I have concluded that truly going off grid is impossible for the modern, 21st century American. I went “off grid” for a year living in my RV, and I spent most of 2019-2020 in the desert in off grid communities. I am not any sort of off grid expert, but I have spent periods of my life off grid. In my opinion, it is difficult and expensive to go off grid if you want to “do it right,” i.e. to be comfortable with the results in the long run. The upfront cost of solar, for example, is enormous, if done right, and doesn’t “pay for itself” for decades. Electricity is much cheaper at the utility hookup. One must also dispose of black water, i.e. toilet waste, in an environmentally-sound way (for one’s own health, as well as that of mother nature and – if you don’t care about her – her nominal guardians in the government). This is a problem because most people who want to go off grid aren’t prepared to use outhouses every day, but they would also balk at the cost of an approved septic system (at least $30,000 where I live).
Along the same vein, self-sufficiency in food is very difficult and hard to justify; there is little advantage in growing corn from seed, harvesting it, drying it, shucking it, shelling it, and grinding it when you can order a bag of high-quality cornmeal for a few bucks from Amazon and have it on your doorstep the next day. I do believe that there is pride in doing it oneself… but really -- how much pride? At some point, one will have spent an entire day shucking and shelling corn, all while realizing that a few bucks and a click would have cornmeal on one’s doorstep the next morning. That is not to say that some level of self-sufficiency is not a good thing. More on that in a moment, but true self-sufficiency is nearly impossible in this day and age. More on that in a moment, as well.
The result of the above-mentioned difficulty and inefficiency in going off grid is that there are very few people living off grid in any meaningful way in American in the 21st century. I think there are essentially two ways to successfully go off grid in America in the 21st century: 1) to grow up in a real off grid community (i.e., an Amish or Mennonite community), or 2) to do it “lite,” i.e. to grow your own garden crops, have a little solar, have a few animals, and to have a separate income stream (i.e. retirement, separate business, or job), but to not imagine that one can grow everything his family eats or that one can (cheaply and easily) power everything with the sun and avoid all government scrutiny and intervention… and certainly to not entertain the notion that a hobby-farm-sized homestead can generate income and food that will completely support a family.
I am not sure if I am inclined to believe anyone claiming a third way -- especially if they are attempting to make it look easy and attractive for social media. I am more inclined to believe the people attempting it in earnest but looking mighty sorry while doing it. In the many cases I have read about, watched about, and observed in person with my own eyes, a lack of skills and funds mean many of those who attempt true self-sufficiency never even get set up correctly and thus suffer mightily from the get-go. I have followed blogs of couples who bought land sight-unseen in Alaska and moved there with a few thousand dollars and a dream. The blog always dies a few years later when the couple leaves Alaska, having nearly frozen to death two winters in a row because they could never gather enough wood or properly insulate their homes or find a way to efficiently bring water to the home every day, which meant they dragged ugly plastic water jugs from a lake every morning -- romantic for only the first two weeks of their off grid experiment – until by the end of the second winter, the chore of going out to break the ice and clear a path in the snow just to have water for the day broke their dream.
Consider the premise -- a couple goes off to Alaska to survive forever. Or a couple buys land in Missouri and decides to try self-sufficiency on a three-acre plot nestled between two commercial farms. Think of how ridiculous that is (once you get over the romanticism of the thing). For one, no self-sufficient peoples in history were loners in that way. Based on what I have understood, community is everything to self-sufficient populations. The fact that going “off grid” and being “self-sufficient” have been mixed with some sort of 21st century individualist “seeker” ethos of folks trying to beat nature and themselves by hewing out their own self-sufficient bubble is like a bad sci-fi plot from a 1960’s dime store book. There are many accounts in history where even someone who grew up in a self-sufficient community would be marked as a dead man walking if he had to be completely on his own. Banishment was, at times, a kinder form of capital punishment. It would have been damned hard for a young Iroquois couple who had grown up “self-sufficient” to survive a winter in New England in the 1700’s. So even people like that would struggle alone. A modern couple in 2021 attempting the same thing, with zero understanding of the forest, its animals, and its plants?
This leads me back to the Amish. I mention the Amish because I think it is important to acknowledge that there are indeed people living completely off grid, successfully and happily. But they are not like us, at all, and that is deliberate; they even dress distinctively to emphasize this difference. They are very conservative, very religious, and highly gender-segregated. They are choosing to do things the hard way out of religious conviction. They also have a substantial support network in the form of their communities, as well as experienced people who have been living that lifestyle for generations –communities being the key word. These characteristics of their society seem to apply to all self-sufficient cultures of which I am aware; whether we are talking about the Amish, Mennonites, San bushmen in Africa, or tribes in Amazonia, we are talking about powerful communities, not groups of “individuals” as we understand the notion the developed West, and they all practice extreme conformism and rigid social hierarchies and gender segregation. In other words, self-sufficiency and individualism are almost incompatible notions, in my view. People survive in nature in community or they don’t survive. We are not snakes or mountain lions. At least the evidence I have observed in nature and in the human societies I have visited has led me to that conclusion.
We, as modern people in America in the 21st century -- trying to go off grid as adults with zero experience and no one with whom to form community -- are, in my opinion, doomed to failure. But that is not to say that we cannot have a fulfilling, off grid “lite” lifestyle. I think we just have to be realistic about the true cost of “doing it right” and the limitations of what we as individuals can do, physically and mentally.
I think I would be happiest if I didn’t attempt complete self-sufficiency, but rather tried to integrate self-sufficiency and off grid principals into a life connected with society. That means choosing to tie my fate to society, but I don’t think that is really avoidable or even necessarily a bad thing. I have my problems with society, but I think I prefer it to any alternative. Having a well and goats and chickens and a garden is incredibly appealing to me.
OP, I am aware that you might not have intended to encompass this sort of discussion in your questions, but you did -- in your concision -- provide the space for it.