How far is "far enough"?

[LeatherneckPA]

Disclaimer: The original poster already understands that this is a highly subjective topic, and that there will probably not be any consensus reached. So play nice, and be respectful of each other.

In light of my personal beliefs that we are headed for, at the very least, a major recession and quite possibly another Great Depression I have been spending a great deal of time mulling over that question.

On the one hand, we have the fact that within commuting distance of a major metro land prices are going to be significantly higher. So to save money on land you have to go at least an hour out. An hour and a half is better.

But then, on the other hand, you will be paying a significant penalty in fuel costs. I haven't devised a formula to compare them yet, but I suspect at today's gas prices (and it's only going up from here) the cost savings in fuel may just offset the increased cost in land prices. I have to do some further analysis of that using some prime pieces I am interested in.

And here comes the really subjective part of this. How far out is far enough to be comfortably distant from the general populace, yet close enough for ready access to necessary services such as medical needs.

I am currently operating under the belief that my land will be somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes from the DW's office. But I want to examine the figures more closely and see if my hypothesis holds true.

In the meantime, I was wondering what some of you folks, of like mentality, might think is "far enough"?

[rockymtngirl]

Hi PA - Well I'm pretty new here but I have been thinking about this for a long long time. I kind of think it depends on where one is in relation to metro or mutliple metro areas as well as how far off a main interstate highway you can get - i.e. state or country roads preferred as far as I'm concerned. My initial thought for myself would be at least 200 miles from a major metro area - that cuts out a lot of places - and of course I guess it depends on what you consider to be metro - Denver area (where I am now) is definitely an ever expanding metro area - I'm definitely ready to get out. Here's hoping I can find something that fits my criteria!! ;)

[jott]

If you are talking about PA I would not be too worried about access to medical coverage anywhere. The state has a lot of top of the line hospitals covering all parts of it. The only area I would be worried about is around Indiana, just make sure they take you to a UPMC hospital I have heard many bad stories about the others in that area. Most local fire companies and ambulances are very good a getting on location fast and getting a med flight right away. My main concern would be how long it will take the local EMTs to get to you, not how far away the hospital is. I would think this will be the same in most areas of the country unless you are so far out it takes a helicopter several hours to get to you.

As for driving cost who knows maybe gas will go to $10gal or maybe we will start using natural gas in cars and bio diesel and prices will stabilize. Also on the news they where saying that oil prices may drop by as much as $30 since many investors are starting to feel that prices are inflated. And who knows what will happen when the fed is forced to raise interest rates to keep off inflation and prevent the value of the dollar from going to zero.

I would say the best thing to do is throw all your numbers into excel and make a spread sheet so you can look at a huge range of possibilities and order them in witch you think are most likely to happen. A guy at work just did this to compare the cost of driving his truck to work vs getting an old junk Honda vs car pooling in his truck.

[logansackett]

I also am looking for my place. I want to stay in colo. The biggest problam I have run into is getting the water and mineral rights with the land. As far as distance goes, I dont worry to much, 1 trip per month well planed should be more then enough. As far as medical, here in Co. we have air life and flight for life.

[walls0stone]

Talk of Pa... drill rig bosses tell me that we in Pa will be to Natural Gas what Texas was to Oil. The bars and hotels are crawling with drilling rig men, pipe liners and contractors. they pay up to $2,000 an acre just to rent gas rights for a few years. A poor farmer with 300 acres can now keep his land and pass it on to his family who....hopfuly will grow food to feed YOU Dear reader:)

I hope that from this we will see more natural gas cars...fuels from the USA....

[GoodDaughter]

Well, for me, my land is about 20 miles from two small towns (with populations in the few hundreds); about 40 miles from two med. sized towns (populations approx. 14,000 +/- a few thousand wetbacks) and about 80 to 90 miles from larger cities/metroplex areas. *My land is very rural, very unpopulated. I will have sufficient acreage of my own to act as a buffer zone in the event that, heaven forbid, someday for some bizarre reason, development encroaches. I know it likely will, but I would likely be an old lady by that time and who knows, I may end up needing to move back into town as many elderly people do.

