Near Albi, Tarn, France, (1h from) Toulouse. Working remotely as a SWE. Balancing between two extremes, growing veggies and coding. Had to install a 4g antennas works like a charm. Countryside in France is cheap, not to remote (5min from bakery, market, college), 15min from coworking Space (once a week to see friends), friendly neighbors, living my dream. Move here 2 years ago with my wife and new born. We made friends, bought a farm with 2ha. My quality of life is amazing. Please ama if inspired or investigating France !
Also French, did the same thing (albeit in the Alps rather than the south :) after being very burned out living in a tiny San Francisco apartment during Covid, post LTR breakup.
Huge boost for my mental health - I can go for beautiful walks anytime I want, the local village has a huge sense of community, I've been spending more time with my family (which I'd neglected while building my career abroad over the last 15 years), the food is so tasty and all local, I'm very close (~30 min drive) to mid sized cities, and my cost of living necessities is not even 1k euro a month...
The one downside is that dating is pretty close to impossible. Pretty much anyone over the age of 25 has kids, and it's not in tiny mountain villages that you'll find people who are into the same kind of nerdy multicultural things that you are. (the postwoman is pretty cute but huh that seems like a bad idea). I've been back in the bay area for work since, but turns out "I spend most of my time on a farm in rural Europe" is a turnoff for city people, YMMV.
So definitely do it after you're partnered, if that matters to you.
Thanks for sharing this. Ive been living in a tiny 350 sqft apartment in palo alto for the entire pandemic alone after a long term relationship (15 years). I think i need this kind of change. $1k euro sounds nice. With my car lease and food prices I am burning 3.5k per month on top of rent. I just work for myself on a computer. I don’t have an EU passport but surely I could find somewhere similar in north america
I have to agree with this statement. Born and raised in the bay area and unless you are contractually required, there are far better places to live than the valley. Find a place that you enjoy and travel in for meetings. You'll save a ton of money and bypass the majority of forgettable distractions that lure you in. Austin blew up during the pandemic, but I hear good things about Columbus and Louisville. Now is the best time to find your work/life balance in the back of beyond.
I’ve been here in Columbus since 2008 and it is nice place to raise a family. It’s a nice cost of living and us plenty to do. I’m on 5 acres just 20 minutes outside of the city. It’s a wonderful environment where I WFH from an RV that I purchased in 2014 that was sitting idle outside of my house pretty much all year. I got into adult ice hockey in 2015 which supplements some competitive activity as well as cardio. I am afraid that with the new chip plant that Intel is dropping here that cost of living will be driven up. I’m sure there will be many more things to do as this place fills out even more. There are plenty of corn fields that are being developed into housing, retail shopping and commercial distribution centers.
TBH if you cannot or don’t want to live on the east or west coast in the US, should you stay in the US? as a european i have asked myself this question many times. anywhere else in the US and you do not have the locality/availability of services as it exists in europe.
Yes, that's one thing that surprised me, as someone who mostly grew up in a large french city and then left the country altogether during my university years - I had this image of the more rural areas as being completely dead - but like you say, tons of young local associations doing awesome things and cultural life going on.
I'm surprised that most of my neighbors in my 1800 people village are relatively young (30s/40s) with kids, again I had this image that it would only be old farmers.
When have you last been to France? It's the exact opposite, cost of living is higher than in Germany. Almost anything is more expensive, including groceries. Not that it's a huge difference but just saying. I like France but moving there for the cost of living makes no sense when you come from Germany.
Where are you getting a fixation on groceries from a comment that talks about "almost anything" being more expensive? Real estate is more expensive in France too, it's actually among the most expensive in Europe.
Sure, if it were cheaper then less of your money would go towards your mortgage. And if wages in France were cheaper than in Germany upkeep and repairs would be cheaper. And if English were their national language, you'd not have to learn French. None of that is true of course but if it were we could rave about it on HN.
Think they meant “building codes” as in “what are you legally allowed to build on your own land”. Laws governing structures and how they are constructed.
I would also like to chat, but I don't see your email in your profile. I'm writing regularly about returning to humanity (example: https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/the-need-for-new-commu...). Could you send me an email: daosalon /a--t/ protonmail so we can talk?
go to a big city in france and walk around the wrong neighbourhood and experience the crime problems that have started to plague major european cities over the past 20 years.
We bought an old farm in the east of Bretagne. I'm mostly into growing trees. What kind of farming equipment do you own for 2ha ? It's too big for growing anything by hand, but not that much for a big tractor
Vegetable garden is on 300m2. Fruit trees on 500m2 currently expanding it to another 500m2 and planning to add chicken, dwarf goat and geese. 1.3ha is a meadow mown by a farmer to make hay bales, in exchange for 2 bales. My plan is to slowly expand on the meadow to make guest houses (for tourism and yoga retreats for my wife)n fruit trees and animals. Rest of land is composed of buildings (main house, guest house, yoga studio, and other dependencies) and garden.
I am not a farmer, and I don't enjoy spending my time cutting grass, that's why I am planning on adding small animals as they eat grass all day. I am trying to minimize the "human" part of the land, so I am using basic thermic tools (mower, brush cutter...) to cut grass and trees.
At least in the US, you can still find "vintage" tractors like the Ford 8N or an old Allis Chalmers or Farm-All, which were sized for much smaller fields.
They're simple enough machines and you can still find parts for them; if you want to add machining to your skillset, you can also find the manuals that tell you how to machine new parts yourself.
I studied at a school outside of Rennes. I always enjoyed going for walks in the countryside. I remember one day walking on a gravel road and hearing a loud engine and then seeing a 1969ish Ford Mustang crest a hill. It reminded me of home (America).
> Please ama if inspired or investigating France !
