Quite often the places with cheap land are also the ones that don’t have building codes.

They also lack various things highly correlated with presence of building codes, such us road access, electricity, running water, clean water, water, food variety, healthcare, ER/ambulance, fire protection/prevention, crime protection/prevention, schooling, after-school activities, nightlife, pool for potential mates, and in general, people.

I mean, not paying for/depending on/having half of those networks sounds pretty awesome

I’d add lack of internet to your list. Much harder (but not impossible) to provide yourself.

Absolutely! Unfortunately, they are all mutually dependent and mutually reinforcing, so you can't opt out of some without opting out of the rest.

Cf "A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear": https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/matthew-hongoltz-he...

>much harder to provide

That's the real problem. HN forgets not everyone is remote.

The "provide" is easy these days, apparently, thanks to Starlink.

The "yourself" bit is a tricky bit, as where it comes to utilities, you can sort of DIY your own supply of everything else, but Internet is as much a social construct as it is technical.

Have they resolved their scaling issues that folks here have been raising red flags about?

Seems to hugely matter on which cell you're in. Haven't seen a proper public geo-driven approach to data collection to figure out what's really going on.

Should be able to do a lot with an HF link anywhere running at like 1200bps or 2400bps, which should be reliable on the same continent. (Not supposed to do that in USA, and won't work if everyone does it, but HF is kinda dying and different places have different rules, sooo...).

terminal, HN would be fine, a console reddit and the carbonyl chromium browser for everything else you need 'live'.

Too bad things have moved onto Discord from IRC.

Thank you for the valuable reminder that not everyone sees the world identically! To me, an avowed city lover, all of those things are essential to a high(or even medium!)-quality life - well, except "schooling, after-school activities", as I'm not a parent and never will be. Your evaluation's no less valid, though! I hope you get to find and enjoy your ideal rural retreat soon :)

Internet is MUCH easier than clean running water or access to healthcare. Just need a Starlink rather than needing a helicopter and a water treatment plant (or 50 miles of piping with pumps every mile).

You sound dismayed by the "features".

Up here in Alaska, land can be had very cheap (but construction costs are high), particularly if you don't care to be on the road system.

Where can I find this cheap land? When I check online zillow, or via Alaskan state land auctions, the price of building lots even without road access in the deep interior is more than that of a suburb in Texas!

https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsales/parcels/details/470-143... seems pretty cheap to me at about $4,200 per acre. A quick search of building lots in San Marcos, TX as an example shows prices are around $200,000 per acre, or about 50 times higher than the land in Alaska: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/San-Marcos...

Can you share the lots you were looking at?

San Marcos is one of the most overpriced and fastest growing markets in Texas, right next to Austin, priced to the stratosphere since the Californians moved in. Austin is my home town, but I couldn't afford to live in San Marcos.

For typical Texas land priced around the same per acre as Alaskan land:

https://www.land.com/property/Fox-Hunters-Club-Rd-Bon-Wier-T...

$19,708 - 3.79 acres On a public road, with electricity (water you'd need a well). Remote East Texas, and by remote I mean you're 20 min drive from the nearest city (Kirbyville with some gas, food, small department stores) and 40 min drive from the nearest Walmart SuperCenter (the real sign of civilization in rural America).

Or if you prefer something closer to a city, the desert just outside Del Rio, you can see:

https://www.land.com/property/Windmill-Rd-Del-Rio-Texas-7884...

$15,997 - 2.05 acres On a public road, I see electricity nearby but you'd have to run it to your land ($15k+ probably), or just do solar since there's plenty of sun there. Well water and septic. Bordering the Rough Canyon national recreation area and Lake Amistad, if you like boating and hiking (watch out for rattlesnakes). I'd say a "suburb" of Del Rio, an apartment building and single family homes 7 min drive away as well as a cafe. The nearest Walmart Supercenter is 30 min drive away in Del Rio, as well as the city of Del Rio and the general aviation airport is by the Walmart, if you wanted to fly to San Antonio or Monterrey.

Now you might be saying, I want true suburban land, like surrounded by other single family homes, with water hookups and neighbors, and commuting distance to a major city. That's going to cost you more - but not much more, especially given it's already got all utilities:

https://www.land.com/property/1631-Old-Henry-Court-Angleton-...

$33,000 - 1 acres About 15 minutes drive from the nearest Walmart Supercenter in Angleton, as well as an HEB (gotta have that HEB), and 40 min commute to Pearland where you could actually find city jobs, or 60 min if you want to go all the way to downtown Houston (I used to have a manager who did just this drive every day for 10+ years, so she could live on a working horse farm).

That's where my disconnect is for Alaskan land prices. I can only surmise it's because the federal and state government own like 99%+ of the land in Alaska and only sell a very small amount at any time to rigidly control the prices and development. Like an Uber-California in that way.

> Well water and septic.

I think the killer app is finding a place that lets you do graywater and an incinerating toilet. I just hope they drop in price. $4k for the nice ones, but can still be cheaper than running septic for light-use.

$4,200 per acre seems absurdly expensive to me for land out that deep in the boonies without electricity or roads. For $4,200 an acre I can buy rural land around me with road access, guaranteed electrical access, and within the last 2 and upcoming 5 years, fiber connections (just got mine 2 weeks ago).

Where are you?

GP: don’t say, the HN crowd will move in and your land will be 10x more expensive.

However, please tell me only :)

Rural Michigan

A cursory look reveals that there is acreage in Maine for less than $2K/acre.

https://www.landwatch.com/maine-land-for-sale

you can also get land for under $200 at Minute (https://minute.land/)

the best place is minute land (https://minute.land/), they subdivide cheap land and get the price down really low, like $200 low

Ah, to get away from civilization into pristine nature, 12 feet away from the next guy doing the same.

It's not building codes, it's zoning/permitting. You can't just toss up an structure and live in it without going through some approval process with your county/city.

Sometimes the only requirement is to meet code, but even that creates issues when you want to build something for yourself.

We have some really far out places that are still "unorganized" in Ontario Canada and therefore no permitting req'd, but you're still supposed to follow the building code for anything over 108sqft.

Especially in California