Posts from — March 2011

My family and I are interested in an off-the-grid lifestyle as a future goal to attain. We are avid organic gardeners, and enjoy an active, suburban lifestyle.

Singer Jackson Browne doesn’t just talk the talk. Not only does he have a ranch in rural California that is off the grid in terms of its energy use and environmental impact, he also operates with a plasticfree backstage while on tour, and travels in buses that run on bio-diesel.

Even his stage lighting is outfitted with energy-reduced bulbs. “I wanted to try it myself and see how hard it is,” he said. “It turned out to be not hard at all.”

His next song, If I Could Be Anywhere, has yet to be released, is about the environmental impact of plastic. (more…)

Since Michael Bunker’s book Surviving Off Off-Grid was released at the beginning of March, it has sold 1500 copies on Amazon alone, thousands more copies around the world, and emails are coming in from every direction.
He thinks the refugees from “ mainstream religious systems” are adopting his ideas out of “a disgust with the way mainstream religion is going…..a recognition that religion has been co-opted by the same things that have co-opted politics: Big Business, money, self-interest, comfort, I guess a lack of love.”
A new kind of community is beginning to form around the publication, a loose coalition of self-sufficient people from both the religious and non-religious wings. “That’s probably been the most surprising thing,” Michael told me when we spoke ” — the people who would otherwise not be willing to listen to somebody who couches everything in religious terms. (more…)

One of our readers, called Craig, posted these tips as a comment on LandBuddy but they deserve a wider audience.

Some simple hints if you are going to come here to Canada.

1) The cheapest land is in northwestern Ontario or maritimes. Forget about BC unless you really want to get way off the beaten path like on the Cassiar highway.

2) Be prepared for winter. Yes it is cold here half the year except for areas in the okanogan of BC on on the coast. You might like the constant rain though being from England. Kamloops is a neat deserty place but the ecomony kind of sucks. Okanogan nice but expensive. (more…)

Utah is in the midst of a gold rush of sorts, a scramble ignited by soaring precious metal prices as well as fear the Federal Reserve’s policy of low interest rates and aggressive money supply growth will trigger inflation that in turn will doom the dollar and wipe out savings.

Such concern led Rep. Brad Galvez, R-West Haven, to successfully sponsor HB317 in the Legislature. The bill, which awaits Gov. Gary Herbert’s signature, would require the state to recognize gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal tender. (more…)

I have been doing research all winter long about how to conserve fuel and keep the cabin warm as the  Ol’ All Nighter woodstove really eats up the wood.

So in the name of pure laziness began my search for a way to get maximum heat for minimum work I found the rocket stove mass heater. They appear to use small amounts of wood(sticks and branches) and retain heat for long periods. These are nothing new —  the Romans used them on a very large scale to heat the floors and water in there bath houses. (more…)

The LA Times and The Washington Post both carried prominent reviews of my “Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America”, but The New York Times merely lifted several stories from an advance copy of the book without attribution (for example this one). I wonder if the (rather stuffy) publishers were upset at the way their paper was characterized in the book?
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I have been writing about it, and now I want to do it.

As I traveled the US writing my recent book OFF THE GRID, I was also looking for an off-grid place of my own – at first in Northern California or North Carolina, or Kentucky, but latterly I have homed in on West Virginia as a place to suit my needs.

I want somewhere that I can use to get away from the relentless 24/7 media cycle, ads, facebook, twitter feeds, traffic, fast food and slow food – the grinding pace of modern life. (more…)

One of our readers sent the story that follows. There are hundreds of other messages like this on our free service, LandBuddy.

Hi everyone at off-grid – I was wondering if you’ve ever considered relocating to another country? I’ve recently moved to Ecuador and have a goal to be off-grid and living self-sufficient in the very near future. I used to own horses in the U.S. and would love to find equestrian minded people to live in our community. (more…)