I'm inspired, and I'd love to hear more. I'm curious about the prices: I spent a while just now looking up real estate and saw land ranging from 3,000eur (in accessible, no road) to 80,000eur (inaccessible, no road, but near a village) for about the same area, a hectare or so, in the east near the Alps. I don't know enough about France to know if I was looking in a particularly representative area: for interest, my goal would be to live in a stone house (maybe one I built myself) in deeply mid-European forest (oaks, etc) near hilled mixed forest/farmland or near forested mountains.
I'm looking at Estonia for the same reason (plus I live there already.) Few hills and no mountains, and a long winter, but it is a very forested country, and very high-tech.
Regarding Estonia prices are raising very fast (20%+ inflation), the weather is quite cold, people speak very well English in the cities, but if you plan to live in the country-side it's not that great. There is significant risk of geopolitical instability and conflicts in the society (last month lot of people were concerned). Also in the relative short-term, government plans to raise taxes (in particular land taxes) so I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a plan to settle for the next 10 years. You can look at country-side France (cities are generally horrible though but deep country-side is great to live), Switzerland or Slovenia.
Make sure you’re making a lot of money before moving to Switzerland (very high cost of living) and forget about buying property.
Make sure you’re making very little money before moving to Slovenia (very high taxes although you can avoid most of them by earning less than 100k EUR)
Really depends one the area and type of land (legally buildable, water, quality of soil, sun exposition, view, …). Bought my farm for 300k€ (multiple all stone buildings, 250m2 livable without renovation, 300m2 non livable, 2ha land). 1 hour from Toulouse (not remote). Same thing more remote you can find for half the price (Cantal, Puy de Dome, Corrèze, Ariège).
Tarn looks like a magical part of the world! Definitely plan to visit for about a month once 5g or other solid internet option is available at the Airbnb we end up at.
I’m also very interested in France in the next few years, and the wife and I have talked about it. Thing is, I’m American and she’s Chinese. We might have enough money to buy a place in the near future but actually being able to live there is another problem.
That said, I’m software and she’s finance so we might be able to find something
Mid Spain or the Pyrenees area have amazing spots, just to name two regions, and it is really easy to get a residence permit if you invest in a property.
Is this the golden visa program you are referring to? Do you know if you need to live there full time if you are granted the residence permit or would you be allowed to split your time between there and elsewhere? Also might you know if eventually that residence permit is convertible to permanent residency?
> - What prompted you to make that switch to rural developer?
My wife's parents live in the countryside. Coming from an urban place, I enjoyed being surrounded by nature. Best thing for me is coding under a tree, listening to birds.
It's my life journey, I was't happy in cities. I just found my balance in that way but it took us time to find the right place (not to remote, not to expansive, not to "old", etc...).
- Are you an expat or French? If an expat, what was your pre-France life like?
French.
- What is cost of living like, and how does that compare with your salary?
It is really subjective but I feel like living in abundance. Earning 50k€/yr after all taxes (working 30 hours a week, 10 weeks OFF). I bought the farm for 300k€. Standard houses (100m2 with 1000m2 garden) are loaned for 600€/month around here.
- Does/did your salary get affected by your remote location?
I have always worked remotely so no change at all.
> Earning 50k€/yr after all taxes (working 30 hours a week, 10 weeks OFF)
Wow, that's insanely good!
Can I ask how to find such a great job? I live in Austria and make 50k€/yr BEFORE taxes, 40h/week, 5 weeks off, significantly worse off than you, but that seems to be the norm in this country.
It is basically a not ending freelance contract (front end dev). I initially started this gig at 250€ a day (8hours), then 3 years and a half later after making myself non dispensable (investing myself genuinely in the product/ company) I rose my rate each year without asking permission to end at 500€ currently. In the same time my days went from 8hours to 6hours, as my productivity increased. I just love what I do and am good at it. BI Company of 10 people, 10 years old. I found it on malt.com (good French job board).
This all sounds insanely good to me but it doesn't match what I heard from other French devs who emigrated, about the situation in the tech scene in France.
You're basically making six figure salary for much less work than 40h/week, and at a small company while WFH to boot. Unreal. :)
It can't be generically that bad. What field are you working in?
Almost 15 years ago I came to Vienna as a sysadmin with 5-10 years of experience for a ~2.5-3kE net monthly salary. I left the country after a few years and around 2017 I came back for over 100kE still for sysadmin/Citrix/automation work (this included the usual 13th salary). Was it just my luck?
It's still fine as it is a semi-continental climate. Raining a lot in winter, summer pretty dry and hot (95 °F / 35°C). I have got a 8m3 of buried water tank, planning to build a 10m3 more (by a pro) and a well that dries up in summer + water from public network (of course).
Vegetable garden is on 300m2. Fruit trees on 500m2 expanding it to another 500m2 and planning to add chicken, dwarf goat and geese. 1.3ha is mown by a farmer to make hay bales, in exchange for 2 bales. Rest is buildings (main house, guest house, yoga studio, dependencies) and garden.
British "Ben Fogle New Lives in the Wild" and Dutch "Floortje naar het einde van de wereld" are over 100 documentairies on this theme. A few of them where programmers who quit their jobs and started a small homestead farm or go to the wilderness and hunt. The majority are young families going for sustainable living.
Another large group buys rural houses, fixes them up and rents them out as B&B rooms. They also have their own documentairies.
The latest group are youtubers who document their move into the country.
The lessons from these examples are that almost no one could earn a living from the farming. They all had problems with local laws. They all have unfixable infrastructure problems, especially for remote working c.q. programming jobs.
Many had to break off when they became sick or went bankrupt. Its is very hard, so I started a business to help make the transition.
I am trying to make a business combining the two extremes. I sell rural or remote wilderness land with a high-tech solar off grid tiny house with very good internet for around $50.000. At any moment I have around 10 suitable plots of land on offer. The best are in nature reserves, the largest 100 acres.
It takes on average 24 months or more to find land, get permits, build the road, water, electricity and internet infrastructure and move the mobile tiny house onto the land. Spain, Portugal and Arizona mostly.
This is for programmers and other remote workers, retirees or people who can't afford a house in the city.
