Discovering life off the grid

“Ever wanted to unplug from the rat race? To free yourself?” In his book How to live off-grid Nick Rosen describes the trips he made to discover the ever so varied ways of UK’s off-grid population.

In the beginning of the book Rosen represents the different meanings of going off-grid. He also tells the history of how we ended up on-grid in the first place. The basic definition of living off-grid is that a person lives without being connected to the main power and water networks and a phone line. For some people it also means growing your own food, finding your medicine and taking care of your waste yourself. The term off-grid is not very well known but still according to Rosen about 75 000 people in the UK and 250 000 in the US live off-grid.

During his trips Rosen makes dozens of interviews and finds out that the off-gridders are a colourful bunch. Off-gridders can be radical environmentalists, businessmen, hermits as well as ordinary families living in boats, huts, houses, vans or caravans. The reasons for choosing this lifestyle are as varied as the people. Some people live off-grid to save the world, some to be free, some to protect themselves from the upcoming natural disasters and some just because they can’t afford anything else. The book describes their different choices and principles vividly.

Rosen also has his personal piece of heaven in Majorca and he introduces the process of finding and founding this off-grid paradise. The following theme of the book is Rosen’s will to improve his own off-grid get-away and to find out if it would be possible for him and his family to live permanently off-grid in the UK. The book goes through all the possible issues that can come up while starting an off-grid life, such as finding a suitable piece of land, getting a planning permission, arranging the water and energy systems and waste management.

In a way the book is like Rosen’s diary and his notes of how to avoid problems and how to get out of difficult situations concerning off-grid life. His personal thoughts and feelings and his relation to the off-grid lifestyle are very much present in the text and sometimes that makes the book loose some of it’s essential contents. The reader might loose interest for example while having to read in detail about him choosing a suitable van for the trip or him thinking of how to solve the problems that come up while going off-grid with a baby.

In the book you can also read a lot about wind turbines, solar panels, generators, water tanks and compost toilets. The book is full of useful advice and tips about how to start or improve your off-grid life. Of course it’s most useful for the British reader since for example the tips concerning grants, planning permission and other issues concerning the law are different in other countries, but all in all How to live off-grid is a fascinating book to read for anybody who is interested in the off-grid lifestyle.


Teksti ja kuvat Paula Sarapisto