How to find Remote Off Grid land for Homesteading

how's it going everybody my name is dave whipple and you're watching bush radical today i'm here with my lovely wife brooke and we're going to tell you guys everything that we know anyway about how to find remote property not only that but we're going to talk about the things you're going to want to consider if living on a remote piece of property and homesteading a remote piece of wilderness is in your future plans stay tuned [Music] recently brooke and i went to look at a piece of property we found it on the internet on a realtor's website and it looked like it was in a wonderful part of the state we're up in the far north of northern michigan now this piece is very remote judging by google earth the timber on the property not to mention about 2 000 feet of river frontage really spoke to us it told us that this property is probably exactly what we're looking for so we're gonna make sure that we get there first and take a look at this before the snow melts and everybody can get back into this area so what we're doing we're out here in the middle of nowhere and we're looking at a piece of property here that's uh it's got a whole bunch of river frontage it's four foot of snow and snow machine in for miles and miles and miles now when buying a remote piece of property we're going to look at one we had to do a lot of homework so that we could actually locate where we were when we're out there in the middle of nowhere we had to know where the landmarks are how the trail goes so that when we found the property we know that we're in the right spot the first day we were out on the property we were very impressed but it didn't really jive with what we saw from google earth so we went back the following day to take another look we'll talk about that in a bit one of the first things you have to understand is remote property and off-grid property are not the same thing you could be off-grid in the suburbs you can be off-grid in the city but remote property is what a lot of people think about when they hear off-grid they think grizzly adams they think dick prenicky they think way out in the weeds and the question is always how do you make that happen how do you find a piece of property that's really remote that's beautiful it's got everything you want and then how do you make a living once you find it how do you make this happen it's a very confusing topic because a lot of people hear off-grid they think remote today we're talking about remote property so a lot of questions we get are where do you go to look for this kind of property where do you find remote property you find remote property where there are no people that is the criteria if you live in a metropolitan area and you think you're going to go 10 miles out of town and find remote property it's a pipe dream it's not going to happen if you really want to be remote you've got to be a long ways away from civilization if you want to walk out your door any time of the day and hear nothing but peace and quiet that's a rare thing in this world today you have to be away from people so don't bother looking in the skirts of the suburbs or just outside of the the country town that you live in remote property is going to need a remote setting how do you find it you got to do a lot of homework first of all we like to just drive around i mean we have found a lot of properties just driving around because we like the feel of the area it's got to have a great feel you're not going to know that until you've got boots on the ground and you're in the area and you can feel it one thing that we can both vouch for that is a solid piece of information go find an area that you love and then start looking for property right absolutely if you're in a part of the country where uh maybe you can't find this type of property and you are looking out of state you need to actually go to that state go to that area that you want to look at and actually look at stuff do not ever trust something from the internet or a realtor we call it realtor voodoo for instance this piece of property we have yet to find any picture that represents this property at all this piece of property we found on a realtor site we're not going to tell you which one it's got river frontage and we asked the the representative were these pictures of the river taking on the property she said no they weren't which you know is ridiculous you don't know what river you're even getting then right you cannot trust a realtor sometimes you can't even trust the seller to relay correct information you actually need permission to go walk the land yourself try to find the corners and a lot of times there's not going to be any corners and there are some tricks and tactics for finding out accurately find out where the lot lines are one of the things we use all the time whether we're buying a property or just looking at stuff acre value and google earth now i know that's pretty pretty modern way to look at things but with google earth you can take a look at a piece of property and zoom in to where you can actually see what the trees are like what the what the layout is like how it orients north south east and west and you can get a real real good idea of what the property is going to be like with this satellite overview on day two of walking the property we'd had another chance to take a look at google earth and kind of reorient ourselves as to where we were and where we needed to be two major features of this property were a large clearing in the river the first day we were out there we found a clearing but it did not run north and south like it was supposed to it ran east and west so we knew we were in the wrong spot we went back to the hotel room later on that evening and figured out where we actually were the following day we went back we found the correct clearing and from there we knew it was only about a quarter mile out to the river which we found very easy then we knew exactly where we were at and we could cross-reference where we were and what we saw with google earth later on that evening the other really important thing with google earth is you can back that thing out and you can see where other people in the area have homesteads or cabins too and that's really important to us and it's probably important