The 7 Worst Possible States to Live Off-Grid

As a prepper, what is your number one big-ticket prep? Maybe it is an apocalypse-ready RV. Maybe it’s a house packed with food and survival supplies. Maybe it’s a hidden bunker.

For many preppers that I know, the apple of their eye is an off-grid, self-sustaining property. The notion goes that by completely eliminating your dependence on the intricacies and trappings of society, you can insulate yourself and your loved ones against the collapse of society.

In any case, being radically responsible for your own power, water, and way of life does have an appeal all its own.

However, the days of setting out a claim on a pristine and uninhabited property are at an end. The government, at all levels, has draped red tape on everything, and accordingly, some states are a lot better for off-grid living than others.

If you’re thinking of going off-grid, you would be wise to avoid the seven states we’ll talk about below. Keep reading and I will tell you
why.

Determining the Worst States for Living Off-Grid

Ask 10 people where the worst place to make a go of it off-grid is, and you’ll get 10 different answers. Factors that matter to one person might rate very low on the list of concerns for another.

Below I have detailed the things that I used to come up with my list, in no particular order. Also note that there is no hard-and-fast formula for mathematically sorting these states; I considered all of the factors together.

Cost of Living: Some states are infamous for high property taxes, cost of land and other things that will chew into your finances. Off-grid or not, it is money that will makes the world go ‘round and you’ll need plenty of it to even get established on your new homestead.

Resource Availability: A catch-all for the availability of water, suitability for growing crops or raising animals, solar and wind potential and more.

Government Invasiveness: Let’s face it, most of us want to get “out there” to get Big Brother off of our backs. At least as much as we can. Some states simply won’t need that happen.

If you need permission to blow your nose or a permit to put in a car port, that is a big negative for me. Imagine how hard it will be to install off-grid sanitation systems…

Climate and Disasters: Some places will just try to kill you via bad weather and extreme temps. People can, have and still do live and thrive in these places, but it makes life a lot harder than it needs to be.

If constant, destructive disasters, scorching highs or blistering lows are just a fact of life, you should think twice before you live there.

With all that in mind, on to the list!

California

Cali is at the top of the list for most freedom-loving folks… And, frankly, it’s just about as bad as it can get for the average prepper that wants to go off-grid: it’s a grab bag of terrible attributes like extremely expensive property, sky-high taxes, ever-increasing cost of living, and a crime rate that is through the roof.

And make no mistake: crime is spiraling out of control in California because many law enforcement agencies at the city and county level have just stopped reporting property and violent crime. The situation is dire and getting worse all the time.

Like Nevada just below, California routinely undergoes years-long drought conditions and suffers terribly from water shortages throughout the state.

Mismanagement of forests and infrastructure has greatly increased the wildfire risk, and the state’s enviro-protectionist policies border on ecoterrorism in regards to harvesting rainwater, making use of groundwater sources, or using “polluting” resources.

More than almost any other in the U.S., California has turned itself into a kleptocracy and a failed state. Citizens are jumping ship like fleas off of a dipped dog, and that should be your clue that you don’t want to settle down there, even if you plan on going off-grid.

Nevada

Nevada is a state of contrast when it comes to living off-grid, and upon initial appraisal, it looks really appealing. Regrettably, the downsides are markedly bigger than the upsides for folks who want to cut the cord and go off-grid.

But let’s look at the good before we check out the bad… Like Alaska, Nevada is relatively sparsely populated, and the population density plummets outside of the major settlements like Reno and Las Vegas.

You’ll have plenty of room to stretch your legs, and most property is both cheap and taxed at a low rate. Definitely good stuff!

Nevada is also one of the best states in the union when it comes to solar potential, meaning that supplying the entirety of your electricity while living off-grid is more viable here than in most other places.

But even if you do get your own picture-perfect patch of property in rural Nevada, it’s going to be really difficult to enjoy it.

This is because the state is historically dry and dusty, and compounding limited rainfall with greatly limited groundwater, water rights are sharply curtailed by the state. It has only been in the past few years that the state government has slackened its grip over rainwater collection even slightly.

This means that keeping enough water on hand to sustain your family through thick and thin, to say nothing of taking care of your crops or raising animals, is going to be prohibitively expensive, and that cost will skyrocket the farther away you get from established water infrastructure.

And don’t think you’ll just spend the money upfront to drill a well as deep as you need, either: well drilling is another sharply regulated activity in Nevada.

Water is critical for life in all its forms, and it remains elusive in Nevada. Pass.

Hawaii

If we’re being honest, I know that most of us imagine living off-grid in a place that borders on badlands: if we have to go as far out as we have to, and live in places that other people wouldn’t consider living, so be it.

Truly, then, the idea of living off-grid in a genuine paradise like Hawaii must be tantalizing!

And it is. More than a few folks have tried. Unfortunately, if you want to retreat to a gorgeous tropical island and wait for society to implode you’ll have to take your chances elsewhere. Hawaii just isn’t going to work.

For starters, remind yourself that you are living on an active chain of volcanoes, volcanoes which will periodically erupt with disastrous results.

And again, like
Alaska mentioned above, the sheer remoteness of Hawaii makes reliable access to needed goods during times of trouble anything but certain.