Since Covid there has been an large increase in people moving to remote rural locations. Most of them homestead, some take on the #vanlife.
A new trend will be permanent living in a mobile house, RV, bus, truck while working remotely. This only becomes affordable with Starlink and an electrical truck completely plated with solar panels. Water is purified onboard.
I expect the trend of going rural or mobile to increase even more in the next 10 years. I'm looking for cofounders to accommodate this increase in my business niche.
Asimov and Larry Niven wrote some science fiction stories before 1970 on this theme. When Star Trek transporters become possible, you could go live remotely on or inside a mountain or another planet.
Chris Stewart's "Driving Over Lemons" is a nice book describing the move into the country.
Do you offer such service for people who live in third world countries too?
We are a couple, we live in Africa and want to move to Europe for a better quality of life but we don't want to live in the city. 50k is a bit hard to collect but we can manage if such a service would work for non-americans.
Yes we do, but it ususally will require more work to accommodate your specific situation. You might need to help us with that work to keep cost down.
I'm brainstorming now: Maybe you could keep your African house or land for a few years and swap with one of our rural land owners in Europe? I know a few who dream of living in Africa. Or we find enough tourists to rent your African place.
We probably could get you permanent visa's if you would legally be on the payroll of our coop (but maybe also keep your current jobs). Depending on your nationality, you need different visas. After a few years in Europe you would become citizens and would no longer need visa's.
I am sure we could work out a way that would not cost you $50K, maybe you could work for it and rent. We have helped African students to emigrate. Yes, I'm sure there are ways to make it work for you, send me an email and we'll make a plan.
Still building the complicated website (maps and video and calculators), so its not yet online.
I currently send out a spreadsheet brochure every week with new rural lands and tiny or mobile house and van conversion options to choose from.
I do virtual tours around the nature reserve or farm lands online, augmented by Google Earth and Streetview tours with video conference sessions. I shoot video tours and photo galleries of the available lands and houses.
Most of the time its more like a coaching session, explaining how to get a visa, how to find reliable remote programming jobs, how to get a loan. Explaining why its very hard to make the transition without my professional help.
Some want to buy a turnkey house, land and infrastructure. This is possible but moving to a rural existence is much more involved than these customers think. A sales website would not convey this, this is why I prefer online tours and discussions.
morphle at ziggo dot nl to request my brochures or book a personal tour.
I'm looking for cofounders and sales people (on commission).
Sent you an email. Would love to chat. This is something high on my interest list, and I’ve been thinking on how to make this easier for US expats to learn about and accomplish. There are a lot of blog posts and discussions about this, but making it turnkey would be great.
Right now I have offerings in Spain, Portugal, Arizona, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Kroatia, Norway, Finland.
For Americans I can offer a permanent visa for Europe as well, this is why the main focus is on Spain and Portugal.
I constantly search around the world, but most lands do not qualify because of local political rules.
My best is a 100 acre(!) forest on the slope of a mountain. I have several mountain plots with a whitewater river flowing all year. Land plots with an entire forest or lake.
I tried to offer land in Kazachstan, Ukrain, Bangladesh, India, Argentina, Costa Rica, Australia and the Amazon rainforest but either foreigners are not allowed to own land or it is without Starlink or fiber backbones where not available or the country is involved in a war.
Above $50K (including the land, mobile house and infrastructure) I have a lot more offerings worldwide. Islands in Belize or very remote pacific islands, but you need a boat so its more than $50K. Desert locations, but you must have 4WD and only have two satelite or radio 100mbps connections and need multiple batteries, no fiber. Medical facilities only by plane or helicopter.
The 50k is just the plot of land, or comes with a (decently) build cabin? I’ve actually been looking (in my spare time, not very seriously) into owning something in either Finland or Norway. I’m a EU citizen, so visa is not a requirement.
I’m not that interested in off-grid, but I am in a nice plot of land with nature, a decent home on it (as sustainable as possible) that I can use for a few months/year.
$50K is for a complete turnkey package: a custom house build, the land, legal fees for permits, the infrastructure (you would need a lot of extra solar panels, heat storage, batteries, water and sewer purification in Finland and Norway especially near the artic) and to be able work remotely you need more than a Starlink satellite dish. You probably need at least one electric car as well. It all depends on the location of the land. Your picking the most expensive northern place in terms of cost of living, land prices alone are much higher here. You might need to build a road. Renting out the place for most of the year might cover your cost, but I guess $50K is not a lot in this part of Europe.
I have a friend who moved on some land near Holbrook, Arizona and it is challenging from what he says.
No electricity, has to truck in water, nearest paved road is 45 minutes, closest big box store (Costco) is in Phoenix, dirt roads flood when it rains and he has to camp out in the post office parking lot when it snows so he doesn’t get stuck trying to go work.
I stopped overnight in Holbrook on my way through to Phoenix in January, they were supposed to get an inch or so of snow overnight, and the locals kept advising me to wait until the snow clears before resuming my trip. I was tickled because I'm from the rural midwest where 2 inches of fresh snow was a best case scenario growing up. Holbrook gets about 5 inches of snow a year whereas my native county would get 42 inches (the US average is a little under 30).
If Holbrook is getting snow then Flagstaff is probably getting hammered which is most likely what they were concerned about. I’ve been through Flagstaff a few times when they really should have shut down the roads but didn’t for who knows why, it’s not like Arizonans are known for their bad weather driving skills. They actually have a “Stupid Motorist Law” for people who drive through flooded roads and have to be rescued because it happens so often.
Two times I have almost and even started to drive through a flooded road in the east coast. During Hurricane Sandy aftermath and another time. Luckily both times my immense worry of social embarrassment saved me from possibly getting stuck. A “Stupid Motorist Law” sounds good. I don’t know the first thing about cars, I shouldn’t be driving through flooded roads to save 30 min.
I live in snow country too, and I think this advice isn't really about your ability to handle the snow. It's that they don't get snow often enough to know how to drive on snow. Then there's all the out-of-towners that drive faster than 60km/h when it's puking snow.