to you too to know is there a cabin right up next to the the lot line are there cabins all around is there a junkyard or has it been logged i mean the realtor is not going to tell you that no we recently looked at a piece of property that had a beautiful little crick on it the realtor photos were beautiful we'd get to the property 40 acre piece had been completely logged they never even mentioned it that's not a joke that is not a joke it's infuriating yeah they're talking about this beautiful property and this beautiful creek and stuff and we get there and we're looking for this swath of pine trees that was on that we saw on the internet and it's gone because it's been logged off and they never mentioned that it was logged recently too had like chest high briars everywhere it was not cool there was nothing cool about that so now what acre value does is show you the actual layout of the lots and the acreage and so you can have an overlay of like a satellite image and see where the actual acreage lies on the land there's a fantastic tool it's basically a a cheap version of google earth because it doesn't get super detailed but it's got the plats superimposed over top of the google earth image so you can really see like here's your line here's the neighbor and how close are they to you you can also see and this is a really important thing you can see where all the state land is you can see where all the federal land is the the department of natural resources land if you find a spot you're like wow this is beautiful land you can actually find it on acre value find out who the owner is and you could contact the owner with an offer yeah we have absolutely found pieces of land that we are interested in that were never for sale we've contacted owners of properties and say hey you know this has been sitting here forever are you interested in selling or if you're not right now take our number call us you never know a lot of times you'll see like an abandoned camp or like an old building that's falling in and i mean you know nobody lives there that building and maybe the vehicles that are in the area and of course the road you can find that on acre value find where that property is see who owns it maybe somebody in the family passed away and it went to kids and they don't even care about it and you could maybe get a really good deal well i think we found the river i'm gonna name this dave's river not brooks river because i have discovered it well anyway it's right in that hole let's go look we spent a lot of the second day walking that property on snowshoes in beautiful weather at the very end of winter and what we found out was acre value and google earth were the two most important tools that we used to figure out where we were on the land where the borders of the property were to make sure that we're on the right piece of property without the owner there with us or a surveyor out in the middle of the wilderness you could be anywhere with google earth and acre value we could match the owner up with the property that they own that is actually for sale see where all the landmarks are how they run east and west north and south match it all up in person on foot and no with a 100 certainty that we're in the right spot looking at the right land there's an absolutely monstrous white pine across this river watching a woman get undressed in the woods sure seemed like it would have been better than this [Laughter] look what happened to bushy just like that i stepped on my snowshoes and went headlong in the snow didn't take long for that comment to bite me one thing that's really important especially with this property we're talking about here is it's the middle of winter we're coming out a winner but there's two feet of snow on the ground right now in 2021 the real estate market is hot off-grid the the realtor actually did us a favor by misrepresenting this property you really did need to get here and look at it and we had to put in a pretty fair amount of effort to come see it which includes snow machines snow shoes we really wanted a shot at getting this piece of property before spring rolled around and everything melted out and you could actually drive to this property which you can't do right now in a month and a half there'll be people with side by sides up and down this road we're in the northern part of the upper peninsula it's huge recreation property not a lot of people live here year round but in the summer you'll find dirt bikes and quads and side by sides because there's logging roads forever there's thousands and thousands of miles of logging roads and people would find this property and it's super easy to just drive right on here walk around and be like this is amazing and then buy it and we we weren't going to let that happen here we are so here's the deal we came out here last uh two weeks ago we walked this property right before dark we're like well it doesn't quite look exactly like what we saw on the map so we came back the following day with a little bit more time we found the other entrance into the property and it was lined up exactly with what we saw on google earth and we left right from there we went right to the realtor's office put in an offer on it and then we hit the road about 45 minutes later we got a phone call so we just came out of the middle of nowhere back into cell service land we put in an offer on that property and they took it it's ours so that's going to be the future home of the whipple's at some point we've been super super stoked about this property ever since we saw it we knew roughly where it was that we we got the old junk snow machines running and got the trailer registered and weighed we had to drag it out of the snow take it to the dump to have it wait at the weigh station for everybody else out there that's looking through the real estate listings they see it they see it's remote they think well especially where we're at here in the far northern midwest by lake superior they think well you can't get in to see that well we made a herculean effort last minute to get in here to take a look at this property and it's so paid off so if you really want a piece of property put in the effort you actually need to get the plane ticket if it's in a different state go look at the property get a feel for it