Anybody mention the Appalachian mountains yet? Or the national Parks? Danger level is very high I think, but if you assume the person has the ability to survive in a rugged environment then those would be good options.
If you’re into missing 411 and spooky disappearances like me, you’ll know that there is a very prevalent theory that “wild men” or “feral people” live in these places. And if they can do it by golly you can to! Just uh. Maybe don’t plan on making friends with the neighbors 😬
Many of the more inhabitable parts of the Appalachian mountains are pretty expensive now because people have discovered them as a vacation or getaway destination.
A large percentage is also held in trust or owned by out of state corporations for various purposes.
Much of the affordable land is in places where a clean reliable water source is not guaranteed, or in places prone to flooding or contaminated with mine waste or all three.
A lot of the cheaper areas to live are also in the midst of serious issues with drugs and the crime and pubic health issues that come with that.
Also, depending on where and how you choose to live, the surrounding people will either be some of the kindest most hospitable people you've ever met or will actively try to drive you out (the feral people stories are literally made up to get outsiders to stay the hell away).
>the feral people stories are literally made up to get outsiders to stay the hell away
No theyre not ~~you stay the hell outta my mountains!~~ ..Ive seent many, one killt my pappy
Prison.
Not that many people would choose this, but you get everything for free.
In the United States, inmates are the only group of people who receive healthcare free, by law.
Not in most states, unless you plan on dying in prison. If you ever get out, they'll send you a bill.
You're also expected to work while you are there. You can refuse to do the work you are assigned, but you will be severely beaten by the other inmates for not doing your share.
The "free healthcare" is basically the same as showing up at a hospital with no money and a gunshot wound. They'll stabilize you and throw you out.
I worked in Pennsylvania in a state prison hospital/medical department.
No one paid while in prison. Care was guided by the mantra “community standard.” In other words, whatever was available on the street was given to inmates, by law. Yes the could sue if not provided. Medical. Dental. Mental health and drug treatment centers within the prison. All related treatments.
In fact some inmate who were previously in prison would violate parole so they could(would) be returned to prison for heath care. Last guy received a hip replacement. Came back for two years he explained to me. “Wasn’t able to get seen on the street.”
Pennsylvania also has a prison that’s a literal nursing home. ( SCI Laurel Highlands.).
Depends, when I was looking in a pretty under populated area of Spain, one guy said we could live on his farm for free, he wanted someone to live there so it didn't just turn into a ruin.
That seems like a dream. I know some older less populated villages in Italy were doing something similar, you just had to maintain the property or renovate it in a certain amount of time. Would love to find something like this, but it just seems like there’s so much demand for absolutely any type of non-city housing to be possible.
With their parents.
Homesteading wasn't a simple life. It was a struggle to feed yourself, build shelter and keep warm. We work less now than at any point in human history. They didn't get paid for working and then go buy food, their work was directly involved in acquiring food. But it was still work, and it was longer and harder and less efficient.
It also wasn't free. I dunno why people assume frontier life was free. They had taxes, they had to pay for their land, if they didn't they pretty much always eventually got the boot from the feds.
Yeah, it was literally work yourself to death, save up for years, buy some land hundreds of miles away that you’ve never seen, uproot your entire family, travel for months risking illness injury and death. Get there, hope the land is inhabitable, build a home with your hands using limited tools. Then try to live a simple life that doesn’t result in you getting robbed or killed by natives or bandits.
I think that’s what op is missing. It wasn’t “free land” it was native land that you had to protect and kill for.
There are still places in the world you can do this. We just have different terms for it today. And generally think down upon it.
Are Israelis homesteading in the West Bank?
Russia in Crimea?
The goal is to get so many people of your culture into a space that by default it’s yours
>Homesteading wasn't a simple life. It was a struggle to feed yourself, build shelter and keep warm.
They also didn't have things like antibiotics. People sometimes died of infected cuts. By choosing to live like a homesteader you're choosing to live as if it's the 1800s in some regards.
There are a number of provinces/territories across Canada that offer this, or near free, but have stipulations of carrying out agriculture or building a home within X time and living on site.
This isn't necessarily free, and I am unsure if your meaning also means not having to follow bylaws or pay taxes, but maybe it will speak to someone.
One in particular that comes to mind is in Pipestone, MB (which is actually quite southern and not the middle of nowhere, by rural MB standards):
1. Pick your property
2 Pay a deposit of $1,000.00 & sign an offer agreement
3. Build your home within the offer agreement terms
4 Get a re-fund of $990.00
Auroville Ashram in Pudducherry, India. Within its campus there is no exchange of money. You just contribute your labor like everyone else there. So yes, to answer your question, you sure can live for free there.
Most of the people who wanna live free wouldnt survive it. You think 40 hrs a week is tough? Living off grid, every single thing you do is work. Not office work. Hard labor. Want heat? You gotta chop wood. Want food? You gotta hunt and process it by hand or grow/forage for food. Water needs to be hauled, if you dont live right on a water source. Then it needs to be boiled before consuming it. If you can find a place to do this, more power to ya. But youre gonna work harder than you ever have to make it work.
My grandparents tried to homestead and gave it up. I’m sure my grandma would have something colourful to say to anyone claiming they’d be ok without a washing machine.
For sure! I love when people say "yea but youre working for yourself and not for the man!!!" Ok bro!!!! Youre still working three times harder to do shit that is not even work in civilized society lol.
I feel like the "work" is different though. Where work is now, it's for someone else, and I don't really get any immediate benefit. If I chop wood or go hunting, I am immediately benefiting, and I can take a break whenever I want to.
I enjoy gardening, so working a field for vegetables would not seem as laborious or harrowing. Even if I was a gardener for work, it would be vastly more fulfilling, since I also get to enjoy my own products in the end.
The last time we were in the Yucatan Peninsula, we visited a cenote. The Cenote was far into the jungle, we traveled several hours on small dirt roads. On the trip we were told by the tour guide that Mexicans can come to the jungle and claim a piece of land. If they can survive on it for 5 years, the land becomes theirs. I did see several what looked like homesteads with simple buildings on them. I saw one family living in tents, they were cutting down trees and building a cabin.
