Our home is/was a bit of a fixer-upper, and it's harder to get help with labor here (it exists, but it's expensive). But one thing I've noticed is that learning plumbing/construction/mechanics has been way easier than learning software. You definitely sweat more though.

Turn-key housing here exists too, it just comes at more of a premium. Also, your social life is obviously impacted. You're probably well-advised to already have a family or s/o (or just are comfortable being alone).

All told, I think this is a great option if you're feeling trapped in your career but have stockpiled some cash. It probably doesn't require near as much money as you might think to make the jump.

For us it's exactly what we needed to focus on our startups without going the traditional VC route. We'd love to see more people going this route. Let me know if I can help.

Another place that's got a high quality of life for low cost of living is St. Augustine, Florida. It's an architecturally significant city with several colleges, great art scene, wide beaches.

You don't need to look any further than the warnings in the post you're replying to for a response. If you're dating, prefer lots of social interaction, or attend a lot of big-city events, then you're going to have a bad time living in southern Missouri.

San Francisco is not a good place for straight women to date. No one talks about it, because it's not politically correct, but in my observations they come here, and are lonely.

There's just too many single women, and not enough men. I have a very attractive ex-girlfriend, and we had so many conversations about social life, or lack there of. It got to the point, where I took her out and watched what took place. Guys--way below her league wouldn't talk to her unless she aggressively talked to them first.

I know I get hammered because I'm not being politically correct, and yes--there's always the exceptions, but at least in San Francisco it's difficult for sigle women looking for a steady relationship.

I'll point out the politically incorrect thoughts, and save you time:

I shouldn't have stereotyped. I shouldn't have assumed some females are looking for a steady relationship. I shouldn't have mentioned looks/personality when I said "way below her league". I probally left out something that hurt someone deeply--sorry.

Some of us choose to remain close to specialized healthcare, that we trust.

You said you had a few acres. Are you planning a garden for the spring?

Any idea if there's some sort of meetup-alternative for tech-minded people moving into the area? Just based on this thread, Co-Mo Connect and other rural fiber initiatives seem to be attracting a fair number of developers/entrepreneurs. It'd be great to all get in touch with each other.

Our network (Co-Mo Connect) publishes network rollout status and maps at http://usage.co-mo.coop:8080/signupstatus.php

Before here, we looked at WK&T (Kentucky/Tennessee) http://wktelecom.coop/ That looked promising as well.

It was some work to even find these two networks, then finding homes within the service area and trying to find out if they were eligible was the next challenge. Lots of Zillow searches. If the home is pre-wired, they'll probably advertise it as such in the listing. I think the sweet spot (in terms of value) is finding a property that is eligible but hasn't had an install yet. In our case that meant eye-balling the neighborhood maps at a house-by-house level.

To find similar networks in other parts of the US I would start with Zillow searches (for "fiber") or Google searches for state + fiber + rollout, state + co-op + fiber, or state + co-op + Calix. Calix is a popular FTTH equipment vendor. You could also check their (or other vendors) press releases, which they usually issue when they partner with a new co-op. See http://www.ftthcouncil.org/OurMembers

I wish there were a friendlier UX for this. Our search lasted about 2 months. If anyone is interested in my area, email me and I should be able to help by finding properties before they hit MLS, qualifying addresses with the contacts I've made at the service provider/installers, and of course just driving around. It would be fantastic to build a hacker community here.

They just started the rollout and iirc it should be done at least in the towns by next summer.

Rsfiber.com is the site to check out

https://www.centurylink.com/fiber/

As a vegan, programmer, and someone very interested in leaving in nature and off the grid this sound like a sort of unicorn heavenly existence that only existed in 21st century fairy tales.

Nice blog, and good luck with you 700 square foot garden, I have it liked on Facebook! :)

How much land do you have? Do you have water rights? If so, how hard/expensive were they to get?

What do you grow? Do you grow just for your own use, or do you sell some?

Do you do contract programming, or do you work for a single company? If for a company, how hard was it to get that set up?

How often do you go into the big city (Provo/SLC)? For what?

What's the biggest drawback (to you) of living this way?

Feel free to not answer any of this that you feel is too intrusive...

We mostly have focused on getting the property fixed up, and getting animals running over the past 2.5 years. Many people bite off more than they can chew, but I have a rule that we take on one new kind of animal or food procution at a time, and learn it well before adding more. It slows down the process, but I have seen too many people crash and burn by trying to do everything all at once. So for now, we have a flock of chickens that gives us more eggs than we know what to do with. We have bees for honey, and goats, which give us all the dairy we need, as well as some meat and fiber. We have fruit trees. This winter we are getting drop irrigation installed through a few dozen raised garden beds, so our veggie and produce production should be up to speed next year, hopefully. And we may start up a 2nd chicken flock for meat. I expect we have 2 more years of building out our property before we are truly self-sufficient.

