We have for just a year and a half lived in the far north (above the 62nd parallel) and before that we moved from a very busy and metropolitan region of Ontario to the remote north of that province and lived there for 2 years. Then we just finished with being completely off-grid for four months and not just off-grid, but also no electricity or water or internet. There was a landline telephone for emergencies.
We have moved closer to a city now, but we're still rural and still in the bush. BUT because there are enough others in the bush too, there is grid electricity, which we now have. I am torn about keeping it. I like having internet access, but I don't like the buzz and humm of the electricity. I also don't like all the appliances we now have because we have it. We were using a dug-in cold box for food and had a gas stove and a woodstove where we were. I didn't like using propane for the stove, and if it were our home, I would have switched to a wood-burning cookstove.
I hatehatehate having pump-house water. So far we've had frozen pipes as often as we've had water for the past couple of weeks since we came and since we didn't have running water for a year and a half previously, I'm finding having it to be a huge hassle. Before we were set up for no plumbing or water and now we're not, and we're also not having the water! We just finally thawed the plumbing after three days of no water and pouring water down the toilet to flush as well as still hauling water, running energy-sucking heaters on the pipes, amongst other inconveniences. (I'll be posting a new thread about this...) I think we're going to close up the plumbing and carry on hauling water as before, and using a sawdust toilet like before too.
Thankfully, we don't yet have animals to water!!!
For us, we couldn't really have started living this way while still in the city- even when we first moved to a remote town of 200 people. We weren't set up for it and so much is learned out of necessity that we couldn't have really understood even when we read about it.
The other thing is that sometimes people find out that they really like the idea of this, but when they face it for real, it isn't what they expected. A friend of mine who started in southern Ontario too and then moved here a few months ago, really thought she would like the small town simplicity of where we used to live. She yearned for it and when they came to visit us, she was astonished by how little was available to us, that we had to travel twice/month for 11 hrs for food and supplies, that we had to do a lot of preserving of foods to make them last for two+ weeks (only!) or make our own foods that just didn't come up that way (plain yogurt, cheeses, etc...)
Then she and her family moved up here thinking they would also move slowly into the bush while learning the skills they'd need. It turns out that her visits to our home have revealed to her that there is no way she could do this. She is not independent-minded in the sense that she is happy to work alone. That's pretty essential out here. She doesn't know how to and is fine with not knowing how to make fun and entertainment that doesn't come ready-made, and the same goes for food (there's just no way she could skin an animal or would wait for vegetables to cook on the stove when the microwave can cook everything). She tried living without a microwave for a month and that was as 'rural' as she could go.
Then she realised that she really wants all of her appliances. Certainly she could have them all and live rurally too, but to live like this, we find that we just don't have time to care for such things when we have other realities afoot.
I also cannot have people over every day out here. It's just too far away for most people to travel frequently, so we have visitors once or twice each month. Presently, we are living on a farm owned by our friends though, so for now, we have built-in visitors
but that is certainly not usual for out here.
We will be building our house beginning this coming spring and it will probably take us two or three years (short summers and lots of kidlets including one coming this summer). We have the enormous gift of living on the farm from which we usually purchase our staples, so we will continue to pay for what eventually we will toil for in the future. My dh works outside of town most of the time, but on the other side of the city we live near, so it's an hour commute at the least, each way and it's a straight highway with only one set of lights. A short trip into town is a minimum of four hours away from home. There's just no way to shave it down.
Maybe you could visit someone who lives the way you wish to. Personally this works for me because it is what I want, and not just an alternative to what I don't want, which is what my friend found out after making the move out here and then living in a suburb of the city, with every convenience and literally sharing a wall with one neighbour and close enough to talk in the window of the other. I suffocate like that. I like acres between homes- like 15 at least, if not more. She likes ten feet.
There is an unending supply of solitude off-grid or in areas like this. It's not less busy, just different busy, and there is a lot more personal responsibility out here. If you like to rely on organisations or governmental programs of any sort, this won't work. If you are a self-starter and love the silence of vast expanses of land, the dirt (because it will be everywhere, even if just as dust in your house), and the idea of using an outhouse doesn't make you cringe (because even if you don't have one, your neighbours might and if you want to be friends with someone, you'll have to use it sometime), and you truly want what it IS rather than how it isn't what you don't like about your life now, then try it out.
I have weaned off of so many things that I am startled when my city friends ask me something about what I've completely forgotten is 'normal', so I cannot give you such a great run-down. A few years ago I was much more aware of how much we had removed from our life, but now it's our 'normal' and it hopefully won't include a water toilet for much longer. I just hate them!
Sorry for the convolutions. After four months of no internet, my dc aren't used to me sitting down at the computer and they are crawling on me while I type and asking me questions, and I'm very distracted.
Try to figure out if *this* is really what you want. I don't completely agree that you'll be yourself the way you are now when you move off-grid or to the bush or wherever. I am myself for sure, but not the way I saw myself or was before doing so. Time, choices, and life do work some changes, I think, at least for me. I have developed an amazingly large amount of patience as a result of not only having littles, but also dealing with the reality that everything takes longer out here.
When we go to town, I find the relatively slow pace of the city to be way too fast for me. Other people vacation there because of its slow and relaxed atmosphere. I am happy to leave when we're done, and find that even just visiting friends there has the same effect because they live at the pace of the city (and love it because they came here to slow down).
There are actual cases of cabin fever out here. We avoid it during the deep freeze by keeping ourselves creative and engaged in our interests alongside our chores. You also MUST have a passion for a hobby or personal/individual creative outlet of some sort out here. Must.
