Off-grid living beckons more than just hardy pioneer types

Living off-grid conjures images of survivalists in remote places and a rustic, “Little House on the Prairie” lifestyle with chores from morning to night. Yet only a tiny fraction of people living off-grid do it like that, and fewer still live more than an hour from any town.

“Living off-grid doesn’t mean you don’t buy your groceries at a store or take your waste to the local dump. It just means you are not connected to utility grids,” says Gary Collins, who has lived off-grid, or mostly off-grid, for a decade. He has published books on the subject, and leads online classes.

Although precise numbers of off-grid households are hard to come by, Collins estimates that only 1 percent of those living off-grid are in truly remote areas.

Overall, the off-grid movement remains small. But it got a boost after the COVID pandemic hit: City dwellers began to explore different ways of living, facilitated by improvements in alternative energy sources like solar power, and batteries for storing that power.

More frequent power outages and utility grids' struggles to handle the severe weather events brought on by climate change have added to interest in disconnecting from the grid. So have utility bill hikes.