What It’s Like to Live Off-Grid in the Wilderness

(Scroll to the bottom to hear this post in podcast form)

As a longtime traveler having done lots of slow travel, I find different ways of living fascinating. People are so varied and individual in terms of how they prefer to live…  individual, just like work-life balance.

Not many people live like my family does, especially in the professional space, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse of our lives, the physical and mental benefits we’ve experienced, and I’ll also share some reality checks, too.

With modern-day technology and satellite internet access, you can live an alternative lifestyle and still work as a professional. We are living proof, and you can do it too, if you’re so inclined. I also hope to inspire you to find ways to get a little bit of wilderness, and wildness, in your everyday life… no matter where you live.

Description of our property

Our home is in a vast valley with a 10,000 ft mountain and a red rock bluff in view. t’s located about an hour away from a decent-sized town of roughly 50,000 people. It’s no large city center by any means, but there is a college and anything we might need. We are also near some major tourist attractions like Zion National Park, and lesser-known but locally celebrated recreation areas like a lake and a ski resort.

Once you exit the major highway, you drive around a lake for a few miles and then come to a gravel road. You then must drive that about 6 miles to get to our place. It’s a winding and slow road due to the gravel, but it’s not scary. Our property sits on 80 acres at 8000 ft elevation. It gradually slopes from north to south and has a more abrupt slope from west to east.

We are completely off grid. We have quite a bit of solar power, and what isn’t powered by solar works on propane. This means our lighting, water system, appliances… you name it. A couple times a year, the propane company hauls a truck in to fill our two huge propane tanks. We have our own water (with water rights) from a nearby spring that goes to a holding tank and then a small filtration operation. There is no mail or package delivery service; we rent a mailbox in the nearby town.

After considering many options for building a home, we settled on tiny shipping container houses. The why is a story in itself, but it’s worked out well for us; it affords the indoor-outdoor style that we wanted while preserving a modern look, being well-insulated, and critter-free.

The terrain is really varied, from dense forest in one section to open meadows in others. A beautiful stream bisects the property, and we have some small side streams (one right behind our home, which provides the perfect trickling water soundtrack to our days). There are multiple types of pine trees, aspens, maple, oak, juniper, and others.

We’re surrounded by other large-acre parcels of land on our side of the road and smaller ones across the way, but mostly, the other people around us are seasonal users. Traffic picks up a bit on the weekends with visitors and tourists. There are only a couple of other people along the whole 15-mile stretch of gravel that live here full-time.

Physical effects

I’ve never felt as healthy as I feel now, living here. With the exception of the occasionally smoky day from a nearby forest fire, the air is pristinely clean. Our water is sourced from an underground spring fed by alpine runoff, and it tastes amazing. There is no light pollution; you can see all the stars on a clear night. And there’s hardly any unnatural noise. When you hear a car on the road, you notice it. No sirens, no din of mechanical noise. The mental clarity and nervous system effects from all this stillness are so satisfying.

Our everyday chores translate to a built-in daily exercise regimen. I even need to walk up a small hill to our guest house in order to do a load of laundry. We have hiking trails on our property and walk one of them almost every day. You can modulate the difficulty and make it an easy jaunt or a steep hike, depending on how you’re feeling.

Let’s face it, we’re living in a comfort crisis in our modern urban society… but on this property, we’re forced to sometimes be uncomfortable. We are beholdened to the weather patterns, and being that all our building structures are tiny houses, we must sometimes subject ourselves to the elements to get things done. I’d argue this causes us to be more hearty, even though I sometimes complain about it.

Mental/psychological effects

We live on our own personal playground! My daughter is able to safely play outside, ride a bike, and go all over the property without worry for safety. We take walks on different trails each day. But you have to get dirty sometimes! Dirt on your hands is great for your mind and body.