They also don't have rescue equipment like the midwest. We have scalable plow trucks which work for medium rescue and even special large tracked vehicles for deep snow efforts.
For Americans, how much does it cost to get permanent residency? To my understanding, it's $500k for a golden visa from Spain, which is too rich for my blood.
An American can get a permanent working visa in the EU (most of Europe) by starting a company and having $4500 sitting idle in a bank account. You still own this $4500 and can spend it after a few years. In essence the Dutch government wants you to reserve the money for a airplane ticket and the move back to the US. Without this money you look like an economic refugee and they won't give you your visa.
So I have set up a few companies (a Coop, a non-profit and C-Corp, LTD, B.V.) in the Netherlands just for this purpose.
You register yourself as a cofounder/owner of this company (free) and put $4500 in the company bank account. You now qualify for a working visa and can start roaming all over the EU.
I'm a little vague here, because I want to sell you all the advice and legal work to set all this up for $1000. You first get advice from all the other Americans I helped emigrate to Europe over the years. morphle at ziggo dot nl
Without my help it will cost you a few months, three visits to the Netherlands, setting up a company from scratch and hiring a notary, a lawyer and an expat fiscal tax lawyer for at least $19.000 all together.
>"An American can get a permanent working visa in the EU (most of Europe) by starting a company and having $4500 sitting idle in a bank account."
Are you referring to DAFT? Isn't this only for NL though? Also don't you actually have to show that one of your companies is making money or they won't renew your visa after a year or so?
Yes. Under DAFT you only get a NL visum, but you then can live and work anywhere in the EU. No, you need to show you invest in your company (or have a valuable profession), but not need to show a profit. Renewal is not an issue.
I must give the standard HN disclaimer though, I can't give legal advise in public, I can not give legal advise here without knowing your individual situation. Talk to you lawyer instead.
The whole point of the turnkey house+land+permits+visa+remote working+infrastructure package we make brochures, a community website and a Coop for is that you need legal support on top of the land buying, (off-grid) house building and electricity/fast internet, water recycling and remote working.
We can't give legal advise in public, we can just warn you that is complicated.
I have just received 314 request in the last 3 hours for my brochure of turnkey rural land+tiny house+visa +off grid infrastructure for $50.000. I'll send out the material this weekend. I expanded the list of land plots to 31 today.
With so many interested people I think we should set up an online community. It could grow into the support network for us remote rural people worldwide. I'll add the myrad links to the biographies, blogs, vlogs, websites, articles and resources. I'll put up this website at http://ruralremote.org and a backup at http://fiberhood.org within 24 hours
The reason I offer rural land plus working visa plus a tiny house and infrastructure as a package is that it is very hard to arrange all this by oneself, especially for city people. It took me three years fulltime work, thousands of hours of video and many failures before I was successful.
But its all worth it, off course! Waking up with deer drinking at your own river, walking for an hour through your own forest to reach the edge, getting lost on your own land, planting an acre of trees, planting and eating your own food, having meetings with customers from all around the world with a laptop under a palm tree, it really is as magical as I thought it would be.
But you still need at least a $1000 income from remote work and a visa, without it its even harder to make remote living work at all. Maybe we can help you find that remote work too, now that we have a large group of interested people.
More than 50% of people who attempt it wound up broke, ill or destitute, giving up after 10 year at moving to a rural off-grid existence.
Don’t be fooled by the low land prices, it is the easy part. Building and living permits and working visa are hard. Anyone can get an acre of land for $1000 in most of the US and Europe. Few can actually live there for more than a year (cold, drought, crime).
Cheap land is not the problem you have to solve. How to be warm in the winter, how to make a living when the nearest town is 2 hours driving, what to do when you are sick and 300km from a hospital, where you get the money to buy food or transport. How to find a partner or how to deal with loneliness.
I’l sell you an almost turnkey solution but you still need months of planning and preparation while your custom tiny house is being built (or existing house being renovated). I sell you my construction labour for $8K, $15K internet,electrical heating and water infrastructure, $21K house building materials, $6K legal fees and experience from a network of people who have made the transition.
Sorry to sound overly negative, but I've been trying to decide whether this is a scam or not, and I could not conclude either way.
My biggest problem (besides having stock photo pictures of national reserves as "brochure" (including a photo of an eagle - what does it have to do with anything?), and basically a completely lack of actual facts) is that I cannot figure out what is the business in all this for YOU?
The only thing I can imagine is that you are not really selling land (actually, these are not even your properties atm, are they?), but you are planning to buy some of these properties for your company using the money of punters, split them to smaller pieces, and then somehow lease them / sell them on. Which might be acceptable for some people I guess - but not exactly as "advertised"...
As you very rightly described, buying some land is not really the biggest hurdle - it is the administrative costs, the transportation, the time spent etc. And then there is the value of the know-how. Even if you know everything, it is a lot of extra work, and there is no way someone would do it for the price you mentioned (€50k fully inclusive?) ANYWHERE in Europe. I'm from the Eastern part of Europe, and even there, this would be a "steal" (ie. an unbelievably good price).
So I'd be very skeptical about this whole story, and remember, if something is too good to be true, it probably is. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though. Do you have anything _real_ to prove your story? Land+houses that you _have_ built and sold? Contacts to previous customers for references?... Any physical location people can visit and have a look around?
As a Spaniard, I'm curious on how you're dealing with the amount of BS most municipialities throw at you, specially construction permits.
Also, why don't you make it as a community? I mean, it would be way easier to pool resources, make it cheaper for your customers and a more stable income for you, although they wouldn't be owners but renters.
Also, IDK in Portugal but getting on-grid electricity and internet (even fiber, if you're not too remote) shouldn't be a problem in Spain
I am still setting up the website, the links will start working around sunday evening of June 5th 2022. Until then you can email me at ( morphle at ziggo dot nl ).
I am making it a community site, with a HN type discussion forum and video blog hosting.
