If you're ready for a more self-sufficient lifestyle that allows you to independently live off the land, Home Gnome has your back. The home-service site looked at all 50 US states to see which ones were the most suitable for off-the-grid living, making its assessment based on more than two dozen metrics in five main categories: infrastructure, safety, affordability, feasibility, and climate. Iowa comes in as the best state for unplugging and disconnecting, while Rhode Island is the worst.
- Expert take: Gabriel Durham, a sustainability scholar at the University of Houston, says "culture shock" will probably offer the biggest jolt for anyone who tries off-grid living for the first time. "Washing clothes takes longer, making food takes longer, everything takes longer, and you have to be ready to live with those shocks safely both physically and mentally," he says. Durham notes that one should also be prepared for all kinds of unexpected obstacles, including "injury, genetic disorders flaring up in later life, natural disaster, hunger, things breaking that you didn't build yourself, animal issues, and on and on." He recommends doing "primitive camping" for an extended period, or taking part in some off-grid living at a monastery or commune before going whole hog.
Still interested? Here are the top and bottom 10 states for an ascetic lifestyle:
Best states
- Iowa
- Texas (No. 1 in "Infrastructure" category)
- Kentucky (No. 1 in "Safety" category)
- Minnesota
- Oklahoma (No. 1 in "Affordability" category)
- Vermont
- Nebraska
- Kansas
- Montana
- South Dakota
Worst states
- Delaware
- Nevada
- New York
- Utah
- Pennsylvania
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- New Jersey (last in "Safety" category)
- Rhode Island (last in "Feasibility," "Infrastructure," and "Affordability" categories)
See where other states ranked
here. (These are America's
most sustainable cities.)
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