The closest hospital would be in a town about 40 miles away in either direction. A very long haul in an emergency, which I do understand.

When I bought my land several years ago, I went out in the country, and then I went a little further. I wanted to find a place where rural was likely to stay rural for a very long time, where it was just too far for commuters to make the trip into the metroplex every day, where traffic had already thinned out and where the subdivisions and bedroom communities were far away. Where the only 'utility' is the electric lines that just happen to end at the entrance to my land but go no further. No city water, sewer, no natural gas service, not even phone service. (My cell phone gets roam, but only if you go stand under the power lines ???)

I ended up in old ranch country, where land was sold by the section and half-section. Found acreage that had been severed from a ranch decades ago, but no one had ever done anything with it. It is somewhat arid by eastern standards, but once decades ago that area was known for growing wheat, melons, peaches, and hay. Gets about 28 inches of rain/year.

I wanted to go that far out because I just plain old wanted to live in the country. Not the mock-country of some silly subdivision of half and one acre lots. And certainly not the mock-country of the 'horsey set'. I wanted real country, populated sparsely with real people. Cedar hackers, ranchers, farmers and farm wives. People who own water well drilling companies and who drive pipelines for a job. Where I didn't have to be blasted by ghetto music and deal with 'gangstas' and the Latina 'chica' types parading around gruesomely painted and half-clad every time I wanted to go to the Stop&Go for gasoline and milk. That's what the 'country' where I had previously lived had degenerated into. Dewds with pit bulls on chains, low-riders blasting filthy music non-stop, people all making noise louder than the one before them in order to be heard above the din.... a true society of iniquity. I wanted no further part of it.

I guess I want a somewhat romanticized 'country', but I was able to find it for the most part. It's quiet except for occasional cars on the highway passing. It's very dark at night, and the air actually smells like grass or cedar or mesquite blossoms instead of pollution, body odor, and car exhaust.

I think we all can make our own reality if we really want it. I am trying very hard to make mine.

[Drawbar]

I must say, some of the people on here plan wayyyyyyy tooooooo much!!

The real key to being happy is finding a place that has the must-haves, a few of the wants, and as few of the dis-wants as possible. Finding that is the real challenge, and it might be 60 miles from a major city, or 250 miles...who knows, who cares...

The point here is you buy what you can afford, buy land based on what you intend to do with it, and then you go about working on it's perfect. You are not going to find a place that is perfect right out of the realtor's hands.

The real key to happiness is not living in the past,where you are always reminded about what you had and why. Neither is it by living in the future in which you you are always wishing for this or that. The 'if I only had this, I would be happy" syndrome. Its living in the here and now. So don't by land based on driving distances and medical facilities and all that, buy it on what your needs are and make the best of it.

As for the driving distances and prices of fuel...you just do what the rest of us do that are far removed from the city. You learn to get by.

[LeatherneckPA]

Drawbar that's easy for you to say, You inherited heaven. The rest of us have to plan to be able to discover and purchase our property with as many pluses as possible, and as few minuses as possible. Then we cross our fingers and hope for the best.

We're happy for you. But I don't think you should denigrate the efforts to which we go or the questions we ask.

[walls0stone]

It's all about work. but billytown is not to far from heaven.

your an hour from me.

[GoodDaughter]

"Inherited"? You mean literally? That explains the attitude, then.

Yes, the rest of us have to plan and research and (gasp!) actually get out and hunt around and go looking at land in order to assess the pros and cons of various locations. I found what I was looking for, though.

As for the comment about forgetting about what it was like where we previously lived and what we had and why (paraphrasing, because I can't recall it word for word and this format doesn't show the complete thread the way some forums do).... man, I don't understand a word of that whole comment. I apologize, but that sounds like psychobabble to me. Why in Gods name would you not want to remember and consider conditions in your past? Those are the very things that form our hopes and aspirations of the future, in every sense of the word!! Where I lived before turned from country into a big suburban ghetto... heck yes I remembered that, and I used it as criteria for searching for my land.