Fiber internet outside of a town is very much a problem in Spain! Electricity hookup (its called 'Solar' in Spanish) is almost impossible because you first need building and living permits and you simply will never ever get one.
In Portugal its usually even harder. Laws are different in Arizona but still a big problem. You might need permission from the local tribe, or bridge a few hundred miles with microwave dishes as a backup to your Starlink. Having reliable electricity at night requires inverters and batteries that are not for sale yet, they must be custom built. And then you still need road access to your cheap rural land...
These are the reasons my company needs to help you find suitable land, get the permits and build your tiny house, because you can not do all that on your own, especially the electricity, water and internet you need for remote work.
First you need a community of rural land owners to fund the (minimal $25K) infrastructure build out .
My company Fiberhood sets up a 300 Mbps Starlink Premium for Business ($9000 for the first year) on your land with 4G backup antennes and then builds a local fiber network to all the farms in the neighbourhood. After 12 months we hook up the fiber to the fiber backbone 100 km away, then you get 10 Gbps for around $99 per month on your rural land, fit for running a remote business.
As a Spaniard you point out the BS the municipalities (Ajuntamente) throw at you about permits. Don't forget the regional governments, the tax department, the electricity companies, etc. All over Europe this is a problem, but rural Spain and Portugal are especially difficult. This is why we only offer off-grid living in a few dozen locations this year. Only these locations where we have already managed to convince the local governments to give us permission, or place where we have found legal loopholes in the law. One example I can give is land in a nature reserve where you will never get a building permit for any house. But you are allowed to park a truck in that forest and live in it.
In other places we get permits on our land because we build infrastructure to the local town as well. But you alone would never get that building or living permit, ever.
You need to befriend the local technical architect and the mayor, buy them a couple of beers and have you children play soccer with them for a year before they will even listen to your building proposals that took you $5000 to draw up by another technical architect you hire. And it would still take a few years to get the 11 or so permits you need.
We figure all this out for you, build the infrastucture and make a liveable house. You can off course do some of that work yourself (on top of your remote work you also do) but you still need our help in the first 2 years with permits and infrastructure.
I understand your struggles, but the way the "system" is set up in Spain, this isn't going to change soon. In most small municipalities the people in charge have no idea what are they doing, and most of them don't get any money for it, so it's just the local guy who likes to be known or has some personal interests, and maybe, sometimes, someone that does it for the altruism.
Maybe I would say that for ISPs there are plenty in rural Spain happy to lay fiber if you can assure them enough recurring revenue.
Even with the not so small ones like Adamo you have a chance of getting fiber laid.
> Electricity hookup (its called 'Solar' in Spanish) is almost impossible because you first need building and living permits and you simply will never ever get one.
Interesting. Is this an intentional thing i.e."We don't want people to live outside of towns so we're not going to issue any occupancy permits", or a bureaucratic incompetence/corruption thing?
Yes, its all intentional, many laws. On top of that also bureaucratic hurdles, widespread incompetence and a little corruption.
But our company gradually learned the solutions with the help of many Spanish and Portugese locals and high fees for the local lawyers and technical architects.
There are millions of dwellings in Spain and Portugal built without permits. Nowadays they are demolished quickly if they find out. Buying the older illegal houses is also dangerous (and the reason so many foreigners are scammed bying their dream property).
For example, you can not build on rural land outside of town, not on farm land or on nature reserves. The government owns the water, you can't just digg a well. You can only get permission to build a tool shed in some areas if you own at least 5000m2. The police will evict you if you start building or living on your land, tipped off by the neighbours who don't like foreigners or competition from your farm.
If you rent out your house to tourist, you'll need a permit and pay more taxes. And anything is slow, you'll run out of money much quicker than the government runs out of ways to delay you. Watch the 17 years of Dutch episodes (thru a dutch VPN) of "Ik Vertrek" for all the horror stories of people buying land or houses in Europe and losing all their money.
Rehabilitated an abandoned olive farm in Dalmatia, although all my income still comes from software consulting. 90% of the oil goes to family and friends.
Burned out on startup hours and the hamster wheel of tech and realized I was barely spending any time with my young family. I always wanted to help and learn how my in-laws made such incredible wine, olive oil, and cured meats.
My SO is Croatian, so the move itself wasn't that difficult. The culture shock was real, though, and developing fluency in a totally new language in my 30s was, in retrospect, a full time job that I badly underestimated.
The change in pace of life, horizon expansion, new relationships, learning adventures, and the pride in bottling my very own extra virgin, organic, hand-picked olive oil... Worth every struggle even at twice the cost.
If you want to get into farming I would suggest giving woofing (worldwide opportunities on organic farms) try first.
A directory of farmers that allow volunteers in exchange for room and board (that is the default but there is also plenty that also provide extras like small stipends and training). Little hard to do if you already have a family but great if you are single and want to see what farming is like.
There's a huge variety of experiences to be had while woofing, so make sure you prepare for the worst (tent sleeping, very little shower access, controlling hosts). Definitely talk to alums of whichever site you have in mind if possible!
I wouldn't recommend woofing. Or migrating on a farm worker visa. The power imbalance there has strong potential for abuse. Speaking to alums is a good idea.
I bought 15 acres near Mustang Ridge, TX which is close to Austin, TX. Obviously not Europe but I'll comment anyway. I bought land here because ag exemptions in TX are ridiculously beneficial. If you're regularly paying cap gains taxes you can write off a lot of expenses at a loss for the farm, including building roads, building a barn, utilities, animals, fencing, etc. The taxes are way lower with ag land, and I'm planning to build a small bunk house and hire someone for 30-40K/yr + free rent to manage the farm. Planning to have ~30 goats on the farm. I just haven't started operations yet because I'm working with an architect to put together a master farm plan.
