Dear reader, Thank you first for your time and support in my little blog and off grid dream. I hope your enjoy the off grid content I’m providing for you. Thank you first for your time and support in my little blog and off grid dream. I hope you enjoy the off grid content I’m providing for you.
First I’d like to introduce myself. Hi, My name is Eric Wichman, founder and director of Off Grid Living & Survival™. I would like to take a moment and ask your opinion on what kind of articles, news and information you’d like to see more of in your email box. Please, really. I’m asking because I have a genuine interest in providing the best possible off grid news and information for you available today.
So I need YOU and your input and feedback. Please take a moment after reading this letter and send me your thoughts by leaving a comment below, or replying to this email (sent to our email list subscribers). Thank you.
It all started with Off Grid World, a dream more than a website
A little about me and who I am…I have been writing about off grid living since I originally founded and directed the original Off Grid World website way back in 2012 (which I since sold to another very capable off grid writer who I have much respect for since they have a great interest and passion for the subject and lifestyle of off grid living).
Over the years I have had many ups and downs and have had to shut the websites down multiple times due to personal, family and health related issues. I also founded and launched OffGridLiving.net, and with all the personal family and health issues I had going on I couldn’t keep up and had to shut it down again temporarily while I worked through all the life stuff we all have to deal with. I ended up selling that one website thinking I would get out of this whole “off grid” thing. (Just FYI I kept ownership of the magazine the whole time)
Sadly…I was burned out, kind of giving up on my dream of moving off grid and building my own log cabin on my own land. I was getting to the point I didn’t think it would ever happen. However.
Through it all I have stayed true to the content and spirit of what it means to live off the grid. It’s about self reliance, self sufficiency, sustainability, using renewable resources, living in harmony with the land and nature and giving back. It’s truly about freedom and independence.
Off grid living is about living a free an independent lifestyle
It’s about producing your own food and water, electricity and using natural ways to dispose of waste that’s not harmful for the environment. We respect our earth and the wildlife, we hunt, fish, camp, hike, are outdoorsman, mostly blue-collar hard-working workers, and some city folk who are just tired of the hustle and bustle (mostly hustle), of the cities and suburbs of mainstream living. What most people think “civilization” is supposed to be like.
As off gridders, homesteaders, outdoorsman, gardeners, holistic healing and naturalists, we’re not real big on big city BS. We like our peace and quiet, the country air, the peaceful bliss of a cool misty morning in the mountains with a hot cup of coffee and a view from our homemade hand built off grid cabin that most people would pay millions for. For us, for me at least, it’s not about the money, it’s about the lifestyle. It’s about the freedom and independence to do you own thing on your own land, building a better place for your kids and theirs. For future generations.
What off grid really means
I think the term “off grid” has a different meaning now in the ever-connected internet world of modern day society. We’re bombarded with all the pressure modern work life puts on us. Economic downturns, market corrections, housing bubbles, rising interest rates, rising inflation, the dollar losing value through it all. If you have money in savings it’s worth less today than it was yesterday. A savings account is not good enough anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. Cost of living has gone up, wages have stagnated, yet rents and prices for food are still rising. Each day we’re bombarded with advertisements and offers for products and services every single day, all day, and it can get annoying, irritating, and we just would like to disconnect and go off grid just to disconnect from the crazy world of “civilized society”.
Through it all we keep this dream of freedom and independence alive. That’s what off grid living means to me personally. I have a passion for it. A love for nature and the outdoors only someone who has the same passion can understand.
A new kind of off grid living is coming
I’m seeing a paradigm shift in our humanity’s collective thinking and what we all want out of life. I think we’re all realizing )perhaps we’ve knows it all along) that being connected to the grid means being connected to a system that will doesn’t care about you or your family or your dreams or wants or needs or passions. It has all these rules that prohibit or severely hinder the off grid homesteading lifestyle. It’s almost as if they want us all to be a part of their crazy “civilized” system, when in reality I think we all just want peace and happiness, safety and security for our families, our children and to live a life that’s more free from the restrictions and prohibitions that society and the status-quo pushes on us and expects from us.
I’m nearly 50 years old and still have a dream of building my own log cabin on my own land one day. Raising chickens and pigs and cows for food. But I also like my comforts an luxuries, my high speed internet, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and all the benefits of living near a city.
But all that is about to change as the world move into the future. I see a different kind of off gridder, homesteader and people with a passion for minimalism, and an idea for living more sustainably with renewable energy, producing our own power and water and growing our own food organically, year-round, in a greenhouse we built ourselves. Eating health homegrown meals, but also ordering out online via high speed satellite internet. Still being able to communicate with the world. But from a distance.
I see this next decade, this next generation changing the entire world and how we do things.
Remote living and working from home, off grid
Remote work and high speed satellite off grid internet means you can pick from hundreds of jobs and work remotely from anywhere in the world. I see a run on vacant land as people realize they will not need to be near their workplace in the city. I see automation taking over many labor jobs, seemingly putting a lot of people out of work, but this will also create opportunity for remote work from home jobs which satellite internet will make possible for you to work anywhere in the world.