But now if I had inherited a very nice rural piece of land, well, I suppose I might not be so critical of the general environment and could afford to be so free in the giving of advice of this sort.

[Drawbar]

"Inherited"? You mean literally? That explains the attitude, then.

Yes, the rest of us have to plan and research and (gasp!) actually get out and hunt around and go looking at land in order to assess the pros and cons of various locations. I found what I was looking for, though.

My comment was not based on myself at all, it was based on the many, many homesteaders that move in here, then either move out (on an eight year cycle as far as I can tell), or stick it out and change.

For the most part its the acreage hounds that get me. They buy just as many acres as they can, because where they come from 200 acres is a lot. Once they are here and realize that its probably less than the average landowner, it loses its luster. Usually after realizing they are paying hefty property taxes, and have land that is not 100% usable, or way more then they need, they sell it off. If I get any of my points across to budding homesteaders its that they don't need gobs of land to create their own utopia.

As for the distance from a city thing, I think its silly. Far more important is how far you are away from you family, and if married from you spouses family. I would say that 50% of the time the reasons homesteaders move out from here is because of this reason. The real sad thing is, the mantra "you can never go home again" also applies.

As for my place, there is two ways of looking at it I guess. In some ways I am jealous of you in that you can hunt, chose, check out, and access what you want and where you want to be. I grew up knowing all I would ever get was what we had. No more, no less.

As for the inherited thing, that word has lost its meaning in this day and age. For the old school families like mine, inherited means you have to earn it. Milking cows twice a day for the first 22 years of your life is a lot of hard work. Throw in 15-18 hour days, everyday with more on the days you have to hay and milk cows, and inherited takes on a whole new meaning.

Then of course there is everything you could not do because of the farm. The weddings, dances, movies and days playing baseball with your friends because you had to work on the farm, also comes into play. I figure I paid twice for this place, once by bartering my childhood for he farm, and the other when I add up all those working hours that I never got paid for. Hell I was 15 years old when I started paying property taxes on this place. I harvested wood and took the money and paid taxes. Most kids in my school had not even started working at McDonald's at that age. Just something to consider when it comes to the true meaning of inherited.

I had my chance to sell last month, and I opted out. I could have had enough to retire and go some where else, but in the end I stayed here. Take it from someone that has homesteaded all my life, don't waste precious time over-planning, find a place that you are comfortable with and make it your home. You are losing out on a lot of good years planning for perfection.

[wy0mn]

This has turned funny.
I'm not jealous of Draw in the least. I wish I could have had a leg up myself.
One GrandPa came to America from Czechoslovakia around 1914, discovered that land was cheap & could be privately owned. Went nutz! Bought a piece 3mi X 3mi square!
Sold some during hard times but lost the lions share to white-trash relatives on the other side of the family, wheedled out of him by my loving Grandmother.
We bought a place when I was about 14, like Draw I worked my butt off, poultry farm, payed for itself thru the labors 0f my brother & me. Parents divorced, property sold, nothing to show for it.
I think its pretty much unspoken that we, as Americans, hope to have the freedom & right to pass things on to our kids. His family made it. Now I'm making mine. (70mi from town, 28mi off pavement, 2mi beyond the grid) And I still get trespassing outta state poachers! They are not hunters if they are trespassing, they are poachers!

But I will continue to over-think and over plan everything. A WY winter is the wrong place to discover you've had your head up your butt! *:)

[logansackett]

Draw, I agree with the part where you get what you can and make it your own, however, here in the west where sprawl is the way of the future a person must must look at location or that 5 acres you bought in the middle of nowhere will soon be in the middle of a bunch of dang apartments and strip malls.