I'll do this on the side so I can have a place to stay, food to eat, and a "base" to keep my stuff at. I'll keep traveling in the summers, keep doing software engineering. I'll also have RV spaces to rent out and also for WWOOFers
Redfin actually. I lucked out in my opinion. If I were to search for land again, I would just talk to people and make connections. Go to local government meetings (council, etc). Community group meetings too. Ask around, tell people you are trying to start a farm. If you're lucky you can find someone and skip the realtor entirely and just get a lawyer.
Not a professional farm but for our own food (as vegetarians); Spain first and now Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful, a lot of stuff grows multiple times per year. Water is an issue which is why we moved to a wet part of Portugal. We grow all our fruit and veg etc and eggs organically. It would not be very hard or expensive to scale it up somewhat; my neighbours all make enough to live with larger plots of land. No idea how to do it on a large scale. Also I am still a software engineer but working less hours these days.
Really interesting! Can you provide ballpark as to prices. I know 3-4 families from NYC area that moved to Portugal recently. If you wish to buy a vineyard here, in a choice location, you'll be priced out at like $50k per acre. If you can even find a plot of tillable land available that covers 50+ acres. Alternately, Amazon is subletting 10M of warehouse space in NJ, so you could grow grapes indoors?
CERN / Swiss Alps / French Burgundy region also looks like it has potential for those seeking the "Château de Guédelon" medieval lifestyle ;)
French here in the process of buying a house in Isère.
The cheapest regions in France are probably in the center, in Seine et Loire I saw many offers for very cheap houses.
Be careful about buying medieval ruins: they can be cheap but they come with a VERY heavy regulatory framework. You have almost no freedom in how you will rebuild something that is classified as a historical monument and the cost of work and maintenance will be several times the buying cost there.
I've been following a number of folks who also moved to Portugal with the intent of buying an old plot of land and refurbishing it into a working farm for themselves [0]. As much as it is fun to imagine living this lifestyle, it is very hard work. I'd reiterate the water issue in Portugal; it can rain for a month, but it can also be dry for many more months. A water well or cistern is recommended.
I am bad at natural languages, but I am Dutch so my television when I was young was English, German, French, Flemish and bad bad Dutch tv. So I have some advantage but communicating with a few words, English and hands and feet works fine with the locals. My wife learns languages very fast (she is also dutch but she learned Mandarin when we were working in china and was good with the locals when we left) so that helps, but the people mostly speak English and insist on speaking English to practice; these are 20-50 y/o Spanish, Portuguese and expats.
It took about 2 years to be an integral part of the community in spain; Portugal took a few months and we don’t speak Portuguese yet because everyone understands English and with Spanish Portuguese is not hard to understand. But all communications are in English really.
I loved Lisbon and have contemplated moving to Portugal. Don't know how challenging it is for an American to migrate there. Have romantic notions of a garden+bakery. :)
Portugal is a really nice country but I don't know how sustainable is to have this dual tax system for nationals and foreigners. Nationals are being screwed by this, and I know for sure that If I was Portuguese I'll be pretty angry.
You mean the NHR? That’s only for 10 years though. Many countries have a similar system (including Spain [0]), either for personal or your company or both.
There is a golden visa ; it has become somewhat stricter basically you can buy a house/property over a certain value (think 350k euros) and that gets you a visa. Sell it after x years when you get a passport.
My wife and I bought a farm in the Pacific Northwest where we’ve placed over 12 acres of prairie and oak woodland into conservation with the help of the local Natural Resource Conservation Service. We’re in the process of applying for organic certification for 40 acres or agricultural fields that were conventionally farmed before we took over.
I still do iOS development professionally — but now fully remote from the farm.
Climate was our biggest consideration in choosing the region. I don’t know that any place will completely escape the challenges of climate change — fire is something we have to plan for an adapt to for instance.
Anyone interested can follow the Instagram account we set up to share updates of what we’re up to:
There's a guy who made it big in Silicon valley and bought 150 hectares near Cluj , north west Romania, he's built/building 28 houses with a school and afaik there's a agricultural component attached... curious if he's using ecological insulation (compressed sawdust, hemp, wool) or ecological plumbing, heating systems... seems a good intent but such initiatives have a tendency to push up local land prices :-( I have no idea how much his houses cost but since people have been going to Europe as "cheap" labour and especially since the banks have gotten involved in lending money for real estate purchases , prices have been going through the roof...
https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI
I can't imagine most romanians are happy with their land being so cheap overall (and their economy not doing great) so I doubt most people living there would object to the local land prices going up (that's a good thing).
Rising prices are bad for all but the most wealthy
* It’s bad for people who don’t own a house, which disproportionately impacts the poor and the young.
* It doesn’t really help homeowners either: their property taxes go up but the increased land value will just be spent on the increased cost of a new property if they move nearby.
* So the only way to realise increased land value is to move outside the local market. This turnover reduces the community of a neighbourhood, and creates pockets of dull old homogeneous people with no shared history.
* The only real way to benefit from rising prices is to invest in property, further concentrating wealth among the wealthy.
* Treating one of society’s most important assets as an investment has a ton of negative side effects, like poor utilisation due to land banking, cheaply finished low quality buildings rather than ones that vest serve their occupants, evictions, further increased community turnover.
* It’s a self perpetuating cycle, as the wealthy investors vote, lobby, and just straight up are politicians.
I completely agree, I think the problem with "agricultural" land is that due to WW2 (in western Europe) we jumped too quickly in the 50's from a largely rural society to mechanised farming to pick up the slack from all that surplus war production and lack of (killed off) manpower. The wealthy have used the captive cheap labour force to fill it's offices, factories and rental tenements... Governments have made bigger farms a priority and as in NZ they have become the playthings of hedge funds and corporations (where ironically a Maori once told me something that still sticks with me as profoundly one of the best ways to manage land, telling me "in our living space people have their houses but it's communally owned land, ie " your house, our land")
To certain extent our society is focusing on using farming largely for "junk" food, ie wheat and other grains for bread and bakery, corn for glucose syrop, rapeseed for oil used in biofuel, palm oil, sugar beet... and of course, meat and diary... (i heard something like 60% of straw is burned in Germany...) rather than focusing on letting people produce fruit and vegetables in small-scale holdings...