Things move slower here. You can’t drive super fast down our road. When weather interrupts a day, your plans might change. Maybe the water system has a problem, or the internet goes out and you have to fix it. These may seem like annoyances, but they also impart a sense of time abundance. Sometimes, we’re forced to mono-task, and there’s all the time in the world to solve the problem. We’re never rushing… unless it’s to get down to town by a certain time of day.

At the same time, there’s a constant force of change here. We watch the sun rise and set each day, noticing the changes in time, intensity, and location of the sun in the sky. I mean… have you ever noticed where the sun moves in the sky as the seasons change? When you live indoor-outdoor amongst hundred foot tall tress, you pay attention to these things.

The constant change serves as a reminder of the life and death cycles in nature. Change not only occurs season to season but in the life cycles of wild animals big and small we’re privileged to observe. I also notice changes in the landscape from year to year. The same place on the property will not look alike next summer, for instance. This is awe-inspiring. When people experience awe, it tends to impart in them a sense of time-abundance, resulting in enhanced wellbeing, lower stress, and better social connections. There’s a sense we’re all much smaller than this universe. Our problems are but a speck.

In addition, living here brings an element of challenge to our lives. Challenge is one of our core values. Some recent examples of challenges we’ve experienced this year include designing an irrigation system for the lower part of our land, fixing a culvert for our road across the stream, managing dead tree piles, learning to plant from seed in our greenhouse, and raising chickens. These are all new things for us; they sure aren’t skills I learned in medical school. But I love learning new things and pushing my skillset to a new level.

Lastly, living here provides creative inspiration for my writing, speaking, and podcasting. I’ve always got stories to share with you! I love taking photographs, as you see in this post.

I love watching my daughter being independent outside. I love seeing my 15 year old dog frolic in the creek and spring around like a puppy. And I love seeing my husband working hard at his projects, like figuring out how to use his skidsteer to move big logs.

Reality Check

Don’t get the wrong idea… We may live in an off-grid shipping container home, but it’s a modern home with modern appliances, internet and TV.  My husband and I both work (in my case, only non-clinically) using satellite internet, and my daughter participates in an online school program. So we still embrace technology even though we’re living in this wild place.

We own a condo a few hours away in a large city, where I stay when I do my clinical anesthesia work. So there is always an escape valve if things don’t work or the weather is particularly bad. In the first couple seasons of owning our homestead when we didn’t have our permanent house and all the amenities (like hot water), we spent a number of months there in the winters. We will soon have a small house in our nearby town – one where we can have our animals, stay overnight when there are late-night activities to do in town, and spend longer periods in the winter when the snow is crazy high.

Our location means we do drive a lot, but there are also days where we don’t drive at all. It takes just shy of an hour to get to the town where we shop, play with friends, go to the gym, etc. This can be looked at as a negative or a positive. On my drives, I often catch up on podcasts, listen to audiobooks, or discuss things with my family. The drives are typically pleasant with a beautiful and ever-changing landscape.

All in all, this lifestyle is very aligned with our family values of challenge/continuous learning, freedom, health, and adventure. We are very much enjoying where we live!

How this applies to you

You likely don’t live on a big piece of property in the mountains. But you might live somewhere near open land, or at least a large park. How can you get some of these health benefits where you’re living right now? Create some outside time in your schedule every week, whether it’s taking a walk after work with family or friends, or making a trip to nearby public lands on the weekend.

Spending time in the outdoors does wonders for our physical and mental health, and it’s been demonstrated through research on the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing). Spending time outside has been shown to cause lower stress levels and impart a sense of awe – the feeling that there are many bigger things than our small worries.

What else can you do? How about taking up a mindfulness practice, even one you do inside? Something that allows you to slow down and not feel like time is ticking away constantly.

You could also experience the challenge of trying something new. Take a new class or try learning a new skill, whether it’s work-related or a hobby.

When the seasons change around you, even if they only change in a very subtle way, make a point of noticing the changes. What reminders are they bringing up? How does your life change when the seasons change?

Do you have any other questions about this lifestyle? Is there anything where you’re thinking… what? Or something you’d like to know more about? Leave a comment with your thoughts below!