[hillsidedigger]

If it is not needed to daily commute to some location for some reason, the further out the better.

If the daily commute is necassary, I suggest living right across or maybe just down the street from the destination of your daily commute. This will save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours per year versus a long commute possibly allowing retirement and independence at a much earlier age. Then, the more remote, the better.

[walls0stone]

Planning can be blind sided. A town in southeren Va, has a large monument in the middle of a pasture. The Town planned to move tward the R.R. Making the location of the figure the new town center...but then the high way came in and the town built away from the R.R staion.

[Cowgirl]

We are 5 miles outside of a town that is so small there is not a single traffic light. We are 20 miles from what most people would view as a small town. We are about 55 miles from a town that could potential be called a metro area. This is PROBABLY remote enough for me. ;D

My solution to the rising fuel costs has been to work from home, from the homestead.

[walls0stone]

I think more people, regardless of were they live should try to work from home. If you think about the time wasted in the car.. in the train, on the bus... What if you could just go to your computer and start your job wireless?

Now think of the stuff that would not be needed? Think of how many people who must leave home for work, could do so faster...not sit at red lights..bla bla. Here in Pa it was once agenst the law to work on wensday... sat afternoon was also closed and sunday 4 work days and work from home one. forget the cost of fule, in a computer age, it makes sence to me.

[WRTN]

I hate to be a party pooper but speaking at least from my experiences and others I have read about across this country, the idea of living in the country or "frontier community"

http://www.frontierus.org/documents/consensus.htm

is a myth.

You can pretty much move to anyplace you want with perhaps the exception of the outlying regions in Alaska or maybe some parts of North Dakota or East Montana and even then you will run into the surge of Methamphetamine and the scumbag culture that goes along with it. Many areas such as mine are left over remanents from the FDR era of the "New Deal" that never really happened like was advertised and one generation after the next has refined the "rural life style" of "living out of the mailbox".

Corrupt local government come with this deal too. Just gotta deal with it.

wy0mn, OH DO I HERE YA BROTHER! The trespassers looking for a place to party and do their drugs and the scumbag slob hunters who are in FACT poachers are a constant source of irriation. Don't even get me start about the maggots on ATV's and free loading horse back riders.

In many cases if these "people" (I use this term oh so lightly) would come and look me in the eye, shake my hand firmly, and introduce themselves so I could get to know them; I more likely than not would allow them to come on my land if in my judgement they were good responsible folks. The problem is good responsible folks don't behave like this.

In the mean time IF you DO look after your land and run off poachers, druggies, and trespasser; expect to be the recipient of arson attacks, fence cutting, setting woods on fire (we lost about 200 acres last August), trash and furniture dumping, during hunting season field dressing dumping, shooting incidents, and the being the subject of local grapefine gossip.

DO NOT expect the sherrif, police, or game warden to do much IF ANYTHING about these "problems". In most cases they are as bad or worse than the scumbags causing the problems VERY likely know or are related to them. DO expect these lazy thugs to hassle YOU because you run the poachers, druggie's, and trespassers off onto other area's a LOT closer to town and thus irritating folks who are well connected in the "local clique".

In short, pick a place you like and buy as much land as you can swing, bargain, or borrow for. Build a home in the MIDDLE of it and live your life. Do what you can to be a good neighbor but stand your ground and expect to be labeled "one of those outsiders buying up all of our land" for a LONG time.

Mind you, it is certainly NOT all bad. Heck, I have met some real nice folks like Pat (beepipes) & Karen who are neighbors in a nearby area. I am also blessed with a few real nice folks who are immediate adjoining land neighbors.

My girls love being able to have horses and a llama, chickens, and their other pets. The wife and I are trying our hand at bee keeping. Being able to take off on the ATV's and run all day if we want is fun occasionally. The best part is just being able to watch nature and enjoy the view.

A few good friends are priceless............the rest...........I don't need those kinda friends. I am sure there are places out there that are the exception. I guess it is as much a matter of making lemonaid out of lemons. Good luck with your search, just consider all the factors and keep your mind open to the reality of what this nation has become.