we wanted to beat this market and and that's what we did if you're serious about off-grid land you've got to be serious about putting in the effort to check it out and vet it you need to vet it because the realtor doesn't vet it for you no you can see a property that's absolutely exactly what you want and if you buy it through the internet you can pretty much be assured when you get there there's going to be a crack house and pit bulls right up against the property line and junk cars on the other side next to an airport there's gonna be an airstrip right so there's gonna be planes coming over it that's just the way it is i don't know how many times we've looked at property that looked amazing on the real estate site and then you get there and they've totally neglected that it's like a barren parking lot around it full of like drug houses and dogs you have to do your homework yourself a gps i'm not super great on using this yet but as we're walking around i'm marking some waypoints and i'm learning you can use new technology he's been walking around with a compass use your tools and do not count on information from a realtor or a seller no which brings us to another point the three things you really have to look at you have to look at access and you have to look at water and you have to look at how are you going to make a living because that's just the reality of it i think this is a great time to bring up the point that if you're just looking for recreation property the sky's the limit you can go anywhere and buy any piece of property that you can afford if you just want to go there on weekends and holidays and just enjoy the place for what it is with this video what we're really doing is we're talking about buying a piece of beautiful remote quiet land somewhere and making it your home actually homesteading on it and setting that up as your primary residence and ultimately how do you actually live on a piece of property that is that remote how do you get in and out in terrible weather how do you make sure your access is going to be okay does the property have good ground water does the property have a spring or a creek or a river does the property have enough cleared area that you can use solar power for your power needs access is huge resources are huge we've lived on some pretty nightmare roads and we currently still do in alaska it was to the point at one point we were thinking about selling our land because the access was getting unbearable and it just wears on you you think oh i can deal with it but it just absolutely wears you down there's been a lot of time on our piece in alaska that we have right now where you drive to town and you'd see like rain clouds on the horizon up north where where the house was you're like i'm not making it high and you're like yeah it's going to rain and the road is going to be impassable and i'm going to have to walk the last two miles home that'll just burn you out on this piece this is snow machine access for three four months out of the year so i mean that's something that's gonna deter a lot of people but it's okay for us we don't mind that but if you think you're gonna buy a piece of property in september and there's a beautiful road to it well if it's an unmaintained road it could be three feet of snow in the wintertime you just have to know that sort of thing here we are in the winter now we completely know what it's like to get in here on the winter we don't know what the road is going to be like in the summer yet we're going to have to figure that out so there are different seasons you're not going to probably be able to see all the seasons right away unless you know someone in the area of what the axis is going to be like so it could be a surprise and it might be i know there's probably at least one or two holes here that are going to be filled with water and may be difficult at some point but we're going to figure that out and and the opposite side of that is what would winter look like if you're buying something in the summer be realistic about the access don't romanticize it away because it is an actual big deal another good piece of advice is if you find a piece of property you absolutely love don't wait make that offer we were looking at a piece in delta junction alaska and all through the winter we had it in our minds it's 30 below 40 below there right now nobody's buying real estate so we took our time when we finally made an offer we found someone had beat us to it by a couple days and it was already under contract the other option would have been we wait until springtime when we can drive in here but at that point anybody that's interested in remote property whether it's to live on or whether it's recreational we'd be competing with every single person in the market who's looking for a piece like this and even though the realtor pictures were garbage this property if you were on it you would be impressed by it much more than you would have from the photograph so as soon as the road opens it would have got sold just like that and she had said the owner and her were going to come out and walk the property in the spring and take better pictures well that would have definitely sold the property another issue is power you might as well just accept the fact that you're going to be running a generator you're going to maybe have a simple solar panel set up and minimize the amount of electricity that you're going to use and then it opens the world up to you you don't have to have a piece of property that's remote but has power that's a very hard combination to find it's very easy to find remote property it's very easy to find property that's not remote that's got power but to find the two together and for an affordable price if you're looking for a unicorn figure on minimizing the way you operate you don't have to have a 4 000 watt solar system where you can run an arc welder off it just a couple panels to charge your phones to run some led lights at night time the solar the remote power generators that operate off solar and just all the technology has really caught up and made it much easier to be off grid and still have all the things you love off grid the biggest question is how do you make a living can you actually move out into a remote area and still have enough income to buy