Anywhere in the U.S. where you can "live off the land"?

[flmason]

Yes, the life expectancy in 1800 was about 40 or 50.  Many of these diseases can simply be avoided today or have been eliminated.  Cholera is from lack of cleanliness and sanitary disposal of human waste.  Washing hands eliminates some.  Covering your mouth, staying away from sick people, etc.  Boiling drinking water.  Cleaning and sterilizing your rasor.   Brushing and flossing your teeth as well as avoiding sugar and candy and processed food helps with your teeth.  Knowing what you know today, it wouldn't be as hard to avoid these diseases.  I think one can live simple today, live off the land, homestead, use firewood for heating and cooking.  One would need to barter or have something to sell to pay taxes or buy a few modern things for health or for easier use.  I think one could use a bare minimum of electricity for refrigeration or lights and produce it themselves through wind, solar, steam or water power.  One could easily grow all their vegetables.  One could have chickens, a small cow or goats for milk.  Even use a horse or mule for plowing, planting, or hauling. 

An older guy told me when I was young that he lived about 15 miles out of town growing up.  He said they had no electricity, used well water and firewood, and an outhouse.  He said his father would hitch up the mule and wagon before sunrise on Saturday morning.  He would load the wagon with produce from the farm or tie a hog they raised to the back of the wagon.  They would then come into town and arrive about mid-morning, sell their hog or produce.  He said his mother and father would then seperate.  His father would go get a haircut, and buy seed, or tools he would need around the farm.  His mother would go buy cloth for homemade clothes, or things she might need like sugar, salt, or flour.  They would then leave about mid afternoon and arrive home by dark.  He said they would do this almost every saturday unless it was raining or bad weather.  He said they smoked most of their meat or cured it in sugar or salt.  They canned and dried most of their vegetables except when eating fresh.  The had fruit and nut trees and about a 200 acre farm with woods.  Very little money.  This was in the 1920's and 30's in Alabama. 

One gal I went to high school with had grandparents in Georgia that lived this sort of life up until the late 80's.

[flmason]

Well, so far, but for the weather issues, the sailboat actually sounds like the easiest, or at least lowest cost to implement. But I sure it's hard on one's health. The marine environment seems to be hard on everything.

Owning some ground far out sounds like #2.

Scraping along on a half and half method like owning some ground and interfacing with work and society as needed sounds like #3.

At least that's my take on it at the moment.

I guess any really hospitable place to live was turned into farms, towns and cities long, long ago.

[mannyrock]

  The closest that you might be able to come today, would be to go out west, and find a failed subdivision (there are lots of them, with 3 and 5 and 10 acre lots) or other small piece of cheap land, plop a used aluminum Airstream trailer on it, drill a well, erect an above ground cistern (like a small water tower), buy a good diesel generator, dig an outhouse (or an illegal fill line that runs up to and connects to your trailer), and use the  generator to pump water and run the electricity for about an hour a day, which could also recharge a small 10 volt d.c. electric system to power small lights.

  Sounds gross? Yea, but probably not nearly as gross as living in a log cabin with a dirt floor and mud chinking in the olden days.

  Believe it or not, in the mountains of the west, there are lots of people who do this.   And, in the Appalachians of the east, there are lots of people in Kentucky and West Virginia who live the same way.   (If you do it, you might want to get a library card, so you don't go insane sitting out there in that squalid environment all day.)

Regards,

Mannyrock

[Dixie Dude]

Outhouses are not too bad if you can get powdered lime.  Most had two buckets in them.  One with corn cobs for toilet paper, and one with lime and a cup.  After using, sprinkle a little lime down the hole and it helps with odor and decomposition.  East of the Mississippi, lime is needed for the acidic soil to condition the soil for good vegetables.  Corn was dried for animal use, corn meal, and flour for human consumption.  The cobs were saved for toilet paper.  You can also make soap from lard and hardwood ashes.  You can add juice from flower pettles for sented soap.  Collect water drained through hardwood ashes and boil it with the lard and when it is cooked down it forms lye soap. 

Wax Mirtle bushes were used to make candles. 

There are a lot of things you can make if you do the research.  One of the reasons for a short life expectancy was childhood disease.  If you reached adulthood in the 1800s you could live to 60 or 70 or longer.  Childhood disease killed about 20-30% of children which brought down the life expectancy to around 50.  Not knowing about germs until Louie Pasture discovered them after the Civil War brought new light about cleanliness, colera, etc.  Cleanliness with human waste brought up the life expectancy dramatically.  Clean water, outhouses were even an improvement to just going in the street or out in the open.  Shoes also helped with disease.  Living off the land can be done with todays knowledge about cleanliness, proper nurishment, and clean water.  Very simple living like those in 1900 or thereabouts even without electricity.

