Spot on. I wish more people would see this video. Over my 71 years I've seen everything you talked about and more. It's not the utopia some make it out to be but if you are smart, tough, resourceful and handy you can make it work and it can be very rewarding.
20+ years of grid and I live 10 miles from a small town, I have phone and internet and services available if I need them. This is one of things I have always emphasized is living off grid does not necessarily mean living isolated and I don't recommend that for most people. You are going to need to resupply and you will need services like health care and unless you are a hermit you probably will want at least occasional contact with other people. I know, there are some off grid channels that are popular that portray themselves as living off in the wild but the fact is most of those are BS and the people live in a grid home and just have a recreation cabin they visit on weekends to make "off grid" videos.
Planting hedges as part of a perimiter fence can get you a lot of that wished for privacy. You may need to check what you can plant (both regulations and what will grow), but that it is flat open field with everthing on display can be changed. So do your homework and know that dream places require work, they don't come finished (or only for crazy prices).
@@tmoddison No property of my own (yet i hope), but plenty of people use such solutions here. Some for that, some for protecting livestock, improving biodiversity, permaculture food ... Europe has a lot of history with hedging to protect and keep in livestock if there are not enough stones to make field boundaries with.
Culverts suck. We been going to cattle guard type bridges. Lot better than culverts and can easily clean debris from them. So it's good hunting with predators around. Been at camp solo bear hunting and had 5 days of rain all the solar stuff was dead. We can get 6 feet of snow in a weekend in winter. It's like 2 miles to county dirt road from our property. Michigan put high speed internet through all the U.P. on every little 2 track. We have been thinking about a solar powered router for internet. Our property was split and surveyed before we bought it. So markers clearly defined.
Is there a good property search website to start looking? We're considering off grid as an option but really are in the info gathering stage. Currently in FL and there is NO WAY I'd do it here. Just too hot for too long. On code and permitting: there are counties which have neither of these. They are usually in the south or west. I close files for a lien search company and see them daily. Alabama and Mississippi have many.