Do you want true freedom?

With the many restrictions imposed by modern life, especially in busy cities, it may take moving out into the wilderness in order to find true peace of mind.

Getting there is the hard part, as most of us are completely intertwined with life on the grid – connected to friends, family and employment and dependent on the food, energy and services made available.

It’s worth keeping mind that all these busy, on-grid problems, while important at the time, are ultimately unimportant.

It is all an illusion. And this man once again proves it by cutting all ties with his former life in the city, and cutting free, away from debt, away from codes and regulations and into the desolation of West Texas.

“Everything is so simple here. I was busting my ass seven days a week just to pay all the bills for all the stuff I had. Now it’s paired down to one room; got a huge yard with all this land; you can’t see another house from my property, which is a big plus. There’s no – well, there’s very little stress out here. The only time I get stressed out here is when there’s a big storm, because the storms are scary out here in the desert.”

Though there is plenty of beauty in this huge Western expanse, but there is little in the way of resources for growing food, establishing water or building shelter, among other comforts. Stores and even cell service is often quite sparse.

But the cheap land and the very real sense of being left alone by various petty authorities does offer something that is hard to come by.

For pennies on the dollar, he built his own tiny home, off-grid solar and water systems, and other necessities to get by… and actually be free.

Check it out:

According to Kirsten Dirksen on YouTube:

Seven years ago John Wells sold his heavily-mortgaged home in upstate New York and bought 40 acres in West Texas for $8000. The area (Brewster County) is so isolated there are no codes or zoning restrictions so Wells built his own tiny home (in 9 days with $1600) relying on his set-building experience.

Not wanting to rely on outside labor, Wells has continued to build his own services: a solar shower, a basic composting toilet, a bike-powered washing machine, an Airstream guest house, and a huge greenhouse which also houses 4 shipping containers he hopes to convert to housing/office space.

Wells named his homestead (now 40 acres, he bought a second 20 acres for $500) the Field Lab (short for “Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory”) and he likes to experiment with off-grid solutions: one of his latest is a more-powerful solar oven.