[Wyo. Coyote Hunter]

  When You mention living off the land, look at where most folks live. Southern Pa., W. Va., Missouri etc. offer the climate that one can live off of the land. Land can be purchased near state land for hunting and fishing. While the west offers some large game like elk, often one has to travel far, and it can get expensive hunting them even as a resident. In the south probably, and the states mentioned there are some deer, turkey and small game close enough to hunt from ones home. Also gardens, etc. can easily be grown. The climate is suitable for year round living and still one can be active outdoors. My pick of these states was W. Va. but I am not sure of the conditions there at this time. Right now, one could probably buy a decent place for a reasonable figure, or land and build a cabin or A frame. As I mentioned before, one family did this In Wis. I believe. They are still on their homestead.   

[spooked]

In the late 40's my Granpa an granma purchased approximately 3 acres an a 2 bedroom house right at the city limits of a small town of two hundred and change pop. Dug well, outhouse, 1/2 acre garden, small barn..granma sold eggs, milk butter, and canned extensively..gramps butchered and cured a hog or two every fall, sold a few feeder pigs and granma sold the calf from her milkcow every year..Wasn't much money but the people always remarked about how well we ate (I stayed with them and went to school for three years) grandad NEVER owned a motor driven vehicle in his life(although he let a 15 yr old cousin buy a grain truck in his name)When I quizzed him as to why he never had a pick up.. He said well I could always walk anywhere I wanted to go ..The gen.store, the bank, the post office..he said if i need to go to a larger town to see a doctor it's cheaper just to hire some one else to take me...Best three years of my life were those 3 schoolyears spent with them...

[BrianB]

i  have thought about living on a boat

on the intercoastal waters

plant a few crops  on  some  small  islands...not  shre  who owns  them?

eat   ALL  the crop stealing rabbits first

fish  most of the time

as  long  as i have a cast net  i WILL never starve

my  little  22 ft  sail boat needs  little to no fuel
and  has a place  to sleep  and   escape the sun
can run  up river  during  hurricanes
plenty  of  nice  bathing suit  fillers  to  look at...so  bi-noculars will  be  needed

hoist  the sail  and go where  the weather  suits your clothes.....free

Sounds like a good retirement goal.  Got any ideas as to how to make it work?  I am in the process of buying a sailboat and your concept sounds like it could work for me, at least part of the year.  I think I could hang out in the Rigolets for a few months a year!

[45-70.gov]

what  are  rogolets ?

i  am on the  ga  fla  line  stop  by

[Lon371]

 Awe do it the easy way. Become Amish by a piece of ground and your in like flym. They doit all over southern indiana. No Taxes no electric, no worry 

Lonny

[Drilling Man]

Awe do it the easy way. Become Amish by a piece of ground and your in like flym. They doit all over southern indiana. No Taxes no electric, no worry 

Lonny

  The Amish where i live pay taxes, i doubt it's any different there.

  DM

[Dixie Dude]

From what I understand, the Amish pay taxes by selling their quilts, dolls, produce, and homemade items.  I think they also sell canned food.  Can't get by anywhere not paying taxes, unless you live in a natural forest in a cabin or something without getting caught.  If living in a forest, you could get some non-hybrid seeds and plant a guerrilla garden, by planting a little here, and a little there scattered around in openings and such if you can keep the wildlife from eating the food, also finding and using natural vegetation to add vitamins and fiber to an all meat diet.  All animals are eatable but not palatable.  Eating the liver of a deer or such will give you lots of vitamins also, if you can't find natural plants to eat.  Deer and raccoons will eat up a garden along with pests.  Insects and reptiles are also eatable.   

[BrianB]

what  are  rogolets ?

i  am on the  ga  fla  line  stop  by

The Rigolets are just south of Lake Pontchartrain in south Louisiana.  Marsh area full of trout, reds and other wildlife.  I've fished that basic area several times and loved it down there.  Also sailed through there while headed to Biloxi.  I don't know of anything to stop someone from parking their boat for as long as they want, so long as you're out of the way of boat traffic.  Just stock up on what you can't catch and take plenty of insect repellent!
Georgia/Florida line is quite a trip, but I may sail it one day.

[45-70.gov]

what  are  rogolets ?

i  am on the  ga  fla  line  stop  by

The Rigolets are just south of Lake Pontchartrain in south Louisiana.  Marsh area full of trout, reds and other wildlife.  I've fished that basic area several times and loved it down there.  Also sailed through there while headed to Biloxi.  I don't know of anything to stop someone from parking their boat for as long as they want, so long as you're out of the way of boat traffic.  Just stock up on what you can't catch and take plenty of insect repellent!
Georgia/Florida line is quite a trip, but I may sail it one day.

well  if  you  come
i  have  lots of bugs  spray

you  will  need  it here  too

[BrianB]

Is there anywhere in the U.S. left where you can actually go and live in the wilderness, homestead, etc. The kind of thing frontiers-folk did "way back when"?

