Living off the fat of the land

Amin Parker
Mar 30, 2021
2 min read

Living off grid is not the same as living in a remote, isolated area. Most people associate living off grid with owning land, harvesting lumber, owning a generator, etc. but these are all trappings of a lifestyle choice called homesteading not necessarily living off grid. In order to understand what it takes to live off grid you first have to understand what a grid is so that you know how to be off it.

The grid is the generic label for public utilities that are distributed through out cities, suburbs and rural areas, it specifically refers to electricity but also can include water, sewage, phone, cable and now internet service. If you receive any of these services, regardless of how remotely you are living then you are on the grid, in other words you are not off grid. Cellphone technology for example uses cellphone towers and satellites to triangulate your cellphone location in almost any part of the world so that if you use a cellphone there is no way that you can be off grid while you are using it.

So how do you live off grid? It’s simple. Don’t receive public utility service of any kind. This means that you can live in the middle of New York City or Tokyo and still be living off grid. So long as you are not receiving any “grid” services. You see the whole point of living off grid is to ensure that your whereabouts cannot be easily tracked. To this end some people that live off grid also refrain from using credit cards, banking institutions, pay checks and any other means of governmental or corporate tracking.

It should go without saying here that by this definition if you own land you are right off the bat not off grid. Life style choices that are suitable for true off grid living are freeganisim, busking, crashing and migrant working situations. But understand that all of these and many other ways to exist without being tracked are usually shunned by mainstream society and any person living it is usually singled out as a pariah and an eyesore. In other words you become very easy to single out immediately and become the targets of criminals and law enforcement officials alike which defeats the purpose of living off grid in the first place.

A less extreme way of living off grid is to just avoid primary utility services. But this would only benefit you economically but would still allow you to be tracked in any other number of ways.