Here in Romania a lot of people still live in the countryside (40%?) government is sidelining people selling on the street or in markets and the westernized , yuppified youth is being sucked into the glamour and anonymity of huge supermarkets full of too much stuff but so convenient...
It really depends on why prices are rising. Prices rising because a society is getting wealthier overall and wants to spend more on better quality products (or more ethically produced/sourced products) is not generally a bad thing.
I do think increased building standards and expanded city amenities explain some small part of price increases. But not like 10%+ increases over inflation year after year as is seen in many areas worldwide.
It’sa double edged sword, the average home price has doubled where I live but it’s also created a homelessness problem where it was non existent before. This seems to also have increased drug use and mental problems or at least exposed them on the public streets but probably both. When homes are cheap people can get by with very little, being poor is not so bad when you have a roof over your head and food and people around you. Now the pre are sleeping rough in the street or overcrowded in tiny apartments with no prospects of having their own home. I’m sure those who can invest in building and selling expensive houses are doing well though.
Rural Japan. I am moving out of it, and most rural communities are very aware of the fact that they are dying out. Houses are not only cheap, some are free. I have a friend who is living in a house just in exchange of cutting the grass there regularly (long story). Landlords have to pay for the cost of destruction if one house they own becomes abandoned. They are happy to have a tenant even for free if they fix things there and keep the place in a good shape.
Schools are closing one after the other. The countryside is littered with abandoned schools. People there are despaired to see their cities shrink.
When we arrived from Tokyo with a young kid, we were more than welcomed and locals helped us localize the best houses for us.
I used to live in London, UK, but have started software companies/organisations in California, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and been deeply involved with a h/w and s/w startup in Bangalore. We started an company to build circular food production systems, based in Sweden. We have fish, vegetables and insects. It is on a farm, but we are not traditional farmers. You can read a build log here:
I was a software engineer for 13 years. I left the bay area and moved to idaho during covid. bought 20 acres of organic farmland with water rights. and i learned how to build houses in order to build my own house. now i have a business framing houses and a farm. im growing peas and barley this year.
You won’t meet the « general » population in the heartland. I understand the appeal of leaving the monoculture of SV tech, but deciding to farm instead is quite a leap.
> Basically how hard it was to leave your community behind, make new connections and find engaging conversations with new friend.
Out at the farm its real easy to meet people and make new friends. Your neighbors will go out of their way to come meet you, and are overwhelmingly friendly. If you are friendly, well spoken, honest, not inflammatory, cooperative; then you will do fine. People are helpful and there is an air of reciprocity. In town its more difficult, but that is the same anywhere.
> I am drawn to the tech scene beacause or the intellectual exchanges, and I am worried farming communities might not be where I can thrive!
I learn a tremendous amount from the locals. But i have an expanded sense of what is interesting. I dabble in just about everything. Yes the available intellectual stimulation has changed. People arent particularly tech savvy here. There are a fair number of science and medical folk. Intelligent people are distributed everywhere, but it would be up to you to find them and stoke their interest in technology.
I would say there is a market opportunity in starting up a coding bootcamp here.
If i had more time and resources I would start one.
> Other than that: Income. How did you adjust to a lower level income in the beginning?
I have no debt for one. I have no dependents. And i reduced my standard of living temporarily, lived in a trailer on the land.
I was making $15 an hour for the year i was learning. Now, the business (first contract was in Jan 2022) is producing more than enough for me to live on. And i have passive income from the farm, for now, while i make the necessary improvements. it produces a ~2% dividend, which i re-invest.
I have definitely made a fair number of tradeoffs. But it is a vast improvement on how my life was going before. I was depressed. I think the whole city lifestyle induced depression in me, and led me to cope in unhealthy ways. I'm now in the best shape of my life, and im happy. And i'm slowly building a network of people i enjoy being around, something i didnt have nearly enough of living in the bay area. No support real structure. I have one here, already, 2 years in. On the other hand, its far more physical. But i wanted that after 13 years of sitting.
What material did you study to learn how to build houses? Did you shadow someone else while they did it? Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or something?
Near Bordeaux in south west of France. Most important for me was be able to have at least 300m2 per person in garden to grow vegetables. We are 4 (2 parents, 2 children), so 1200m2 at least. Plus 500m2 for growing fruits, making an "edible forest". I choosed suburbs of Bordeaux because there is no hill, no mountain. To convince my family to mostly use bikes instead of cars, it's more easy. Another argument is its rainy but not that much.
Not exactly a farm, in the UK you can get allotments for virtually nothing (£50 a year for half an acre) which I do. I have a shed there I do computer work from, and do organic permaculture all over the plot, plus somewhere for the kids to sit and eat their sandwiches. I didn't have to seek anywhere out and strongly recommend it to anyone in the UK!
Moved to rural Australia 7 years ago, near the ocean on 1 hectare. Internet via p2p wireless. Recently purchased 6 hectares with better sun orientation to take things more seriously. Would never, ever go back to my previous city life. Weened off tech work over the years and am much happier, the internet isn’t the fun place it once was anymore.
The details are neither here nor there. It was possible to ween off tech because the cost of living was significantly less than city living. It's not so much rent/food, it's all the ancillary costs of city living that add up. All the pointless restaurants, time with friends that aren't really your friends, many coffees a day, takeout, useless gadgets, the list goes on. I split my time across multiple different fields, each earning a bit each, which adds up.
I grew up on the country side and I always dreamed of having a small homestead, with some animals and living a quiet life. I've been living a nomadic life for about 8 years when I decided it was time, 3 years ago. I found an old farm (5000m2) I could rent temporarily until I found my own place near my home in The Netherlands. It got out of hand pretty quickly with 30+ chickens, ducks, gees, a couple of pigs and goats. I was really loving it.