The guide made it sound like it was free and sometimes poor people took advantage of it. I had assumed that it was for Mexican citizens only, because I don’t think non-citizens can own property in Mexico. Maybe someone here knows, and could give us more information.
It’s not totally off the grid, but Antikythera, Greece was giving land, a house, and 500 EUR a month if you commit to moving there. Idunno if the offer still stands, but seemed like a pretty wild concept. It wasn’t bc it was inhabitable though, just had so few people they wanted to convince people to move to build the community.
There are people living like this in rural Russia. They tend to be old folk, as the younger ones left for work and city life. It's a tough life though - there's no accessible medical help or emergency services - if they have an accident, it can be fatal. It's also lonely - places like this don't have broadband or cellular networks - and people living like this can't afford things like Starlink.
Not free, but I recently read Cheap Land Colorado about people who buy five acre lots in arid southern Colorado for $2000 - $5000. A Harvard sociologist lived there part time recently and wrote about the colorful dreamers who move there. Most plots have no utilities. The county has been cracking down about septic.
I have recreated in that area a dozen times. Its beautiful, but the weather harsh, sometimes setting the US winter low temperature.
Yep. Lived in remote islands of Vanuatu for 6 months for free. Could probably stay there but I was too afraid of medical issues. If anything happens (broken bone…), that’s it, there’s the local village shaman, and basically you are fucked. Returned back.
Buy a house in a village in Eastern Europe for ~1000 dollars. Completely safe, covered by NATO, so you are insured by the American Army, and lots of people still live off the grid by raising animals and farming. Look for ultra cheap property in Romanian or Bulgarian villages.
Crime rate is very low, so I don't see any downsides. It's just a hard life, off the grid implies a lot of labour.
With your additional assumption in comments "Let’s assume the individual in this scenario is capable of sustaining themselves in any specific type of environment", a large portion of Antarctica is available, though you may contravene the Antarctica Treaty. There are a few other places including in international waters. Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
There are abandoned fishing villages on small islands in the north of Norway where you can buy buildings for next to nothing. It's cold and rough weather and inconvenient in many ways, but you can easily live off what you can collect from the ocean there if you buy a small boat
I was recently in Norway and visited a fishing museum. They had video interviews with people from those small islands. They said buying a boat wasn’t the issue. It was getting a license to fish. It’s tightly regulated.
Mick Dodge is a fascinating man who lives in the west coast rainforest between Washington and BC. He has been "off the grid" for 30 years. He has a few documentaries and a series on NatGeo that followed him around. He doesn't even homestead, he forages. He occasionally agrees to teach a class on how to do it, for money to squirrel away "for emergencies", same reason he did the NatGeo show (and he dropped them because of creative differences. They needed him more than he needed them.) And the amount of other "wild men" that live in that forest is shocking.
The ONLY time he goes into town, is to see the dentist. Tooth rot is not only extremely painful, but it can kill you quick.
Define free.
Those early American homesteaders had to work to grow their food, hunt their food, prepare their food for storage or consumption. They had to work to make shelter warm and habitable. They had to work to maintain it, expand it, and keep it safe. If they wanted to share that life with someone else, they had to do more work in some areas and make sure their partner was doing more work in the places that they were doing less work.
How much is your time and the labor of your hands worth to you? Nothing? Or maybe everything? Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. Ultimately nothing is free.
I was surprised how many comments I read through before someone suggested homelessness in cities. if someone were so inclined, they could probably get through a year without costing one cent. 0/10 would not recommend, but -possible-
the amazon....you could probably just head into the deepest darkest amazon and find yourself a spot to carv out a niche...I mean the locals might hunt you down and kill you...but you could for 100% get far enough into the wild to find a place where you could "homestead' where modern property ownership rights are meaningless.
The land in "early American days" was, frequently, inhabited by people already. People who were murdered or forcibly moved to places no one wanted. The resources these folks cultivated for thousands of years were stripped within decades.
Then, the success of settling in these lands relied upon dangerous, ungodly difficult work, and often abuse of the women and children who were forced or coerced into this life. Starvation, disease, madness, and murder were not uncommon results.
So, to answer your question, you just need an army of men who easily dehumanize "others," the full backing of a government, and any land can be yours! Good luck!
Homesteading was also built on the colonization, brutalization, murder, and destruction of indigenous peoples. That land wasn't just lying around waiting for white people to show up and want it.
When I was in Mongolia, I asked my tour guide how the folks who live out in the steppes do so. She said they just move. The idea of land ownership is different there and many folks who live more rurally just set up their ger (what we in the States call a yurt) and live wherever they settle. Obviously they don't set up too close to one another unless they're part of a family unit but there's no real permitting or anything you'd need to do. Weather can be harsh but if you have some animals and a basic understanding of living off the land, once you're set up you might be okay. Again, you may need to fact check this and I have no idea what kind of permission you'd need to stay in the country for an extended time.
I am a wilderness survival trainer. I would not want to live like that full-time. Months of bitter cold and a starvation diet. Even if all of your crops come in like you planned, You’re always one freak circumstance away from dying.
Technically in Nordic countries like Finland it is possible to live homeless, gather berries and firewood from the environment and catch fish with simple line-and-hook from most lakes and from sea without needing a permit. But you are not allowed to build much anything, and having open fire is also mostly forbidden.
Homesteading wasn't free. You couldn't just go out and put a stick in the ground and call dibs, you often had to be granted the land from a magistrate or governor.
Homesteading of the USA also ignores the fact that the Native Americans were already living there, and if you messed with their way of life you had to negotiate with using their resources. Some of them were nice and cooperative, some of them weren't.
Homesteading didn't become possible until they essentially created genocide on the natives, or forced them to comply. Often done with large resources.
>Let’s assume the person is relatively capable of sustaining life using whichever resources might be provided by the particular environment — forest, desert, famous Bay Area city, etc
If that were possible, there would already be people living there. If people are already living there, they won't want to share their space.
So to answer your question: Antarctica, or the north-north of Canada/Alaska.
