Reminds me of the movie I saw this weekend with the homeless guy who said he used to be a software developer at Apple, but there were some "disciplinary issues."
Are you open to the other tasks this life requires or are you just looking for western comfort but in a place far from whatever you have now?
Living out here means dealing with real problems because there is no infrastructure. You need to know how to survive if that solar panels break and you need 2 weeks to get a new ones. What happens if the food delivery couldn't make it for one extra week because the one guy who flies that out is sick. Can you handle illness without medicine or a doctor for a few days. etc..
The people shown in this article live very differently then the starlink solar van campers who work in tech and glamp out in the Sierra Nevda on Saturday night.
I think a lot of people want the feeling of being in that sort of space without any of the hard parts. I personally would settle for being a few miles from the nearest person (maybe ten), a well-fenced-off property with a safe well, a good electric fence around it all, some weapons to protect myself, a couple of dogs, a handful of kittens, a place to store food, a good connection to the net (not starlink; I would settle for something a bit slower and terrestrial), some farm animals which procreate reasonably fast, and a decent diesel truck.
Yeah all of that plus a wife. I want to be relatively alone not solitary. I have that setup right now. About 30 minutes from a major city, 30 acres, remote work and my wife and kid. Kid goes to a good school, we go out to nice dinners on the weekend, I make tech big bucks but it’s a farm life other than that.
I grew up in post-USSR state and living in those conditions was part of my childhood. I understand the limitations. I'm just tired of city life and all property has been sold by my parents. I would be okay living 50 miles away from a major city like a lot of folks do here in Texas. My initial comment was perhaps a little ambitious, but I'm not a hermit. The issue is, living out in the country is probably more expensive than my current situation.
Take a 2 week long vacation deep somewhere doing just this, you will appreciate it but more than likely come to realize it is not something you would prefer long term. If you can find a middle ground, to me that’s the dream.
I thought that was plenty of human interaction (I'm somewhat extroverted) until we had a friend come over and chat with us outside on the porch.
I couldn't believe how, for lack of a better word, "refreshing" it felt. It was an excellent reminder that we are largely social creatures who also need some variety in the social circles we interact with.
I was an introvert to the point where I started getting my hair cut at a place that plays movies, just to avoid awkward conversation with my hairdresser. Post-pandemic, I love talking to barbers and cab drivers, even if they have crazy ideas about the world. I wasn’t even socially starved, but just that limited period of socialization made me hungry for human interaction.
I think it looks romantic from the perspective of someone in a major metro area. But long term, that sort of lifestyle is only for the people who can really endure that. After a while I think most would not want that remoteness.
Patagonia as it’s referred to today was never unpopulated, it still has an indigenous population. This narrative is used everywhere for vast untamed wilderness that just ignores the many people still living there.
I'm certainly willing to be corrected, but as far as I can tell from some brief searching, indigenous populations that exist in the region today aren't living some nomadic life out in the wilderness either. They're living in cities and towns like almost everyone else does.
So a post like this is still correct in how it's presented.
Almost no one is actually living out at "the end of the world" in the wilderness with few or no other people around, and it is potentially a topic of interest/curiosity to hear about those who do.
Incredible photos. First thing that came to my mind was an awareness of the contrast between "the full breadth of humanity experience" vs "Silicon Valley's view of humanity". I don't know if that makes sense, but it's literally the first thing that came to my mind.
Good article about living at a remote estancia at the bottom of Argentina, January 1971, 'The Housewife at the End of the World'. Not too much has changed since then.
I was just looking up lightkeeper positions in my province. Unfortunately no openings right now. But it would be an interesting job for an introvert like myself.
Not to imply real knowledge of lightkeeping - but that sounds far less precarious, dispossessing, onerous, and dangerous than being one of the Puesteros.
AFAIK no - you need basic first aid, a radio operator license, and other things like that. But I actually haven't looked at it that seriously since there aren't any openings right now.
Today, with a modern vehicle, it is 1.5 hours from the nearest 'town' and 2 from the county seat, which has 2000 people.
I can't imagine how remote that must have been in 1900. What the seasons must have looked like going by, and how far the rest of the world must have felt.
I recently spent some time out that way staying at the Hart Mountain Refuge and visited the place where Oregon, California and Nevada meet just south of nearby Adel. I was fascinated about how remote everything is even in a modern vehicle.
I couldn't imagine traveling that area by foot or horse. Eastern Oregon is a fascinating and beautiful place. I wrote a bit about it on my blog.
Good writing and a fun trip to some really remote places. Hit me up if you're ever in Bend, happy to get a beer and chat about some of those places.
Did you see the pictographs at Hart Mountain? That's actually one bit of Oregon that I have never had the time to explore.
Have you been to Steens? That whole area is super interesting too. Besides the natural features of the mountain itself, and Alvord desert on the other side, the history of Pete French is like something out of a western. More recently, the Riddle Brothers ranch that they have preserved is worth a stop.
If you like these photos you should check out the paintings by artist Randy Wheeler. Like this photographer Randy embedded himself there and painted landscapes and portraits of guachos and Puesteros. https://www.realcowboyart.com/painting-category/patagonia/
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 43.9 ms ] threadLiving out here means dealing with real problems because there is no infrastructure. You need to know how to survive if that solar panels break and you need 2 weeks to get a new ones. What happens if the food delivery couldn't make it for one extra week because the one guy who flies that out is sick. Can you handle illness without medicine or a doctor for a few days. etc..
The people shown in this article live very differently then the starlink solar van campers who work in tech and glamp out in the Sierra Nevda on Saturday night.
- my wife
- au pair
- 3 kids (all under 5)
- dog
I thought that was plenty of human interaction (I'm somewhat extroverted) until we had a friend come over and chat with us outside on the porch.
I couldn't believe how, for lack of a better word, "refreshing" it felt. It was an excellent reminder that we are largely social creatures who also need some variety in the social circles we interact with.
So a post like this is still correct in how it's presented.
Almost no one is actually living out at "the end of the world" in the wilderness with few or no other people around, and it is potentially a topic of interest/curiosity to hear about those who do.
https://archive.org/details/edg-ng-1961/edg%20NG%201971-01%2...
does not work for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_L._Shirk_Ranch
Today, with a modern vehicle, it is 1.5 hours from the nearest 'town' and 2 from the county seat, which has 2000 people.
I can't imagine how remote that must have been in 1900. What the seasons must have looked like going by, and how far the rest of the world must have felt.
I couldn't imagine traveling that area by foot or horse. Eastern Oregon is a fascinating and beautiful place. I wrote a bit about it on my blog.
https://object.computer/2026/07/15/summer-slows-and-trips-do...
Did you see the pictographs at Hart Mountain? That's actually one bit of Oregon that I have never had the time to explore.
Have you been to Steens? That whole area is super interesting too. Besides the natural features of the mountain itself, and Alvord desert on the other side, the history of Pete French is like something out of a western. More recently, the Riddle Brothers ranch that they have preserved is worth a stop.
This reminded me of a song about the related job of arriero, aptly titled "El arriero", which includes these lyrics:
"Las penas y las vaquitas se van por la misma senda. Las penas son de nosotros, las vaquitas son ajenas"
Which (loosing the musicality) can be translated as:
"The sorrows and the cows go down the same road. The sorrows belong to us, the cows do not"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46462420