Buying Land

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Some Eastern AZ counties allow to drop a shipping container to qualify as a dwelling and get official address, there's a youtuber Akela and Linnea who bought land and talks about it. She dropped 100k on that desert parcel so its a few acres, out of sight out of mind.
40 acres, but she says it's in CO? ... someplace where it's deserty and pretty treeless. East side maybe? Has a trout stream near, which is cool.

I've been looking at 40 acre parcels and though that is a nice size, it doesn't put your neighbors (or potential neighbors) that far away. If it's square and you are in the middle you'd be 660ft from the edge. When camping I like to be 2 miles from anyone, and that would be like 10,000 acres (4 miles square)! :ROFLMAO:
 
40 acres, but she says it's in CO? ... someplace where it's deserty and pretty treeless. East side maybe? Has a trout stream near, which is cool.

I've been looking at 40 acre parcels and though that is a nice size, it doesn't put your neighbors (or potential neighbors) that far away. If it's square and you are in the middle you'd be 660ft from the edge. When camping I like to be 2 miles from anyone, and that would be like 10,000 acres (4 miles square)! :ROFLMAO:
The first vid with the shipping container is where she
mentioned permit details and I believe it's Arizona county. Searching through her vids might take time, easier to call several "lax" AZ counties and ask about building container stuff. People live in trailers full time in Eastern AZ.

40 acres is plenty to be away from neighbors.
If you got a million to drop you sure can get big enough parcel to be miles away from neighbors unless you find one in the middle of public or unbuildable lands or just unbuilt parcels for much cheaper.
She doesnt see anyone from her parcel for sure.
Public lands are and will be more and more infested with campers down the road, I doubt it will be possible to camp far away from people in the future, but I'm not old yet so I'm looking into the future, 10-30 years from now. Would not want to experience retirement in a vehicle, things will change with access and crowding. Camping was very different even 10 years ago, another 10 years? Im seeing changes even compared to 2023 where desolate places are getting campers now and other changes. I'm only looking for one more year of camping before I want to settle down
 
Last edited:
One loophole people use in some states is setup a "shop" such as metal shed, to get electric and address. They say its their work shop, but they live in their RV there.
But I would not try to build future around RV dweling on own land in AZ, regulations will likely be tightened in the future and enforcement ramped up as overpopulation increases. Id see which county allows to fullfill building permit requirements with minimal pain, like putting up literal garden shed and finishing it inside if one doesnt want to build a stick built. Or dropping and old single wide on it.
 
Last edited:
She doesnt see anyone from her parcel for sure.
If that is true, it's because no one wants to live there (yet), not because they can't.

Would not want to experience retirement in a vehicle, things will change with access and crowding.
If we are too old to camp and travel in a rig, we are too old to deal with a remote homestead.

I still don't have any trouble camping miles from other campers, but those damn SxS ATVs!!! ...are everywhere now...
 
If we are too old to camp and travel in a rig, we are too old to deal with a remote homestead.

I still don't have any trouble camping miles from other campers, but those damn SxS ATVs!!! ...are everywhere now...
Im not talking about being too old for the chores .
Im talking some peace and privacy in retirement, Im not old and when Im old US public lands will be shut down in parts other parts will be overrun. Id never be foolish to plan my retirement around public land camping
 
If that is true, it's because no one wants to live there (yet), not because they can't.

Well fact is most 40 acres parcels provide plenty of privacy and peace and you dont have to see your neighbors if you get a flattish parcel you can build in the center but that driveway will cost $$.
Especially if theres woodland around. Most of the desert lands will not be developed, also,in forseeable future due to water limitations, so pretty sure this woman will enjoy her peace.
 
Also,regarding being too old for remote homestead versus vehicle dwelling, vehicle stuff is infinitely more stressful and difficult, if homestead is semi remote, got utilities, not like remote roadless Alaska. I've seen people live solo even in their RVs until mid 90s age on the parcels where they didnt have to see any neighbor, and vehicle dwelling - they wouldnt be able to do this. Anyway discussing planning entire retirement around living in a vehicle without backup dwelling plan is just so insane I dunno what to say even. Backup dwelling plan better not depend on the gubimint.
 
Well fact is most 40 acres parcels provide plenty of privacy and peace and you dont have to see your neighbors if you get a flattish parcel you can build in the center but that driveway will cost $$.
No one has a lot of privacy and peace on 40 acres unless it happens to be where no one wants to live. I grew up in the middle of 360 acres, so I know how far that gets you from your neighbors (not very). But it's all relative... the important part is that I can camp in places that are far more quiet and peaceful and convenient and inexpensive than any land I could buy. And I can move with the seasons so the weather is always fine. The main draw for owning land for me would be to have storage and a place to store tools and work on stuff. But I can just rent a storage unit in a town somewhere that might have other advantages, like auto parts and hardware stores near.

Also, remote land is not going to be an "old age solution" for anyone. Anybody who is too weak, sick, or decrepit to live in a rig, will not be able to manage a remote homestead either. I think Bob said his was an hour from a small town! And it snows there and rains, and the dirt roads turn to muck. It's an odd fantasy, IMO.

If old age is making vehicle dwelling unreasonable, then the solution is to live in a town where everything you need is a short walk, and if you can't manage even then, then it's time for the nursing home or something similar.

If somebody is young and strong enough and wants to have a homestead for fun, then that's totally cool!

I watched all Linnea's shipping container videos (I think) and she never said anything about permitting or the county. I did notice that there are other houses around. Camera angles and depth of field are used to obscure them. She also mentioned that there were people driving through her property.

Think about cost, too. If the land was $100k, and she finally hit water at 570 ft on the 3rd try, that was probably over $40k... maybe a lot more.

There are places that can be a lot cheaper to live on, but you will have other tradeoffs.
 
Living in Michigan it's hard to fathom land with no trees that doesn't grow much & water in such short supply. We have plenty of great water @ 67'. I do have a brand new 4" submersible pump for a 1200' well I bought from Grand Rapids where land over the old gypsum mines need deep wells. I used to scuba dive & remember watching a pair divers got into an aquaphor in Florida. They had people tracking them topside going thru houses, coffee shops, etc but the best part is when they swam past a well point.
 
To think of it, I'm overly optimistic to expect public lands to be only partly shut down for camping by the time I reach retirement age. With proposed creation of NACs/Natural Asset Companies, general direction of things and population growth projections I believe all dispersed camping will be closed, except in some designated parking lots, many roads will be closed too. Will be more general national forest closures "to protect from wildfires". And there will be real time monitorjng of land via satellite/AI. Planning for long term fully vehicle based retirement is as crazy as it comes.
 
Top