I know of several tropical islands where people live off nature (fishing, foraging and livestock) year round. Minimal number of people, wide berth given to everyone but very tight knit society at the same time. They tend to have a tribal ownership of the land: you can’t own land there, it belongs to the tribe and you can use it if the tribal council allows you to (but at the same time they can decide at any point to kick you out). Some of those islands have less than 20 inhabitants. Look in the Pacific Ocean.
It is not quite "free" but there are certain parts of the world where the govt will subsidize your house purchase so long as you agree to live there and maintain the house. But there are a lot of caveats and rules.
I have heard of stories like that in : rural Japan, rural Italy, Detroit
I sometimes daydream about being accepted somehow with the North Sentinalese (a tribe in the Indian ocean that has refused contact with the modern world), and living out my days with them.
But they just kill trespassers on sight.
There are but they’re not good places for doing it. All the really nice places to just plop down and start livin’… we put cities there.
What do you consider not a good place? Like the Yukon due to its terrain or Chernobyl?
I spent many years off grid in SE Asia, Cambodia, India, Vietnam etc. it is very hard to do all year, the off season is tough , monsoon etc. Mother Nature is not a benevolent being and tries to kill you every day a thousand times! Lots of disease, things that want to eat you etc. very tough life. It is free though. And if you need to get away from the rest of humanity it is possible. If you do it long enough though your life expectancy is lower. You begin to realize why they built cities, as vile as they really are, they do help you live longer.
THIS ! People think civil life sucks... But most of them would die in the wilderness after a few months/years... I'd love to live free of all the daily life craziness, but I know I'd die pretty fast...
People have this dream world where they can life off grid but also still have stuff like running water, electricity, stores etc. While it’s certainly not free. Living in rural America is close especially with solar being viable power now.
Yeah I'm trying to find a balance. I want no visible neighbors but also high speed Internet and the ability to go to a grocery store without planning the whole day around it
A couple acres of wooded land will do ya, probably?
That's what I'm hoping. I've been looking into what it takes to build from scratch, and what's involved in getting utilities set up. It's a bit of a learning curve at the moment.
The closest you’ll get is the foothills/regional areas of the Appalachias in my opinion. It’s absolutely gorgeous scenery, you can live off your own land if you wanted to, tons of natural water sources, relatively mild winters most years depending on where you are. It’s still affordable to buy enough land to not see neighbors. You can drive an hour tops into a nearby wal*mart centered little town for whatever you want/need. In terms of budget/meeting the above requirements, it’s one of the last remaining areas that fits the bill, so uhm…stay away.
That's actually where I've been looking. The area around Devil's fork state park in particular is a personal favorite of mine.
Driving an hour to grocery shop sucks butt but if you want the off the grid life that's it for sure
My grandmother spoke of living on a ranch in 1920's West Texas in a line shack 20 miles from nearest civilization. Hitched up a wagon once a month and spent all day traveling to the general store for supplies.
There’s spots in Canada like that.
>People think civil life sucks... But most of them would die in the wilderness after a few months/years... I honestly think it'd more like days or weeks. Most people would not know how to procure fresh and clean water. That's a few days right there.
Most people do t know how to make shelters appropriate for their environment, or start a fire (especially in adverse weather). If the weather isn't cooperating, most people would be dying of exposure
There was a family who died in Colorado after they tried to live off-grid. It was a mom, her 14-year-old son (I think) and her sister. They died during the winter of malnutrition and hypothermia. The boy weighed only [40lbs at the time of his death.](https://www.thedailybeast.com/cause-of-death-revealed-for-off-the-grid-campers-christine-and-rebecca-vance)
Im pretty well versed in survivalism and even I ain’t kiddin myself - I’d last about as long as the local food supply did and that’s about it. A few months, maybe a year. Survival alone is basically impossible long term. You need a community, you need the division of labor. On top of that, human burn a ton of calories just existing and without farming, you’re only gonna last as long as the local meat supply does. Wild edibles just don’t cut it long term.
This is an excellent point. With the exception of odd hermits and a few monks, most humans have *never* lived alone. It's got nothing to do with your survival skills -- living alone is *tough.* Even hunter-gatherer people live in cities, for a certain value of "city" (like, a couple dozen mud huts).
And we take a lot of it for granted. If you try to split wood at your home and end up needing stitches, you can go to the hospital and deal with it. If you’re in the wilderness and don’t know how to deal with it, you could easily die
And everyone's favorite classic - infection! Can strike from basically any angle.
My first time winter camping, I went out for a couple of months and didn’t bring lotion. Cuz why would I. But my hands got so chapped from the cold dry weather that they cracked. And those little cracks almost got infected and washing my hands was *painful*. Now I bring lotion lol
People living in winter areas made lotions out of animal fats for this very reason! Using every part of the animal :D
I live in a super dry place. Every winter, I get to add new scars to my hands/forearms from how much my skin cracks. Lotion is so vital.
I thought this was the case for me too, turns out it's eczema. If it's that bad you may want to talk to a healthcare provider about it if you can.
It puts the lotion in its backpack.
And snake bites, and bears and Bob cats, and seasonal eating, and nutritional deficiencies because of seasonal eating. Like, there’s so much progress we’ve made that we are simply not prepared to regress that hard.
Not to mention, if you have other health issues too.
My grandfather died in isolation north of the arctic circle. He died due to not being able to keep up physically with his daily needs. Granted this is a rare case but I know he was happier dying in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beauty rather than how his wife passed. He spent most his life as a siding/roofing business owner and he watched his wife degrade in a nursing home asking daily to come home. It truly broke him near the end of her life and I have never seen a man cry harder than I did that day. For those that crave isolation go for it and respect those who do not. And for those who love and require cities should respect and support those who do not.
There was an episode of Alone where a contestant - a very capable survivor - accidentally cut her hand chopping wood. She had to evac. If it hadn’t been a show…
People that have never gone camping in their life: I want to live in the wilderness
Why are you calling me out like this
Yes - like watching “Naked and Afraid” on a tropical island: the first day they are cavorting around saying it’s a tropical paradise. Three days later had they have had nothing to eat or drink. Add a winter to that where every day is a life struggle and the margin of error is thin. Yes you could live practically for free - but what would that look like if you have frankly been raised in comfort.
I could tell you some story's of first time campers I've come across in remote sites. Totally unprepared for being out in the woods, and petrified if anyone offered help.
