[cprayingmantis]

I'm from a rural area in the mountains of Appalachia, grew up on a farm, and I just recently moved back with a remote job. I have seen at least 4 families move in from places like Florida, Pacific Northwest, and Pennsylvania, to try and attempt "homesteading", to say it's going poorly for them would be an understatement.

I would absolutely not recommend homesteading or owning a farm to anyone because the operation of homesteading or farming is inherently fragile. That means that all your free energy is going to be put into maintaining that fragile system. Let me give an example: Say you move out to a farm and decide to be "off grid" and for you that means you don't want to hook into a power or water. You dig a well, mount some solar panels and hook it all up your household. Now imagine you have some bad weather for a few days can't get a full recharge on your batteries you slowly loose all your power. Now because you have no power you have no water, then you decide to house potable water in a tank so that you don't lose out. That require some maintenance and plumbing knowledge Not only that you decide to buy a generator so that you have a stand by in the case of emergencies. That generator requires service that you may not know how to do and fuel that you have to go to town for, so once again you're taking more and more time and energy just to survive.

If you want to be a part of a rural community I would recommend buying a place with acreage that can still be connected to the grid; power and water preferably but power as a bare minimum. You can still have solar, you can still spread out and have a bit of freedom and you won't be as fragile. If your place has a field or farmable land I would lease it out cheaply to a local farmer. Leasing the farmable land helps the farmer, gives you a connection to the community, and helps maintain the land's current state.