groceries when you run into town or to buy clothes or whatever that's a big big conundrum it's a hard nut to crack i mean you're still going to have bills the homestead is going to require money still after you buy and build you still need money but our advice is to take your job with you whatever you're doing find a way to do it remote find a way to do it off grid become a specialist in something and make that your job make it your goal to take your job with you now you can commute to work if you have work that's close enough two people around here that we know uh one guy he has a four mile drive out to a main road which is probably a snowmobile ride right now and then he drives to town i have a cousin who has a gas station and he drives to a parking spot gets on a snowmobile and then drives back into his property on a snowmobile about seven miles and he does that if you're willing to go to those extremes of commuting you don't have to worry about making a living on your property but if you if you really want to just make a living on your own land it's going to take a lot of ingenuity for us we get revenue from youtube so we're always shooting films for you guys and that really helps to do something like this but we would still have to drive into a library to upload a video to answer comments because there's definitely no internet out here there's no cell service out here yeah those are things you have to think about too and we're going to have to think about it here is how to boost sell signals how to uh you know to maybe just do basic just answering emails and stuff and having a phone you know because right now this is my only means of communication it's kind of just an emergency device this is a garmin inreach and it's connected to the satellite i pay for with the subscription so i can send a message to somebody you could also get a sat phone but take your job with you specialize in something get it established and take it with you the internet is just full of opportunities for remote work yeah you got to figure out the sell signal or you've got to be able to get out you know once or twice a week to access the internet now there is a new product i think it's called starlink it's by elon musk that is uh it's a satellite internet that's portable you just set it up and it picks up the satellites and you can get internet we don't have that but that's something we're definitely going to look into on this property is if you do have the internet you can make a living off the internet whether it's selling stuff on ebay i have an etsy store etsy store you know that's that's the beautiful thing like i do all this art and jewelry and stuff and a lot of people have talents like that you know if you just say on your shop hey i ship one day a week right so the orders come in all you're doing is shipping them once a week you're getting off your property once a week you know you can be creative with things you can figure out how to make it work and if you actually want that kind of a lifestyle living on a remote property that's kind of what you're stuck with you have to be committed to commute or you have to figure out how to operate from your property and still be able to have an income that goes along with the solar and you know that goes back to access and what does the property provide for you i mean we have a lot of great open space in this piece of property along with just really deep woods it's perfect for solar so if you're buying a piece of property that's just completely wooded you're going to have to think about the solar options everything plays into your long-term game solar access water resources your job the dream of living off grid anybody can do that anybody can do that you just have to change the way you operate a bit the dream of living remote it's a cookie it's a real cookie you really have to figure that one out or it's just going to be a dream it's not going to be easy and it won't be fun either but it's worth it i think you know if we get this property figured out we should be able to operate from this property totally remote but we're going to bring you guys along for that journey you're going to see exactly what that looks like at least the way we're doing it and uh you'll see what works for us and you'll see where we maybe have an idea that that's a turd and doesn't go anywhere there's a lot of different ways to live and work remotely off-grid these are just some ideas we just want to help you guys because we get this question so much make sure you got some kind of an idea of what your options are for water if it's 400 feet to water you can't do a hand well if it's all rock you can't do a hand well if you don't have a crick or something else you have to have a well or you have to be committed to use rain water so i mean your options are right out there on the table when you find a piece of property that you're considering you just have to run through that checklist like on this property i think we can drive a hand well and get decent water but if we can't we do have a river to pull water out of and then we're in a situation where we have to purify if we had to have a well put in we can't get a well truck in here because it's just a trail for three or four miles getting out of here to another trail that a well truck could drive down so it's melting snow in the winter or just strictly rain water in the summer pulling from a creek if you've watched one man's wilderness and you think living remote is the answer to everything that you want in life we're sorry that we burst your bubble we've lived in remote settings in the aleutian islands we owned remote property in minto flats in interior alaska i'm going to tell you right up front we don't have all the answers but if you're in the market to make a major life change and live in a remote setting and try to make that work hope this video helped out my name is dave whipple and this is my wife brooke whipple you've been watching bush radical be radical eh see you soon

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 379,745

Keywords: remote land, how to find remote land, off grid land, off grid homestead, off grid cabin, off grid property, remote wilderness property, remote off grid land, cabin

Id: CZCBuqwquIY

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021