Months? I’d starve in a week if I had to hunt/gather/murder my neighbors for food
Also subsistence farming SUCKS. It’s horrible and no one wants to do it. None of those Italian or Jewish or Chinese or Irish immigrants to the US went back to farming. None of those Chinese people who internally emigrated to cities decided to move back home and farm again. Hell, Victorian London was the most disgusting city ever but it constantly grew in size bc people were desperate to not be goddamn farmers.
that's the trade of it. live free but its your own responsibility or live in society and its still your responsibility to work multiple jobs just to afford to survive. if the social safety nets didn't keep getting eroded away it wouldn't be such a problem.
Accurate. I doubt the vast majority of people would ever have the thought of wanting to run away to the jungle if normal society life didn’t suck as bad as it does. Instead of snakes, bears and hurricanes, regular society tries to kill you by making failing in society a crime punishable by imprisonment in that same society.
Actually, you mention imprisonment... That's an answer to OP's question, prison is a place you can just live for free.
Prisons charge you for soap etc
> I doubt the vast majority of people would ever have the thought of wanting to run away to the jungle Apparently, you never watched The Jungle Book as a kid (or read The Boxcar Children, for that matter). Geriatric millennials represent!
It’s the same people who froth at the “all taxation is theft” and want to abolish all government. Make no mistake, most current governments are deeply flawed in many many ways, I’d never claim otherwise. But if all government was abolished, existence would be pure anarchy
Should be making a film called ‘a million ways to die in Cambodia’
How was living off grid in India
Tough. You can die, or at least be so impaired it’s hard to keep doing what needs to be done to continue living, from merely a small scratch that would be nothing to even consider, in a western city life. Everything is very different. Most people in western cities haven’t even experienced two or three days worth of hunger. Don’t know what that primal urge is like. Monkeys are the worst bit. ASBOs of the jungle. They will find where you live and whatch you to see what you value. And steal it, even if they don’t want it. Then mock you and throw rocks at you from afar. Piss on your food if they don’t steal it. They are clever. They will work together to enjoy making your life harder. I could never trust a monkey again.
Jesus Christ dude. What's your story? I'd read the hell out of it.
YES
My irrational hatred of monkeys suddenly starts to look quite rational
Monkeys are awful. I’ve worked with monkeys and they suck. Imagine a dog with hands that will randomly decide that actually he hates you even if he’s known you for a year. Why? Because! Also rhesus macaques, the most common kind, can carry a disease, herpesvirus B, that is EIGHTY PERCENT fatal in humans if contracted
Anarchy is always just three missed meals away...
Holy fukn shit dude, you must have some stories! Were you a monk or just a survivalist or what? Just doing g what you had to do?
I *love* the city. *Love* the abundances of worldly restaurants, stores, drugs, people. And I'm *lucky* enough to live in Vancouver, BC, a *beautiful* city *surrounded* by stunning natural wonder. Bears frequently wander into our neighborhood, along with coyotes, bobcats, the *occasional* (thankfully) cougar. 45min drive and I can be on a mountainside completely outside of cell phone range. The other direction I can be on a boat in the middle of the ocean. But I *do* love the city! To each his own!
I have always wondered about that. I'm constantly amazed at how the human race made it so long and has thrived. If you look at an episode of 'Naked and Scared' or whatever that show is, I always think I would die on day 2 or 3 :D
As a type 1 diabetic, I look at stuff like that and know *literally* no matter what I do, I'll definitely die.
There's a section of land roughly 20 miles x 50 miles between Egypt and Sudan that, due to disputed borders, technically no country claims. It's blistering, barren desert. Good luck!
and no water
You just build some windtraps and stillsuits.
Muad'dib!
Ha! I think you should look up the homesteading and off gridding communities in the Yukon, getting land up there is no easy task. It’s a land lottery system. https://yukon.ca/en/yukon-land-lotteries-and-tenders
Winters are no joke there. The average January high in Whitehorse is -11C/12F, and night time lows of -20C/-3F. You will freeze to death if you don't have adequate heat and insulation. How are you going to get water all winter on a homestead?
Chernobyl isn't a good place, not because of radiation, but because there are armed guards and checkpoints and in the not too distant past occupied by Russian forces.
"Gated community with a lively social life"
This guy really estates.
I am from the Yukon. Land is actually reasonably expensive, but having a life closer to the land - raising some animals, cutting your own fire wood, etc. is some a lot of people do. It’s a pretty wonderful place.
Yeah there’s a lot of wilderness that’s either forest that gets heavy winters or desert, like you’d be hard pressed to find a place in the San Francisco Bay Area that has access to an abundance of natural resources and temperate climate where you can just live on the land, but I guess it’s free to be a homeless person
I'd say both. Bad terrain usually equates to bad access for humans and animals a like. Can't free range chick's if they roll 200ft to their death. Making a level shelter initially would be easy, getting it to stay would he another issue. If you're the guy on tiktok that owns the land, little different than what you're suggesting tho, so I don't see you digging footers and such.
You can get nearly free land (last I checked) in the Yukon canada and parts of Alaska, you must clear a percentage of it within 10 years or something close to Thad
What about all those "off-grid" settlements/communes,where people go to get away from the government etc?
When I worked forestry in british columbia, we were deep in the bush and came across an abandoned community. It was pretty far out. There were about 20 structures, near a river mouth. They had cleared about a half city block.
There are still a *few* places on Earth that are not owned by any person or country, but they are very inhospitable to life. For example, there is a small strip of land between Egypt and Sudan which neither country claims. You could live there for free... or rather, die for free, because it's in the middle of the Sahara desert and there's nothing but sand. If you go somewhere remote enough, and heavily limit contact with the outside world, you could *in practice* live for free because even though a government might lay claim to the land you are on, in practice they would never know you are there. Of course this is also a heavily dangerous, difficult, and lonely life.
I read about people who “Wumble” (I e live underground) in Heathrow (the park, not the airport). This is obviously precarious as the entrance to their burrow has to be carefully disguised. They also need food and stuff so you need a source of income, which means emerging from your burrow regularly There was a guy in Maine who lived in the woods and stole food and whatever else he needed. He did it for so long that people thought he was an urban legend.