[WRTN]

Planning can be blind sided. *A town in southeren Va, has a large monument in the middle of a pasture. *The Town planned to move tward the R.R. Making the location of the figure the new town center...but then the high way came in and the town built away from the R.R staion.

Are you talking about the Brandy Station historic preservationist land grab?

[walls0stone]

Since the trespass subject came up again..this is the trouble we have here.

new people come in for the low crime, the love and the country...then they get 2 acres and post it..act like it's a city block and get an ego...then want to hunt on us. in my own time, you could go any place you wanted and you were welcome. Any hunter could drive deer on any other farm and all were a comunity. you came to my farm, shot the white tail with the 22inch spread (realy happend) and I'd shake your hand and say good job.

what ticks me off is when people come here for the pure life style, then try to change it.

we wave at strangers here

[walls0stone]

I was talking about a tiny town called union

[ASG]

My land is about 14-15 miles from a little village of about 70. 150 miles or so from Fairbanks, AK. Hopefully it's far enough to avoid being taken by the Fairbanks borough, to continue being untaxed, but I suspect it is. I also want to be far enough away from the city to avoid city hunters coming through. The road is rough enough I think to discourage most.

[WRTN]

Since the trespass subject came up again..this is the trouble we have here.

new people come in for the low crime, the love and the country...then they get 2 acres and post it..act like it's a city block and get an ego...then want to hunt on us. *in my own time, you could go any place you wanted and you were welcome. Any hunter could drive deer on any other farm and all were a comunity. *you came to my farm, shot the white tail with the 22inch spread (realy happend) and I'd shake your hand and say good job.

what ticks me off is when people come here for the pure life style, then try to change it.

we wave at strangers here

I hunt lease my land out to various hunt clubs. When slob hunters trespass on it to poach, they are stealing from my hunt clubs and me. Not to mention putting them, my family, my pets, and livestock at SERIOUS risk and danger.

In the country it is and always has been custom to ask to hunt or give a courtesy phone call or stop by to ask and get permission to go onto another land owners land to retrieve a deer that has been shot. Too many folks abuse and lie about retrieving game when they are really poaching.

The other reason and even bigger issue is the liability in the event one of these scumbags comes onto your property and injuries themselves. They CAN sue you.

Bigger reason than that is that my wife and children are may be out there and I don't want some drunk or stoned piece of trash with a hunting rifle to shoot one of my family, pets, or livestock.

I haven't changed ANYTHING. I own the land I am on and I exercise my ownership as I see fit and suits me within the bounds of the law.

If commiting SERIOUS crimes is a "pure life style" maybe it needs to be changed.

I stay on my land, don't bother anyone outside it, and mind my own business. I don't think it is beyond reason or common courtesy to expect the same in return.

I know exactly what you mean about the folks who buy and acre or two and then want to come and recreate on your land. If I pulled my truck up into their front yard or property and started hunting, opened up a cooler full of beer, or cranked up the stereo for a party; these are the folks who are the first to call the sheriff and complain.

As far as my neighbors go, the kid down the road was out riding his horse and got lost on our property. He finally realized where he was and rode up to the house to let me know he was lost and apologized. He asked if he could ride on through across to another section of our land and I told him to enjoy and be careful out there as well as told him where the riding trails were. He recently blew up the engine in his car "muddin' " as he put it. ::) I see him walking and I'll stop to offer a ride.

I waved at everyone when we first moved here and then I found out what kind of people some folks were. I save my wave for the good folks who merit one.

I like the trespassing laws Texas has. Maybe it is time to change the laws too. ;D

[walls0stone]

east and west are diffrant.

here if your post, you can be sued, if your open to public, You can't be.
it is custom to ask, at least once. That's normaly enough. If people keep acting like jurks here, shooting from the road, fist fights over deer, then the tourism stops and that is the real killer. no heads in beds, no meals sold... back in the day people would come here by the 100's and 100's leave money like it was Vagas and go..now it's all about people who have half an acre messing up the whole industry for the rest of us.

