Off-Grid Ratings for All 50 States + All 3143 Counties
Exploring every county & state in the USA for off-grid / eco-centric living potential
One of the most important factors for living a simple, affordable, and attainable off-grid life is: location.
Where you choose to root your off-grid life is critical to your project’s success.
Our team has put together 55 PDF guides to help others (and us!) analyze every county in the USA for their off-grid living potential. All 50 states (& DC), & then 4 guides for the 200 Best & Worst Counties, all 50 States, & short summaries of all 3143 counties.
Ideal locations for off-grid living are somewhat relative & subjective to your personal goals and living preferences. Some people enjoy a desert setting. Others want a lush green environment. Some people want mountains, & others a coastal environment. Some people have very little funds, and other have plenty of cash. Some factors such as water, zoning, & population density are critical for any off-grid living setup. Other factors like terrain, temperature range, and snowfall are more subjective to preference.
These guides are our best effort to identify & highlight the key elements across all counties in the USA that enable affordable & attainable off-grid living.
You can live a simple life leveraging off-grid & appropriate technology anywhere if you’re determined enough. However, some places certainly make it easier to live this way than others. We’re trying to highlight those places that make it attainable.
We use the following metrics to rate states & counties for helping you find ideal locations for building your off-grid lifestyle:
Population Density
Rainfall Levels
Terrain & Topography
Land Costs
Zoning Freedom
Estimated Tax Burdens
Pollutions Levels
Political Leanings
Soil Types
Min/Max Typical Temperatures
Natural Hazards
We rate states & counties A - F. We also rank individual metrics for states & counties. Every state / county profile has an off-grid rating, a metrics list, a write-up description, and quick-links to the following resources for each individual county:
County / State History + Demographics Wikipedia
Birds Eye View in Google Maps
Land for Sale in LandWatch
Homes for Sale in Zillow
Camping Data in Campendium
Camping Locations in HipCamp
Organic Farming Opportunities in WWOOF
RV Stays in Harvest Hosts
We work to update our off-grid datasets every 6 months to give you current and useful data for your off-grid journey. We’re using these guides for our own journey’s too!
We do charge a small amount for the guides as a great deal of work and research went into their production. Here are links for exploring these “Acorn Off-Grid Guides”:
50 State Off-Grid County Guides:
Note: These guides range from 11 pages for Washington DC to 764 pages for Texas based on how many counties are within a particular state. The number of counties for a state will directly impact how many pages a particular guide is (estimate 2-3 pages of data per county).
We hope these guides are useful for your off-grid journey! We’ll work to update these datasets about every 6 months to keep information current.
- The Acorn Team
Wow, this is an absolutely amazing endevour. If you ever decide to do the same for Europe, I#d be your first subscriber. I'm a Brit, living in Nederland, on the brink of searching France and maybe Spain, for a site to set up an Eco community. Once we have a habitable spot, a side project will be to examine all the complex legal differences between the EU Nations on who can settle where. That it's wide open to all EU citizens is a myth, there is little or no uniformity yet. It's even more complex foe Non-Europeans, with numerous shifting exceptions for Diginomads, and for the wealthy. There are plenty of agencies happy to help, but can be expensive.... and there are some ripoffs for the unwary. I'll be writing about the search soon enough under "The Boulevard" on my Substack https://thiscreativeadventure.com Keep in touch ! Maurice
Wow! What a great resource!