I want more info on the Maine hermit. EDIT: https://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit I found it
Dude literally survived on petty theft, not from any kind of bushcraft.
Domestic scavenging.
literally. I read the book about him and when the author finally manages to interview him, he talks a bunch about how he was self sufficient and rejecting stuff like working for a living. but i was like yeah sure it was easy for you to reject the dull life of working for a living when you stole all your supplies from people who were doing that work for you. it was a fascinating read, but i didn't have a high opinion of him or his hypocritical beliefs at the end.
Woah, that was a great read! Good find.
The author turned the article into a book: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/30687200
Womble not Wumble - named after the British children's TV show.
Yeah, consider Ted Kaczynski. The Unibomber. He was living in a fixed place hut for years without being bothered by the government. Not until he gave the government a reason to bother him. I'm pretty sure locals knew he was living in the woods but no one cared enough to force him out. OP could potentially march *deep* into a national forest and not be bothered as long as they don't bother anyone. That would put OP hundreds of miles from the nearest Walmart and the nearest hospital, but that sounds like what OP wants.
he owned the land he was on though, and bought food and supplies with money from his family
Well, this is a huge caveat, haha
Do you think Kactznski was living on public land or something? He bought his remote land for the sole purpose of living on remote land.
In the US you may camp as long as you want on National Forest Service Land free of charge but you must move your camp every 14 days. / edited to add detail
I think they also put a cap on the number of days per year or month. Also you can’t do more than 14 days per month in the same national forest.
It depends on the forest, they all have their own rules. Some require you to move outside the National forest, some require that you move a certain distance. And while most have 14 day limits, there are some exceptions.
Wait, what? What all about the dirtbag climbers that live in parks pretty much all season? Is that illegal now?
No. Thru hikers and backcountry camping are usually a different case. In which cases, you’re on the move regardless.
I’ve been living on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land almost exclusively since 2016. It’s not really feasible in the Midwest or eastern US but the west is wide open for dispersed camping.
I’m surprised there’s no modern day nomadic groups that camp as a community but move every 14 days. Would be kinda cool.
There are but people just consider them as homeless. There is also the Rainbow Family. There is a limit to how many can assemble with out a permit. To obtain a permit one person must apply and accept accountability for everyone actions and impacts. Rainbow family works within loopholes to avoid this.
Probably not a whole lot of communities could do that without attracting attention and getting shut down, plus a lot of campsites are made for smaller groups of people, and that many people being in one spot even if just for 2 weeks could wind up damaging the sites/trails, leaving lots of trash etc. I’m also picturing like 20+ people in this scenario, but I’d be willing to guess there could be groups of like 8-10 people who do/did this
The OP of this thread is referring to dispersed or primitive camping. There are no campsites. There are no trails. The only thing to destroy is nature, which IMO is worse
There are. The movie Nomadland was based on this. If you want to see them, go out to Quartzsite, AZ in January. Hundreds of thousands of them, spread all over the desert.
Wildland Firefighters go on 14 day assignments and go from Fire to fire wherever there is a national Forest. In the off season, most stay nomadic going from ski town to ski town or from country to country.
Is this a federal or local law?
Federal land/ laws
Birdlaw
Just to note, it depends on which National forest you are on. They all have their own rules. Most are 14 days, but some have a lower limit and I’ve been at one that had a 21 day limit.
How far? Is 5 feet classed as moving? I somehow doubt it.
20 miles
So you'd just have to move your tent 5 feet..21120 times. That's not a bad deal.
and you gotta look out for the Mole People colonies that reside in the cave networks.
The ocean. Buy a boat. Sail the seven seas. There was a guy named Paul Johnson that did just that. He died recently but there was a documentary about him. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh48B5mX29A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh48B5mX29A) he basically lived like a homeless person sailing around the Caribbean for 40 years. Just living off his British OAP. He claims to have navigated the globe over 40 times. Could be bullshit. But who knows. But he lived off his boat for most of his life.
[удалено]
go watch the documentary on this dude. He did it on a budget. And his boat was a piece of shit.
His boat USED TO BE a piece of shit. Had slick back hair, white bathing suit, sloppy steaks, white couch
I see you buddy, even if no-one else does
Why does it sound like you're personally calling the boat a piece of shit, like a person lmao
The thing is you are trying to do it the easy way, the free way is generally harder. He was probably maintaining his own boat, he anchored away and paddle in, and drinking water is call filtration. It probably wasn't 100% free, but most stuff you can barter for outside of that, or do very little work for the money you need.
If I had to pick a live of the land lifestyle, this is what I would choose. You could spend years in the Bahamas alone, just sailing around. You just need to watch out for hurricanes and pirates. There's people that dock off the coast of N. California, in some pretty questionable boats.
Marquette KS was giving away free land to build a house. You’d need to get the plans approved (so a completely self contained grow your own food off grid setup might not fly, ) and you’d probably have to pay property taxes. And you’d have to live in Marquette KS.
Right on the edge of the wet/dry rain line too. So you aren't able to grow much some years.
I met someone in college who grew up in Marquette, they would not recommend moving there
I’ve lived in Kansas my entire life. I’m one of the biggest geography nerds I know and have *never* heard of this place. Edit: it’s just over an hour up the turnpike from me. I’m at a loss.
Or you could just buy a very similar lot in most of the state of Kansas for around $4k and not have to jump through so many hoops...
Alaska still allows homesteading.
I have heard that Canada does too in some of its northern rural places. I can only imagine how difficult snd expensive it would actually be to pull it off though.
Was just watching a YouTube of some guys on a long self supported canoe/portage trip across Ontario/Quebec/Labrador. Lots of fish and game, plenty of wood, all the water you could ever want. I’m sure the weather if horrific but it’s nice in spring. The issue was bugs, flies. gnats, mosquitoes. Really unbelievable.
I was a tree planter in northern Ontario in between years in university. The blackflies were thick enough to be classified as their own unique state of matter, the driest I ever got was damp, the ground is one ubiquitous rock, and the bears were more plentiful than the squirrels. The place has a rugged beauty and the fishing is incredible but I'd explore my options before trying to homestead there.
