From Dreams to Reality: Real Stories of Off-Grid Living
Unveiling Off-Grid Adventures: Learn from Real-Life Experiences!
In this newsletter, I have pulled together some “real-life” stories of people’s experience of going off-grid, for sure it’s not all milk and honey but perhaps for those considering a change in lifestyle, there could well be a level of inspiration here.
Firstly I am sure you will find TheNordSkov Q&A’s, filmed just over a year ago, from their Off-Grid set-up in Sweden. I encourage you to watch the whole video for all of the questions and think about subscribing to follow their story:
A somewhat different location and financially fluid couple, Carol and David moved to an Off-Grid Life in their fifties. A remote homestead in Montana where they had to learn new skills. From generating electricity to managing wildlife, their first year was filled with learning experiences and challenges, such as running out of propane during winter:
Next we have Wren Everett who shares her experiences on Insteading, including the importance of preparation before moving off-grid. She emphasizes learning from others and adopting manual methods for daily tasks to become more self-sufficient.
I’m not going to lie to you—living off-grid does not make you normal by any stretch of the imagination. Instead of posting photos to Instagram, catching up on our Netflix queue to wind down for the evening, or grabbing a latte before driving to work, we spend our days chopping firewood, growing and foraging food, chasing our crazy chickens, and working on building our home.
© Living Off-Grid: What It’s Actually Like • Insteading
Source: https://insteading.com/blog/living-off-the-grid/
I think many will find this a useful blog to keep track of, especially at the outset of your journey.
As you can see just from a few examples, this type of lifestyle choice is doable at many levels. Whilst there will always be many challenges there are also so many benefits both on a personal level and for the environment.
On a personal level, I live with friends in a cave in rural Spain and have done so for 7 years. We had hopes and dreams of farming our own produce and solar-powered living (for Spain an obvious choice, si?).
The land adjacent to the cave is not ideal for growing food, we have tried and tested every year, plus we hired a plot of land about 10km from us to grow crops…this actually worked quite well but we found the journey too and from that were required to maintain it, wasn’t actually an eco-friendly or economic thing to do.
We do grow herbs and potatoes and our plan is to have more of a hydroponics set up within our area, hopefully, this year. Also, we do have a small solar power rig but are waiting to see what the Spanish government are planning in respect of solar energy. Spain plans to be the Energy Hub of Europe, harnessing solar and turbine options to feed the grid and also sell on to other countries and they are talking about making full solar systems available via massively subsidised means….so hey, we shall see. [Spain used to tax people who had their own solar systems in order to dissuade the uptake of personal energy production and keep energy suppliers happy].
Irrigation here is a big problem also, water supplies suffer from outages quite regularly and Spain’s water reserves are down to 20% or less right now due to the huge impact of El Nino in the last 3 years. We do use a greywater system where possible and again work on collecting rainwater, though rainfall is very sporadic here.
So, tiny steps for us, but we have our goals and keep on trying…however, it may mean another move in the future as the water table in this part of Spain is in a dire state…more of that another time!
And for next time?
”Water Foraging & Herbal Remedies”
“Cob Houses?”
“Tiny Homes & Minimalist Living”
I will also be looking at more real life examples of people living Off-Grid and Sustainably - SO! If you have a story YOU want to tell, drop me a line:
Stay safe and see you In the next one!
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Dominus Owen Markham - Your Man in a Cave in Rural Spain