The climate is really nice when you just want to hang out on the beach all day, but it makes it really hard to do anything else because of the crushing heat and oppressive humidity. The state also gets tons of rain, too much for many kinds of fruits and veggies!

But worst of all, if you want to retreat to Hawaii, you’ll actually be going from the frying pan and into the fire when it comes to government overreach: the state is rightly infamous for high taxes, ironclad zoning laws, property use clauses, and tyrannical city councils and committees.

You need not think you can set up a micro-homestead on an acre of land and call it good.

And despite being surrounded by water, off-grid access to freshwater is going to be limited to rainfall for the most part unless you are getting the desalinated water from the city.

All in all, it’s way too expensive, too risky, and too bureaucratic. Nice to visit, but don’t go off-grid there.

New York

Folks who have never been to New York associate it with expensive property, corruption, crime, and bureaucracy.

Folks who have actually lived in the state know that the whole state is not the same as New York City. But folks who have lived in the state for any length of time know that ultimately it is synonymous with expensive property, corruption, crime, and bureaucracy.

New York is really pretty sad when it comes to living off-grid. On one hand, there’s lots of rich and easily farmable land in the north and northwestern parts of the state, the farther away you get from the major cities.

It’s a really beautiful part of the country; it’s pretty enough to entice some preppers to at least give it a go.

Unfortunately, the whole state labors under some of the most oppressive and restrictive land use and zoning laws in the nation.

New York is rightly infamous for the difficulty of securing permits for all sorts of things, and you can just forget about trying to get zoning on your property changed if you don’t have political connections.

Perhaps worse, New York winters can be formidable, and that’s before you take into account the periodic nor’easters and even hurricanes that can occasionally pummel the state.

The cloudy, gloomy New England climate will also put a major damper on your efforts to generate sufficient electricity using solar power alone. Wind might be a better option, but that has problems of its own.

You’ll be making things a lot harder on yourself than they have to be if you have your heart set on settling in New York…

New Jersey

If you are assessing New Jersey strictly based on its climate, biodiversity, and topography, there is a lot to like…

Winters aren’t too bad and summers aren’t too hot, though they are a little humid. New Jersey is also famed for its rich, black soil in many places, something that is bound to be attractive to gardeners and farmers.

Nice perks to be sure, but they are spoiled both literally and figuratively. Of most concern is that New Jersey regrettably suffers from some of the most contaminated groundwater in the US, with that contamination stemming from man-made spillage and runoff, and also natural but no less dangerous sources.

You might be able to install a well, but your aquifer might be tainted and necessitate expensive treatment assuming it is possible at all.

The population density of New Jersey means that places where you can stretch your legs and get away from larger settlements are going to be few and far between…

Even if you find a suitable parcel that you like, you won’t be able to escape the high cost of living, extortionary taxes, and corruption that has taken root in most sectors of the government at all levels.

Another thing to consider is that New Jersey gets the worst of both worlds when it comes to disasters: it will be pummeled by hurricanes or frozen by blizzards and other winter storms at turns.

It’s not quite as bureaucratic as New York, but only just. Whether you love New Jersey or hate it, it is a poor choice for living off-grid.

Maryland

Living in Maryland can be a lot like living in a postcard, or maybe a Hallmark movie: outside of the major metro zones like Baltimore, there are tons of adorable, picturesque, sleepy towns.

People are generally friendly and neighborly, and the whole state has an air about it like it is still partially in the distant past.

That can certainly be appealing enough on its own merit, but for living off-grid Maryland is pretty terrible. For most of the state, the distressingly high cost of living, highest tax rates, and most expensive real estate in the country are severe deterrents.

The population density is also quite high, the fifth most densely populated in the nation. Simply enough, there really is no remote, rural place you can go to find affordable property, much less put significant distance between you and other major population centers.

Maryland is also something of a bedroom community for Washington, DC, and is essentially surrounded by other states with nearby massive cities. This has slanted the state towards invasive government policies and laws, making it a poor choice for going off-grid.

Alaska

This is bound to upset a few folks, but I’m standing by it. Alaska has a great reputation in certain prepping circles because it is seen as something of a last frontier, at least in the US.

A place that is so remote, so hostile, and so sparsely populated that the ever-invasive tentacles of government just don’t have the iron grip that they do elsewhere.

To a degree, this is true. If you head out into the interior, or the more remote coastal regions, there won’t be anyone around to bother you. But I mean there won’t be anyone around, government or citizen!

It has a romantic appeal, but make no mistake that living off-grid in Alaska is quite literally taking your existence into your own hands. Except for the most southern parts of the state, it’s extremely difficult to grow food. Part of this is due to the climate, and the other part is due to the sheer ruggedness and rockiness of the geography.

Groundwater sources are frozen for much of the year or even perpetually, further complicating agriculture and the provisioning of drinking water.

It’s also difficult to overstate just how difficult getting supplies and goods can be much of the time.

Many communities and villages, such as they are, are reachable only by plane or dog sled. What you do have access to will be more expensive owing to the complexity and cost of getting goods up to the state intact.

Not for nothing, if you are isolated and don’t have rock-solid relationships with people living nearby, there won’t be anyone coming to look for you or save you.

For that reason, I recommend most preppers forget about Alaska entirely for off-grid living. It’s just too hard and too risky.