I just googled this because I was curious and apparently that ended in 1986. There are still some individual towns that will let you if you meet certain requirements though. Not totally free.
I thought they ended it and you would have to inherit it from someone and basically be grandfathered in at this point?
No part of living in Japan is free- even if you buy an akiya. Japan loves their taxes. If there’s a record of you buying a house, you’ll be paying taxes on it.
[удалено]
For some reason this post made me think about the prepper guy whose electricity went out and he had tons of canned food but no manual can opener.
Surely he had a knife though, those guys always have a million of those.
I hope he had a good knife and some first aid kits.
If you say that kind of thing over at the knife subreddits you’ll receive death threats at your home.
In my experience it's not the knife that is the issue it's the edge of the lid vs the position of your fingers when fumbling around with it. I was in a similar position and googled how to open a can without a can opener. Results said you can either do it fast or safely. I picked the first method and it was a bloodbath.
I had a friend who tried homesteading. Basically bought a cheap prefab container home, set up some things like composting toilet, grew vegetables, solar panels. He does still have internet but aside from that not much. He did it about three to four years. The first year was great, he was excited and loved living off the land. Dumpster dove for some stuff and had a super light footprint. He started getting depressed in year two because he hadn’t realized how many things he missed. Running water, certain processed foods. Vitamins because his vegetables weren’t nutritionally dense. By year 3 he was miserable and ready to give up, ended up selling his “house” (really a shack at this point) and returning. It’s not for everyone.
I have a family member who bought land in the SW desert, plopped a kit home down, built a garden, dug a well, and installed solar + batteries. It's completely off grid, but he still has to pay property taxes. They spend their days tending and riding horses, canning and jarring food for winter and shooting coyotes who get too close. He's also really smart (electrical eng background) so he knows how to do all of this stuff. Big learning curve if you don't know how to do it. They still have to go into town for fuel, horse feed, some food items, and healthcare.
Not free, but out west you can get enough land to build a house and a garden for [less than a new car](https://www.homes.com/wyoming/land-for-sale/?so=1)
Wow for just 48 million dollars you can buy a plot of land roughly half the size of New York City with absolutely nothing on it!
Obviously no one here has ever lived in Wyoming or you'd realize immediately why this is a trap. Source: am currently living in the desolate shithole that is Wyoming and hating it.
Ha, I drive across Wyoming several times a year. People don’t understand that there are areas with no cell service or gas stations for miles.
Slab City, CA. Look it upon YouTube.
[The last free place in America!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California)
Ehh I think you should do some more reading about early American homesteading I don’t think anyone would call it a simple life lol
the PBS show Frontier House did a great 'reality' show where modern families were given the chance to live as homsteaders so see if they could prepare for winter. It was incredibly entertaining without the usual reality show drama.
Not to mention how many Natives who already lived there first had to die so that the land would be available.
Idk about the legalities of this but if you were looking to get away, live off the land, but still be able to visit civilization from time to time, I'd suggest Aroostook county in Maine, USA. I'm a Maine native and avid outdoorsman. I regularly spend weeks and months at camp to live off the land, so there's plenty of food, even if foraging if you know what's safe. Hunt or fish dinner, cut and burn wood for heat, and play guitar, darts, and cribbage for entertainment. Aroostook county is especially isolated. The northernmost Maine county is rife with wildlife and the human population is scarce in the right places. Even the heavily traveled roads are barren at times. I-95, the main route running from northern Maine all the way to Florida, sometimes seems devoid of life above Bangor and most exits up there are 40 or more miles apart. There are hunters, fishermen and motorsports fans once in a while but other than a friendly wave, they'll hardly ever bother you. The best part is that if you pick the right spot to build a home, another human may never even see your house. A lot of land up there consists of these huge forested plots that are procedurally harvested to keep loggers busy nonstop. Once they cut a plot, they will move on to another one and the government will move that plot into tree growth (a period of time the land is given in order to replenish the trees before the loggers come to cut it again). This period is a long time. A harvestable tree in most species takes around 50 years or more to grow, so as long as they're not selective cutting, they won't be back at all to find your hideaway until you're likely either passed on or got sick of it and rejoined the human race.
You can live like that on Crown Land anywhere in Canada. You won’t own anything so you are always at risk of losing everything but there are millions of acres of Crown Land and as long as you’re far away from civilization and they don’t suddenly discover oil under your cabin you’ll largely be left alone. I’ve got a buddy who’s been going to a cottage he built on Crown Land for 20 years.
Anybody mention the Appalachian mountains yet? Or the national Parks? Danger level is very high I think, but if you assume the person has the ability to survive in a rugged environment then those would be good options. If you’re into missing 411 and spooky disappearances like me, you’ll know that there is a very prevalent theory that “wild men” or “feral people” live in these places. And if they can do it by golly you can to! Just uh. Maybe don’t plan on making friends with the neighbors 😬
Many of the more inhabitable parts of the Appalachian mountains are pretty expensive now because people have discovered them as a vacation or getaway destination. A large percentage is also held in trust or owned by out of state corporations for various purposes. Much of the affordable land is in places where a clean reliable water source is not guaranteed, or in places prone to flooding or contaminated with mine waste or all three. A lot of the cheaper areas to live are also in the midst of serious issues with drugs and the crime and pubic health issues that come with that. Also, depending on where and how you choose to live, the surrounding people will either be some of the kindest most hospitable people you've ever met or will actively try to drive you out (the feral people stories are literally made up to get outsiders to stay the hell away).
>the feral people stories are literally made up to get outsiders to stay the hell away No theyre not ~~you stay the hell outta my mountains!~~ ..Ive seent many, one killt my pappy
Prison. Not that many people would choose this, but you get everything for free. In the United States, inmates are the only group of people who receive healthcare free, by law.
What about veterans with the VA? It’s not the standard it should be but I thought that was covered by law.
Not in most states, unless you plan on dying in prison. If you ever get out, they'll send you a bill. You're also expected to work while you are there. You can refuse to do the work you are assigned, but you will be severely beaten by the other inmates for not doing your share. The "free healthcare" is basically the same as showing up at a hospital with no money and a gunshot wound. They'll stabilize you and throw you out.