I work full-time for a single company. We are a SaaS companies that has no office, and everyone works from home. Finding the job was a lucky break, but once I had the job, they could care less where I live, so I found a place I like and moved there. The job has its ups and downs, like any job does, but it is hard to argue with working from home, wherever and whenever you want. That being said, one of the main reasons I am not farther from Provo and SLC is that it is a nice safety net to know that I could get a job and go back to the commuting life if I ever needed to.

I go into Provo regularly - it is the closest Home Depot, as well as the closest place for lots of retails shopping and ethnic food. And it is only 15 minutes away, so coming from a larger city, it doesn't even feel like much of a trip. But we also do a lot in town - it is not that tiny, over 30K people. There is a movie theatre in town, groceries, ranch stores, some restaurants, etc. We head to Provo probably once a week for other things, up to Orem for a pet store and art supply stores maybe once a month. And Salt Lake? I really thought I would go to Salt Lake more than I do, but I have not been there in a long time. Maybe once a year for an IKEA run, or for a fancy date night with my wife.

The biggest drawback is social - living in a small town makes it hard to build up a large group of friends. It is easier on me because I am married with kids, and don't need much more than that. You also have less diversity around here. It takes a conscious awareness to try to expose my children to more that the world has to offer.

I'm near Hamilton, MT, a town of ~10k an hour from Missoula. Hamilton is home to Rocky Mountain Labs, the US's center for ebola research which attracts lots of scientists and post docs so it has kind of a collage-town-minus-they-undergrads feel. Also amazing outdoor recreation if you climb, ski, hike, hunt, fish, mountain bike or pretty much whatever.

We have ~4 acres with good water rights and a gravity fed irrigation system. We paid under 300k for that land with a large house in good shape on it. We do have electricity from the local rural electric co-op, a microwave link for high speed internet, a well for drinking water and propane for heat and cooking. You could pay under 200k for a smaller fixer upper in a less desirable spot still with enough land to grow some stuff.

We are basically at the level of having a (very) large garden but have some established apple trees and are putting in larger amounts of plum, appricot and peach trees and blueberries, raspberries and tons of strawberries. Maybe soon grapes...some people have had success with wine grapes in the valley we are in and we are in a good spot for it.

We grow things for for our own use though if we grow enough we will sell or trade...many of the species I list are just starting to do well in Montana thanks to global warming and newly developed varietals so I kind of view growing them as a research project. I plan on keeping engineering as my main money maker.

There are lots of full time farmers in the area and some great farmers markets and farm stands.

I work for a single company I connected with through hacker news. Before that I convinced my boss to let me go full time remote after working in the office for a few years. I work in a specific area of machine learning which is in demand at the moment and have enough open source contributions to convince people I can work from wherever.

I go into Missoula (70k people) about once a month for a Costco and specialty grocery store run. Hamilton has two micro breweries, a great coffee shop and good grocery and hardware stores and I could easily get by without the city but there are some things that are cheaper and easier to find in Missoula. Missoula is also a great outdoorsy, progressive, town with a thriving river surfing community.

Biggest drawbacks is that local politics at the moment is dominated by ridiculous tea party shenanigans. Even the conservatives seem to be getting fed up with the sheer incompetence of some of the candidates but there has been some elimination of local women's health services and other services like that.

My parents moved out to a very small town from Toronto, Ontario when I was small. There was nothing for me there when I grew up, and all of the friends I had that stayed in the area are struggling. I went away to school and never really returned. I found that I was at a real disadvantage by having zero network and no relevant job skills pre-university. I've since made up for it and am doing quite well now, but I have 2 kids and them going to a good school is very important to me. I always wonder how people do it well, so I'm looking for information.

Folks should be free to use their imaginations and what's around them to make their own practical way. It doesn't have to be expensive, conventional or a work of art to be your own.

Check these out:

Castle on Wheels https://youtu.be/CnHGKUh-5O4

Floating, movable island http://dornob.com/recycled-paradise-amazing-man-made-floatin...

I'm in the early stages of my transition; the mentality is solidly there, still working on infrastructure and tools, and money.

I'm about to sign off for the day, but I'll try to drop you a line later tonight so you can get in touch. We do like connecting with kindred spirits.

If you've made a conscious choice to follow your own path, why is the path you've found so similar to others?

It's hilarious when non-conformists end up conforming even more.