[wy0mn]

My place is very secluded, and the road sees little use during most of the year. Dead end road. Hunting season is a thorn in my side, and I love hunting.

The problem for me lies in the fact that my land butts into BLM land. BLM land is public access federal land. The "access" isn't across my property, and these poachers on ATV's can wreck a prairie ecosystem with one intrusion.

When I was deciding on where I wanted my driveway I made one shorter trip toward the road, it took almost two years for the tracks of a single passage to heal.
Although rain is infrequent, snowmelt can erode the Hel outta sparcely rooted soil.

Trespassing is simple. If you don't own it, someone else does.

[WRTN]

Trespassing is simple. If you don't own it, someone else does.

Exactly the way I see too!

[GoodDaughter]

Wow, I guess I have lucked out so far. No poachers, no trespassers, no meth addicts baking up drugs on my property, which is located in Texas. You know, the state with the so-called 'Castle Doctrine'.

So far, no problems. Gee, I wonder why..... ;D

I have no close neighbors, I figure some day I will, though, as the general population increases exponentially. There just isn't a whole lot out here. Heck, even the meth heads would have to have other meth heads to sell their dope to, seems they must be elsewhere doing that. At least for now. And if they every showed up? Well.... ;D

[walls0stone]

If you don't own it yea.....but if you can all get along it's a better world. Once we had brotherly love here, then the flatlanders came and messed it all up. But we don't take it off them. One such unwelcome guest picked a fight with a local man who knocked the Flatlander cold with one pop.

Another case, two flatlanders thought they would be clever and try to hit one of us with a truck...so we pulled them out of their little Ford, (with out opening the doors) pummled them, stuffed them back into the truck and asked them to leave.

[Drawbar]

Good God man you sound like you live here. We had an issue with a few Flatlander Hunters once and the local State Police Detective actually said this...

"Are you guys going to handle this or are we going to? You know,you would be far better off handling it yourselves."

I guess those hunters did not like hunting from Motel Six because after their hunting cabin burned down the second time, they haven't been back. (Their trucks burned as well) Bad luck with fires that year I guess????"

[walls0stone]

We wash our own laundry.

[kainnation]

So Logans specifically and RockyMtnGIrl ;) I'm a native of Colorado. Looking for someplace 2 hours give or take 30 mins or so from the Springs to live on. Looked in Costilla and Park County. But I've got the man on my back. I have the money to buy acerage at $1000/per acre or less but am running into these stupid rules. I want chickens and goats not JUST my 3 dogs :(

[logansackett]

I feel your pain, you are in a bad spot in my opinion. All the well offs are buying there vacation cabins (4bdrm 3bath 3 car garage) down there in archuletta county and the surounding area. East of I-25 is flat and disapointing. I must admit that the area in the 4 corners the sangradecristo and wolf creek pass is the most beautiful area I have ever been, but its too expensive. As much as I hate to leave the rockies I may have no choice.

[walls0stone]

i think that many of the people who would want such things leave here very quickly. By keeping the local men/women in power we keep that crap to a min.

also, the realy hardcore loosers who want to gate a comunity or whatever don't get any good workers when they need them. No matter the task, plowing the drive or cutting the grass...we just won't work for the stuck up controle freaks...and so they pack up an move or shape up.

[rockymtngirl]

Kain - Well 2 hours or so from the Springs - if you are going west (which I assume is your preference) I've seen some property in Divide or in that area (this was about a year ago) - you could go as far as Hartsel - kind of in the valley there right before you get to 285 - I've never checked there - it's just not my cup of tea. At $1000 per acre you might be hard pressed to get what you're looking for unless you go down into the San Luis Valley - way beyond 2 hrs from the Springs and it's more ranch land down there - but land use is probably not that restricted.