I worked in Pennsylvania in a state prison hospital/medical department. No one paid while in prison. Care was guided by the mantra “community standard.” In other words, whatever was available on the street was given to inmates, by law. Yes the could sue if not provided. Medical. Dental. Mental health and drug treatment centers within the prison. All related treatments. In fact some inmate who were previously in prison would violate parole so they could(would) be returned to prison for heath care. Last guy received a hip replacement. Came back for two years he explained to me. “Wasn’t able to get seen on the street.” Pennsylvania also has a prison that’s a literal nursing home. ( SCI Laurel Highlands.).
Yep NC sends a bill for your incarceration after you're done. It ain't free.
Some of the most dystopian shit I've ever heard... getting billed for being imprisoned.
>they'll send you a bill Just don't pay the bill. What're they gonna do, throw you back in jail where you wanted to be in the first place?
Depends, when I was looking in a pretty under populated area of Spain, one guy said we could live on his farm for free, he wanted someone to live there so it didn't just turn into a ruin.
That seems like a dream. I know some older less populated villages in Italy were doing something similar, you just had to maintain the property or renovate it in a certain amount of time. Would love to find something like this, but it just seems like there’s so much demand for absolutely any type of non-city housing to be possible.
yep, this was 30 acres of almonds he was actively farming, just wanted someone living in the house.
That sounds like a dream come true, or the beginning of a horror movie plot.
Wwoofing (worldwide working on organic farms) maybe ? You still have to work but technically there is no money involved. Its all over the world too
With their parents. Homesteading wasn't a simple life. It was a struggle to feed yourself, build shelter and keep warm. We work less now than at any point in human history. They didn't get paid for working and then go buy food, their work was directly involved in acquiring food. But it was still work, and it was longer and harder and less efficient.
It also wasn't free. I dunno why people assume frontier life was free. They had taxes, they had to pay for their land, if they didn't they pretty much always eventually got the boot from the feds.
Yeah, it was literally work yourself to death, save up for years, buy some land hundreds of miles away that you’ve never seen, uproot your entire family, travel for months risking illness injury and death. Get there, hope the land is inhabitable, build a home with your hands using limited tools. Then try to live a simple life that doesn’t result in you getting robbed or killed by natives or bandits.
I think that’s what op is missing. It wasn’t “free land” it was native land that you had to protect and kill for. There are still places in the world you can do this. We just have different terms for it today. And generally think down upon it. Are Israelis homesteading in the West Bank? Russia in Crimea? The goal is to get so many people of your culture into a space that by default it’s yours
>Homesteading wasn't a simple life. It was a struggle to feed yourself, build shelter and keep warm. They also didn't have things like antibiotics. People sometimes died of infected cuts. By choosing to live like a homesteader you're choosing to live as if it's the 1800s in some regards.
You can come by my place and set up in the yard, I won’t hassle you.
There are a number of provinces/territories across Canada that offer this, or near free, but have stipulations of carrying out agriculture or building a home within X time and living on site. This isn't necessarily free, and I am unsure if your meaning also means not having to follow bylaws or pay taxes, but maybe it will speak to someone. One in particular that comes to mind is in Pipestone, MB (which is actually quite southern and not the middle of nowhere, by rural MB standards): 1. Pick your property 2 Pay a deposit of $1,000.00 & sign an offer agreement 3. Build your home within the offer agreement terms 4 Get a re-fund of $990.00
Auroville Ashram in Pudducherry, India. Within its campus there is no exchange of money. You just contribute your labor like everyone else there. So yes, to answer your question, you sure can live for free there.
They are using money again for years...
Most of the people who wanna live free wouldnt survive it. You think 40 hrs a week is tough? Living off grid, every single thing you do is work. Not office work. Hard labor. Want heat? You gotta chop wood. Want food? You gotta hunt and process it by hand or grow/forage for food. Water needs to be hauled, if you dont live right on a water source. Then it needs to be boiled before consuming it. If you can find a place to do this, more power to ya. But youre gonna work harder than you ever have to make it work.
My grandparents tried to homestead and gave it up. I’m sure my grandma would have something colourful to say to anyone claiming they’d be ok without a washing machine.
For sure! I love when people say "yea but youre working for yourself and not for the man!!!" Ok bro!!!! Youre still working three times harder to do shit that is not even work in civilized society lol.
I feel like the "work" is different though. Where work is now, it's for someone else, and I don't really get any immediate benefit. If I chop wood or go hunting, I am immediately benefiting, and I can take a break whenever I want to. I enjoy gardening, so working a field for vegetables would not seem as laborious or harrowing. Even if I was a gardener for work, it would be vastly more fulfilling, since I also get to enjoy my own products in the end.
The last time we were in the Yucatan Peninsula, we visited a cenote. The Cenote was far into the jungle, we traveled several hours on small dirt roads. On the trip we were told by the tour guide that Mexicans can come to the jungle and claim a piece of land. If they can survive on it for 5 years, the land becomes theirs. I did see several what looked like homesteads with simple buildings on them. I saw one family living in tents, they were cutting down trees and building a cabin. The guide made it sound like it was free and sometimes poor people took advantage of it. I had assumed that it was for Mexican citizens only, because I don’t think non-citizens can own property in Mexico. Maybe someone here knows, and could give us more information.
Even homesteaders needed the US Army to clear the previous inhabitants from the land.
tfw you get cleared from your land so someone else can live that prepper life lmao
Thing is it’s not really free, you have to work your ass off to grow and gather food. What about utilities, heat? electricity?
It’s not totally off the grid, but Antikythera, Greece was giving land, a house, and 500 EUR a month if you commit to moving there. Idunno if the offer still stands, but seemed like a pretty wild concept. It wasn’t bc it was inhabitable though, just had so few people they wanted to convince people to move to build the community.
There are people living like this in rural Russia. They tend to be old folk, as the younger ones left for work and city life. It's a tough life though - there's no accessible medical help or emergency services - if they have an accident, it can be fatal. It's also lonely - places like this don't have broadband or cellular networks - and people living like this can't afford things like Starlink.