Meaning you can have your off grid homestead and that dream job at the same time. You can live off grid and grow your own food, build your own log cabin and trade stocks and crypto currency on the stock market without ever leaving the comfort of your mountain cabin.
You can run a large wholesale distribution company from remote areas anywhere in the world with don-for-you warehousing and logistics, freight and shipping your products anywhere in the world. All from the comfort of your dream home off grid.
There are lists of hundreds of remote jobs you can work from home. Jobs that pay well and allow you to spend more time with family and friends and enjoy those things you have been trying to enjoy all these years. Only now you can do it from anywhere in the world. You can even go mobile and travel the world, off grid.
Living the VanLife may not be for you personally, but there are millions of folks out there would dream of traveling the world and making a living while traveling. Travel Vlogging and blogging is a thing. All you need is an internet connection and a laptop and you’re in business.
It’s very easy to start an ecommerce business from anywhere in the world and run it remotely with drop-shipping companies that will not only warehouse and store your inventory but will ship to your customers anywhere in the world.
Do it from your homestead cabin. If you’re into arts and crafts or artisan foods (think fruits and veggies you grow in your garden). Baked goods, cookies, cakes, pies, jellies, jams preserves. You can make and sell soaps and custom art pieces. Raise chickens and pigs for meat and leather and feathers. Make all kinds of things right there on your off grid property and have access to the world as your marketplace.
Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, Shopify, Square Space, and many other online marketplaces and places you can go to start your own homebased business. Work from home. Work off grid. Sell your products and services. Make videos on YouTube and produce a passive income from any of your products and services you can sell online via your own website, blog, ecommerce shop, etc. All from the comfort of your home.
This means more time on your homestead with family
You can work your own schedule. Not worry about the worries you’d have living in a subdivision near the city. No more 1-2 hour commute to work every day. That is lost time. Time you will never get back. Time you could have been spending working on your farm, or building your own cabin, or building your dream greenhouse.
My point is this. The world is ever changing and with it I think we’re changing the way we view off grid living. It’s still about freedom and independence, and being self reliant, free from the confines of the system and not putting up with the overly restrictive rules and regulations that seem to limit our lifestyle choices.
I believe we’re on the cusp of a great change
A new change, a good change for the better for those willing to change. Move away from the cities, buy your land now before prices skyrocket, because they will. It’s already happened. In the 10 year I’ve been writing about off grid living I’ve watched vacant land prices double in certain areas and sometimes triple and quadruple in price as more people move out of the cities. I think we’re on the verge of a mass exodus and a new generation of off gridders and homesteaders.
I’m GEN X. I’m nearly 50 and still have that dream alive and I keep that passion for the off grid lifestyle burning within me. It’s something my father instilled in me from a young age and I don’t think it will ever go away. I’m stuck with it. So I’m giving this one last big try to make the move off grid.
Having said that, I want to hear from you. I want your opinions, ideas, and most of all I want to hear your off grid dreams and ambitions; I want to see them, write about them, and share them with the world.
I have a deep and true passion for off grid living
I mostly do this as a labor of love, but just like you I need to make a living too. So That’s why I have this blog, and I have relaunched the magazine. It’s been renamed to Off Grid Living & Survival magazine because I want to focus not just on the living part but the survival aspect of it.
My father (who passed away last year during 2020) was Army Special Forces Green Beret. He was Airborne! He taught me everything I knew about the woods, hunting, fishing, and off grid survival, up until I moved out of the house. And one of his biggest dreams that he never got to accomplish was build his own log cabin on his own land. I believe he got this dream partly from watching Dick Proenneke built his off grid cabin in the Alaskan wilderness. This passion has stuck with me throughout all these years.
I didn’t know it growing up, but his passion for this whole cabin building thing rubbed off on me and it’s been on my mind ever since. It’s my off grid dream to build my own cabin. And if I can make a living doing my dream then that’ what I want to do.
To do that this is the part I don’t like much, but I have to work to make a living just like you. Which is why the blog and magazine exist. So if you could I would very much appreciate a subscription. It helps me keep this blog going and helps me produce the magazine each month. I’m a one man show currently (at one point I had other writers I hired but can’t really afford them right this moment), so all the content thus far on here is all me.
So I ask you for a few things.
I’d like to know what you want to see more of on the blog and in the magazine.
What kind of off grid news and information do you want to see more of in your email box and in the Off Grid Living & Survival magazine?
And of course I would love and appreciate it if you subscribed to the magazine. This helps me keep things going and allows me to hire and pay more writers and publish more awesome off grid content for you to read.
Please, share the articles and information on this site with your friends, and as I grow the site and add more articles and information I hope you stay with me on this journey, and share with me your off grid stories. I would love to publish your off grid story in the magazine and share with the world how you made your dream come true to make the move to live off the grid.
Thank you for reading! I sincerely appreciate you and your participation and support and hope you enjoy the content I publish here.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Eric Wichman
Founder/Director
Off Grid Living & Survival
***
