I do love our mobile lifestyle, but it feels great to have a home base. Especially one with lots of room for our stuff, incredible views, and most importantly … unlimited running water and electricity!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for renewable energy and living off grid. But in the search for our perfect piece of paradise, we realized it just didn’t make sense to invest in a suitable solar array somewhere if we weren’t going to live there year-round. We did however consider a a few awesome off-grid properties …

The best of which was this fully self sufficient compound in the Sand Creek area of Northern Colorado. Which is a good thing, considering it is hours from anywhere and inaccessible year-round without a snowmobile.

The funny thing is, we first noticed this property for sale early in our trip during our first pass through Colorado. Returning to the area, we just had to check it out and see why it was still on the market. The realtor explained that everyone thinks it’s too remote. On the two-hour drive back to Fort Collins, via Wyoming, we agreed.

Since we were already way out there in Sand Creek, we decided to check out other properties.

These included a smelly mobile home with an old generator, and ranged from a remote cabin with no trees, no seclusion and no power, to this sprawling geodesic ranch home. It does have a robust power system, and it also has a huge barn, with a SnowCat inside.

Seeing the SnowCat was when we first started thinking twice about Sand Creek.

The craziest decision we almost made, however, was thinking twice about this incredible piece of property in Badger Creek, CO, just east of Salida.

The terrain was amazing, as was the amount of work needed. Our RV solar system is more powerful than the one cobbled together at this place sometime in the 70s.

We considered vacant land too, where we could boondock for a couple months a year. But when we did the math, we realized we would probably end up with only a well and garage, all for the same price as our new comfy digs.

Another funny thing … a vacant piece of land we really loved is just up the hill from where I’m sitting, in my Dad’s recliner . . .  listening to my stereo, with the lights on . . . without a single worry about my solar system batteries.