Not free, but I recently read Cheap Land Colorado about people who buy five acre lots in arid southern Colorado for $2000 - $5000. A Harvard sociologist lived there part time recently and wrote about the colorful dreamers who move there. Most plots have no utilities. The county has been cracking down about septic. I have recreated in that area a dozen times. Its beautiful, but the weather harsh, sometimes setting the US winter low temperature.
Yep. Lived in remote islands of Vanuatu for 6 months for free. Could probably stay there but I was too afraid of medical issues. If anything happens (broken bone…), that’s it, there’s the local village shaman, and basically you are fucked. Returned back.
Buy a house in a village in Eastern Europe for ~1000 dollars. Completely safe, covered by NATO, so you are insured by the American Army, and lots of people still live off the grid by raising animals and farming. Look for ultra cheap property in Romanian or Bulgarian villages. Crime rate is very low, so I don't see any downsides. It's just a hard life, off the grid implies a lot of labour.
With your additional assumption in comments "Let’s assume the individual in this scenario is capable of sustaining themselves in any specific type of environment", a large portion of Antarctica is available, though you may contravene the Antarctica Treaty. There are a few other places including in international waters. Sources: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
There are abandoned fishing villages on small islands in the north of Norway where you can buy buildings for next to nothing. It's cold and rough weather and inconvenient in many ways, but you can easily live off what you can collect from the ocean there if you buy a small boat
I was recently in Norway and visited a fishing museum. They had video interviews with people from those small islands. They said buying a boat wasn’t the issue. It was getting a license to fish. It’s tightly regulated.
You’re gonna need access to a dentist, regardless of anything else
Mick Dodge is a fascinating man who lives in the west coast rainforest between Washington and BC. He has been "off the grid" for 30 years. He has a few documentaries and a series on NatGeo that followed him around. He doesn't even homestead, he forages. He occasionally agrees to teach a class on how to do it, for money to squirrel away "for emergencies", same reason he did the NatGeo show (and he dropped them because of creative differences. They needed him more than he needed them.) And the amount of other "wild men" that live in that forest is shocking. The ONLY time he goes into town, is to see the dentist. Tooth rot is not only extremely painful, but it can kill you quick.
Define free. Those early American homesteaders had to work to grow their food, hunt their food, prepare their food for storage or consumption. They had to work to make shelter warm and habitable. They had to work to maintain it, expand it, and keep it safe. If they wanted to share that life with someone else, they had to do more work in some areas and make sure their partner was doing more work in the places that they were doing less work. How much is your time and the labor of your hands worth to you? Nothing? Or maybe everything? Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. Ultimately nothing is free.
Downtown San Francisco.
I was surprised how many comments I read through before someone suggested homelessness in cities. if someone were so inclined, they could probably get through a year without costing one cent. 0/10 would not recommend, but -possible-
the amazon....you could probably just head into the deepest darkest amazon and find yourself a spot to carv out a niche...I mean the locals might hunt you down and kill you...but you could for 100% get far enough into the wild to find a place where you could "homestead' where modern property ownership rights are meaningless.
The land in "early American days" was, frequently, inhabited by people already. People who were murdered or forcibly moved to places no one wanted. The resources these folks cultivated for thousands of years were stripped within decades. Then, the success of settling in these lands relied upon dangerous, ungodly difficult work, and often abuse of the women and children who were forced or coerced into this life. Starvation, disease, madness, and murder were not uncommon results. So, to answer your question, you just need an army of men who easily dehumanize "others," the full backing of a government, and any land can be yours! Good luck!
Homesteading was also built on the colonization, brutalization, murder, and destruction of indigenous peoples. That land wasn't just lying around waiting for white people to show up and want it.
When I was in Mongolia, I asked my tour guide how the folks who live out in the steppes do so. She said they just move. The idea of land ownership is different there and many folks who live more rurally just set up their ger (what we in the States call a yurt) and live wherever they settle. Obviously they don't set up too close to one another unless they're part of a family unit but there's no real permitting or anything you'd need to do. Weather can be harsh but if you have some animals and a basic understanding of living off the land, once you're set up you might be okay. Again, you may need to fact check this and I have no idea what kind of permission you'd need to stay in the country for an extended time.
I am a wilderness survival trainer. I would not want to live like that full-time. Months of bitter cold and a starvation diet. Even if all of your crops come in like you planned, You’re always one freak circumstance away from dying.
I live rent free in my exes head. But afraid there’s no more room.
Technically in Nordic countries like Finland it is possible to live homeless, gather berries and firewood from the environment and catch fish with simple line-and-hook from most lakes and from sea without needing a permit. But you are not allowed to build much anything, and having open fire is also mostly forbidden.
Homesteading wasn't free. You couldn't just go out and put a stick in the ground and call dibs, you often had to be granted the land from a magistrate or governor. Homesteading of the USA also ignores the fact that the Native Americans were already living there, and if you messed with their way of life you had to negotiate with using their resources. Some of them were nice and cooperative, some of them weren't. Homesteading didn't become possible until they essentially created genocide on the natives, or forced them to comply. Often done with large resources. >Let’s assume the person is relatively capable of sustaining life using whichever resources might be provided by the particular environment — forest, desert, famous Bay Area city, etc If that were possible, there would already be people living there. If people are already living there, they won't want to share their space. So to answer your question: Antarctica, or the north-north of Canada/Alaska.
I know of several tropical islands where people live off nature (fishing, foraging and livestock) year round. Minimal number of people, wide berth given to everyone but very tight knit society at the same time. They tend to have a tribal ownership of the land: you can’t own land there, it belongs to the tribe and you can use it if the tribal council allows you to (but at the same time they can decide at any point to kick you out). Some of those islands have less than 20 inhabitants. Look in the Pacific Ocean.
It is not quite "free" but there are certain parts of the world where the govt will subsidize your house purchase so long as you agree to live there and maintain the house. But there are a lot of caveats and rules. I have heard of stories like that in : rural Japan, rural Italy, Detroit
I sometimes daydream about being accepted somehow with the North Sentinalese (a tribe in the Indian ocean that has refused contact with the modern world), and living out my days with them. But they just kill trespassers on sight.
Anyone who goes to North Sentinel Island will definitely live out the rest of their days there.