Is there anywhere you can actually do this and survive left? And it's legal?

I mean, I guess there's probably some really miserable places in the Arizona desert along rt. 8 or 10 where no one would care *what* you did... but you'd probably evaporate. LOL!

Here's an option for you if you just had some time and wanted to get a feel for living off the land...buy a canoe and load it with some basic supplies.  Depending on the time of year, you could certainly catch and find the majority of your food.  And, as I understand it, so long as the stream or river is considered navigable (I forgot what the rate of flow has to be before it meets that definition, but it was surprisingly low as I recall) you are not trespassing so long as you stay in the stream bed.  That means you can camp on sandbars, gravel bars, etc., as they are part of the natural bed.  Possibly, find a stream that goes through a National Forest, that way you could hunt as well.  (I think National Forests have a time limit on how long you camp and I believe they require you to camp at least a certain distance from streams.)  I have wanted to do it for a while, just can't put my life on hold for a month or so. 
Because you can always walk away from living off the land and go back to the modern world, we will never really know what it was like. But, this would at least give you a taste of how it used to be.

[dukkillr]

Is there anywhere in the U.S. left where you can actually go and live in the wilderness, homestead, etc. The kind of thing frontiers-folk did "way back when"?

Is there anywhere you can actually do this and survive left? And it's legal?

I mean, I guess there's probably some really miserable places in the Arizona desert along rt. 8 or 10 where no one would care *what* you did... but you'd probably evaporate. LOL!

Here's an option for you if you just had some time and wanted to get a feel for living off the land...buy a canoe and load it with some basic supplies.  Depending on the time of year, you could certainly catch and find the majority of your food.  And, as I understand it, so long as the stream or river is considered navigable (I forgot what the rate of flow has to be before it meets that definition, but it was surprisingly low as I recall) you are not trespassing so long as you stay in the stream bed.  That means you can camp on sandbars, gravel bars, etc., as they are part of the natural bed.  Possibly, find a stream that goes through a National Forest, that way you could hunt as well.  (I think National Forests have a time limit on how long you camp and I believe they require you to camp at least a certain distance from streams.)  I have wanted to do it for a while, just can't put my life on hold for a month or so. 
Because you can always walk away from living off the land and go back to the modern world, we will never really know what it was like. But, this would at least give you a taste of how it used to be.

Not a terrible idea but check state laws before you try it.  Some states DO NOT consider stream beds to be public property. 

[BrianB]

Is there anywhere in the U.S. left where you can actually go and live in the wilderness, homestead, etc. The kind of thing frontiers-folk did "way back when"?

Is there anywhere you can actually do this and survive left? And it's legal?

I mean, I guess there's probably some really miserable places in the Arizona desert along rt. 8 or 10 where no one would care *what* you did... but you'd probably evaporate. LOL!

Here's an option for you if you just had some time and wanted to get a feel for living off the land...buy a canoe and load it with some basic supplies.  Depending on the time of year, you could certainly catch and find the majority of your food.  And, as I understand it, so long as the stream or river is considered navigable (I forgot what the rate of flow has to be before it meets that definition, but it was surprisingly low as I recall) you are not trespassing so long as you stay in the stream bed.  That means you can camp on sandbars, gravel bars, etc., as they are part of the natural bed.  Possibly, find a stream that goes through a National Forest, that way you could hunt as well.  (I think National Forests have a time limit on how long you camp and I believe they require you to camp at least a certain distance from streams.)  I have wanted to do it for a while, just can't put my life on hold for a month or so. 
Because you can always walk away from living off the land and go back to the modern world, we will never really know what it was like. But, this would at least give you a taste of how it used to be.

Not a terrible idea but check state laws before you try it.  Some states DO NOT consider stream beds to be public property. 

That is good advice DK. I did a little more research and found some contradictions and saw that the laws do appear to vary from state to state.

[SHOOTALL]

stay on the intercostal water way

[45-70.gov]

any one  know  who  owns  the tiny   islands  along the intracoastal waterway
in  lforida  or other states??

i  know hunting  with out permission  is serious  in  florida

i  remember  me  and  dalescarpentry a GBO member
 used do  go shooting  on some of those  islands  but that was over 20 years  ago
he  had  a 30-30  and  i had a 308  it was  never  a problem  THEN

[mannyrock]

     I wonder how many days/nights you could survive on those sandbars, in the tidal basins or intercoastal areas of Florida, until you were eaten alive by mosquitoes.  No joke.  I believe you would die.  Hundreds of bites, allergic reactions, bacterial infections and eventually a serious staff infection.  I don't think it is possible.  No to mention fungal infections and ringworm.

