It isn't for everyone. But, if you love the out of doors and would rather live that lifestyle than work in an office or in a big city somewhere it might be the one for you.
The problem comes usually from "not being realistic". It is a completely different lifestyle and you literally can create "ANY" version of it you want if you are practical enough about it to survive it.
You could: "most extreme way" wander the lands and living off the lands completely without any built structures at all. And some people do this usually only for a while if at all because it can be very hard to survive this way.
My way back then in the 1970s and 1980s was to make forays into the wilderness with a car, a tent, climbing mountains with friends usually on break like Christmas, Summer vacations, Easter vacations and the like to get away from the big cities of San Diego or Los Angeles where I tended to live back then in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1976 I had moved with my first wife and son to Mt. Shasta to live near the wilderness. However, I hadn't yet bought land to try my skill living more remotely and building my own home there.
I found it hard to make a living in the country that remote because local people want all the jobs for their own local kids and so making a living year around there was hard, especially after I got married and had a child. So, I found myself only living my dream for a few years at a time in Mt. Shasta.
I first went there in 1976 with my first wife and child and we rented a duplex in town so when it snowed (and it snowed a lot then) we were better prepared for it. We were told the story of a next door neighbor who was an
He opened his front door with a whole lot of snow on the roof and when he accidentally slammed it shut about 10 feet of snow fell on him and buried him alive. He screamed as loud as he could because he couldn't move and finally another neighbor of ours heard his muffled screams and saved him before he froze to death because he physically couldn't move just from the snow that buried him from his roof.
So, living in the country has it's risks even inside the city limits of the little city of Mt. Shasta. But, of course the biggest thing is just keeping warm and fed when it is Zero to 32 degrees out with the wind blowing in a blizzard outside.
There have been times when I have visited Mt. Shasta when people were actually walking down the street crying because they had to walk miles through the snow to their jobs because their vehicles were snowed in in a freak snow storm for several days more than once.
So, even living in the little city of Mt. Shasta there is a danger during some storms that you will get snowed in. For people further out this can be more than dangerous, especially for city people up for a visit who aren't prepared for this kind of weather at all and haven't either stocked up their food larders or prepared for water freezing or realized they might not be able to leave for days or weeks because they are snowed in.
So, "Isn't the snow and beauty wonderful!" can give way to "I'm freaking out! I have no food! The water pipes are frozen! I have no water to drink! My car can't move! The telephone lines are down and my battery died on my car so I can't charge my cellphone and I forgot to get firewood for my wood stove!"
This sort of thing happens in Mt. Shasta and other towns that get snow here in California because most of California never gets snow so people aren't prepared for it. In fact, I might say that 1/2 of Californians might have never seen snow unless they drove to it at some time during their lives.
So, this wouldn't be a problem in states where people get snow throughout the whole state all the time. A similar thing would happen to people coming from tropical islands that hadn't lived ever in snow before unless they psychologically prepared for all the changes and dangers of what happens when it snows, or people who only lived in deserts where it never snows too.
Though I haven't completely addressed the title of this article correctly it turned to be mostly about a word of caution for people not used to adversity.
For example, I have been caught in snow storms or hail storms on Mt. Shasta in August or September in a 4 wheel drive at 10,000 feet when they were allow up that high on parts of the mountain in the old days and almost didn't survive it along with my then young children. So, even in August or September if the weather conditions are right you have to be prepared for anything in places like Mt. Shasta.
To properly represent the "Back to the Land " movement worldwide it is mostly about going to land that has never had a house or structure on it to live there, to raise food there and sometimes to have horses or other farm or ranch animals there. However, most of the really good land for this was already used for this purpose long ago. So, one of the things to think about is: "Can I really survive here on this piece of land? Can I afford to pay cash for the land? Can I afford payments? Will I (and my family?) be happy here or will the adversity break us up?"
This last question is really important by the way. Some people dream of living in the country their whole lives but really are not suited to it and it just might make them crazy to actually do it for too long. Others are suited to it but aren't practical enough to make a living and take care of their families properly doing this. Another consideration is the health of all members of your family (both mental and physical).
Can they survive out here in any conditions possible?
So, there is a certain amount of bravery and bravado in "The Back to the Land Movement". However, part of the reason I'm alive now is the satisfaction that buying land, home schooling my children(3) from ages 5 to 8 for about 5 years on land that we bought for cash and in a home we all built at 4000 feet on Mt. Shasta.
It fulfilled at least one dream in my life of doing this sort of "Mt. Shasta Robinson Crusoe family" and home schooling the kids and all the money we saved doing this during the 10% unemployment around 1980 (similar to the Great Recession).
So, while other people were suffering all over the U.S. we were saving money and not having to pay rent, home schooling our children and having one of the greatest adventures of our lives.
So, by the time the oldest was 12, a boy, (who is now a fire captain for the Department of Forestry in California, and we decided to move back to the San Francisco Bay area and buy a business and put our kids back in school. We had been fulfilled by our "Country life". And even though my wife eventually broke up because of the death of my father and not being as happy in the bigger city life I have always been happy to live this amazing dream and it is one of the things that keeps me alive today. I still visit Mt. Shasta at least every 1 to 3 months and visit friends and ski and hike and 4 wheel drive with them there, and in between I live near the ocean and travel the world.
But, my present and the life that led me to here was predicated on that wonderful wild, remote, "Mt. Shasta Swiss Family Robinson experience" of home schooling our children, meeting wild animals from bears to deer to porcupines to whatever to amazing fresh air, snow, country customs, everything that still makes my heart sing whenever I visit there now in my late 60s.
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