Unfortunately I didn't expect the pandemic to turn into a crazy frenzy where everybody seemed to flock to places where nobody wanted to live before. Rest to say my plan to buy something near my hometown failed for now.
Currently I'm in Galicia (Spain) looking to buy an old 1 to 2 hectare farm. The climate is great here, it's lush and green everywhere and there are affordable farms to find.
I am working on a project that is basically a 100+ acre farm that is collectively owned and will be mostly(eventually fully) automated.
It is the kind of farm that appeals for those who don’t want to wrestle with tractors, are nature lovers, not tech phobic and are ok with farming co-operatively.
Initial stages..so any input on what SWE/farmers really expect would be much appreciated. It would help me figure out what my future tech farmers would want and what they can tolerate.
The main focus is on automating enough so one person is able to handle 1-5 acres(0.5-2 hectares approx) without additional labour. And building a community so there is tool sharing and collectively sell as a co-op.
I have taken in inputs from mostly Americans. I don’t know if something like this will work elsewhere in the world. It’s certainly challenging in the USA…not least because of zoning and certain other issues. Especially in California.
Basically "unproductive" land is/should be cheap, being out of the hustle and bustle of city life is great for clearing your mind, travel to a warmer climate (or snug it down) in the winter, consider it'll take you about a decade but your barren land can become a real cornucopia... There's a feel good film out there called "the biggest little farm"https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8
I'm in Belgium and a colleague of mine just bought a house and moved to Italy, near Bergamo whilst staying employed with us. I'm sure she's doing more than fine financially, even without a SV wage.
So the trick's to be Western/Northern European, and move to Southern Europe. /s
There's still plenty of remote opportunities with good pay in Europe that could sustain this kind of living.
Is it? Isn't there the issue that you can't just move to the EU as a US citizen unless you get hired by a European company which means no more SV salary.
Considering software developers in Portugal make €2K/mo and are still able to “survive” in the cities, I’m sure you don’t need a SV salary to live well in the rural area.
This is my goal. I'm currently in the Bay Area but hope to move back to the UK and have a decent sized farm (maybe tickle my tech interests by focusing on hydroponics/aquaponics) to feed my family and then sell the extras at a local market. Currently 28, I think I'll aim to do this around my 40th birthday and see it as a pseudo-retirement.
Same for me. Not sure yet where though. On my own I'd be free to chose anywhere but I've been playing around with the idea of doing it together with my cousin who is interested in this as well. When we were kids we would often times help our grandpa in his garden who was growing all kinds of vegetables and fruits there. I want to become like my grandpa and see my grandchildren playing on my land.
Where in the UK do you think is a good place to do this kind of thing? My wife and I have been toying with the idea of doing something like this - it won't be for at least another few years, but it's still really just an idea at this point; neither of us have much experience in this sphere and we're not sure where to start.
What do we need to know? Any resources you recommend we check out?
I am on the same boat as well. Toying with various ideas and want to do something similar here in the UK in few years. Would be great to see some resources on this
About 5 years ago I was looking for a rural płot of land in southern Portugal (Algarve), but it was too expensive for me (I wasn't earning much back then though)
Now I'm starting to look again. Greece seems to have very cheap land, on various islands you could even get a płot for with a sea view for less than 50k€
We just bought (2 weeks ago) 7ha farm from southern Finland. We've been dreaming of it for 10 years but finally the time was right and a perfect place came along. We will move there in August. First season we are gonna just settle down and do some small scale homesteading (chickens, goats for milk and vegetables) but our plan is to start farming food for sale as well in the long run. Don't know if I'm ever able to drop from tech - not even sure if I want to - but plan is to do consulting (well, subcontracting) gigs during winters and focus on farming during summers. Let's see how it goes.
Hi All.
Me and my family have been living for 12 years in an old farm in south Brittany, France.
We produce some vegetables with 2 green houses (60sqm) and honey.
I have 7 beehives.
I am cofounder of an online community for software developpers interested in agro-ecology and resilience. It is called TheRemoteTribe.cp. We are on Slack.
We share tips for growing and cooking our products, tips to reach some self sufficency, hens, bees....
If interested, send me an email and I will send you an invitation : theremotetribe@gmail.com
About myself, engineer, former developper and now I am a Tech recruiter.
I work remotely.
Does anyone have experience with countryside in Italy (Tuscany specifically) or Spain? I'd love to move there in a few years and start producing wine on a smaller scale.
A tech podcast interviewed someone recently that does SWE and farming in Germany. Sounds exactly what you’re looking for, they ask him most of the questions you want answered:
I am in the SF Bay Area (out there a bit) and have a large garden and budding orchard. We often have enough to sell / share and am interested in officially starting a farm, but am not clear on the process and whether this makes financial sense. I would appreciate any pointers to information on the business and tax side of a small, home-based farm in California in particular. Thanks!
North coast of Scotland, as far north as you can go on the mainland. Dark winters and long summer daylight. Didn't move here to start a farm (moved for the surf), but started a small market garden as a side-project a couple years ago. Also developing software for running a market garden, good to be my own user.
Should one buy a farm in southern europe or in scandinavia? To me it seems that in 40 years southern europe will be like north africa while scandinavia will be like southern europe. But right now scandinavia seems to me like 7 or 8 months of darkness (and cold)... so not that good for farming? I don't know.
Well the darkness isn't going away any time soon. You can definitely do farming here. Summers are short but very intense as the days are very long here in north.
Not exactly a farm but I have a half acre property on the edge of Los Angeles where I have substantial gardens. I have a food forest, a bunch of raised beds for annuals, a greenhouse, and an extensive compost operation.
It is really nice to be able to take a break from coding, step outside, and turn the compost.
We recently bought a finca with about 2ha in Spain. We’re fixing up the house, since it was basically 4 walls and a roof, and already eating from our garden and fruit trees.
My retirement plan was make my own farm in Tabarca, Spain. so I'm pretty much away of everything and if I want to see people I can get a boat to Alicante
