FILE – An off-grid home with a panoramic view showing Mount Jefferson appears in the Three Rivers Recreational Area, a 4,000 acre off-grid community in Lake Billy Chinook, Ore., on April 26, 2007. Off-grid living simply means you’re not connected to utility grids. That could mean living in a cabin or in a fancy house. It’s become more possible because of improvements in alternative energy sources like solar power and the batteries to store that power. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)AP
Living off-grid conjures images of survivalists in remote places and a rustic 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.
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