   And, guess what else travel and hunt on those sandbars at night.  Huge gators.

   No.  You had better think of something else.

Mannyrock

[Graybeard]

My brother spent about 12 or 14 years living off the land in FL swamps the first two living out of a pup tent then he got into a run down camping trailer. He had a garden and what he didn't grow he gathered or hunted and fished for. He didn't die of any of those things.

[mechanic]

My brother spent about 12 or 14 years living off the land in FL swamps the first two living out of a pup tent then he got into a run down camping trailer. He had a garden and what he didn't grow he gathered or hunted and fished for. He didn't die of any of those things.

I recollect the Seminole's managed to live many years in that area, while Andy Jackson's army searched in vain, (many of them dying in the process).  The Seminoles to my knowledge are the only tribe never to sign a treaty with the US.

[45-70.gov]

timaquan  indians  supposedly  had  exceptionally  long   life span

eating  oysters  and berrys

i  love the wild cactus  fruit
my  son  didnt beleive   it when  i ate one  while out in the kayaks

[glock fan]

The answer is yes but it takes $$ just like it always did.  I've got a ranch in west Texas about 50 miles from the border.  Very remote in a semi desert terrain.  Lots of canyons and mesas.  Comanche/Apache territory.  Water, heat, bugs, rattle snakes and bad guys are the issues.  No law west of the Pecos so to speak.  Get hurt out here and you're buzzard food.  I can get on my ATV and ride all day and not see anyone.  Just like I like it.  I carry an AK47 with me just to be on a level playing field.  My home is a 28' RV under a 40'x24' RV cover.  Water is hauled from a well about 1/8 mile away.  A generator supplies me with the comforts of home.  No cell, internet, TV, etc.  Sunrises and sunsets are my entertainment.  Hunting is great out here.  Deer, hogs, snakes, rabbits and a monthly trip to Walmart (two hours away in Del Rio, Texas) keep me well fed.  LOL.  Life is good!           

[Jay, Tx]

Here's a fella that's gotten away with it in Tx for ten years so far. This is less than 1 hour from my house.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/john-joe-grays-militant-group-texas-compound/story?id=9819578

[Pat/Rick]

I sold my sloop when WA state started passing laws like bottom paint is a toxic material and has to be stripped/applied in an approved yard. Anchorage permit needed on Puget Sound. Still, it would be the cheapest IMO. Registration, fees, and maintenance would be needed anyway. As long as a license for fishing was had it would probably proove to be the cheapest way to live. The sea will provide. I have read that there is no property taxes in SE AK on POW Island and the surrounding island.Not much there for gardening though.
 http://www.alaskaislandrealty.com/
http://www.hannarealty.com/  (In N central WA State)

[tacklebury]

Although it's no longer the old style homesteading act in Alaska, they still allow remote cabin sites to be placed and there is no build-up provisions as there were previously with the Homestead act.  Now you can make improvements and then the land can be resold under the act.  Might want to check out their gov. site. 

http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsale/

[Drilling Man]

Although it's no longer the old style homesteading act in Alaska, they still allow remote cabin sites to be placed and there is no build-up provisions as there were previously with the Homestead act.  Now you can make improvements and then the land can be resold under the act.  Might want to check out their gov. site. 

http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsale/

  There are a LOT of restrictions that come with that, and it's not FREE either...

  DM

[Rex in OTZ]

Big business is killing off small ranches and farms.
A bit of land to run some cows and raise winter feed, and orchards and garden would in some places take 100 acres less in some more in others, depending on if you had good water.
When a farm or ranch is up for sale most folk cannot afford to get started, to have enough land to run a few beef cattle, raise hay and tillage for corn, oats, rye, millet and cane , sorgum would bankrupt anybody, most small farmers have one or both working in town to make ends meet then you have to contend with property taxes.
The only people that are snatching up properties are the wealthy individuals that make places ther own fun land or investment companies that whore out the land to make as much return for investment dollar as they can, then you have the land killers the ones that take fields and pastures and subdvide them up till its all residental ranchetts cookie cutterd out.
My folks lost 6100 acres of tall grass sandhill praire it was chopped up and sold off, none is in private hands now, the creek I play'd in as a kid is dozed over, buildings gone, corrals gone, shelterbelts of home stead era growth cotton wood and cedar were dozed & burned off or cut for pallet wood, today its farmed from ditch to ditch managed by a out of state investment group.

[Drilling Man]

  And guess who is buying up those big ranches that are failing???

  I have friends who live out west, and they are reporting that as the big ranches go on the chopping block, the chinese are buying them up by sealed bid!

  DM

[Pat/Rick]

Japanese did the same thing in the 60' and 70's. I think it very foolish that foreign gov'ts are allowed to buy large amounts  of property here. Wouldn't surprise me if that comes back to bite us.