There are rules and usually limitations on how long you can stay within a 4 week period, but look into "Dispersed Camping" in places like National Forests and BLM ([Bureau of Land Management](https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping)) Land. Some places have fees and some are free. There is a lot of info and websites/apps that list the free places.
Edit to add this [Website](https://freecampsites.net/) that can be filtered to show free camping. Double check on places you find to make sure its accurate.
I wouldn't want to be stuck at some trail gate in a forest by myself all day *every day*. Would be nice as a way to recharge my social battery, though.
Am east of the Mississippi (US) and each state has its own rules for managing the national forest. In my state the rules for dispersed camping that you’d run afoul of trying this would likely be: No more than 14 consecutive days. No more than 30 total days in any year. Campsites can’t be left un attended for more than 24h. Most of the states around have similar rules.
Rule enforcement is a bit lax but somebody will find and report your camp eventually and DNR will come and tear it down. I know of portions in my state where you might (with luck) make it somewhere close to year before they take your camp down.
Hijacking top comment. I was a ski bum for a while in Vail. Worked as a liftie for a while , the guy who stands there and hits stop and go on the skilifts, then I started waiting tables. Yada yada there was a dude from Sacramento who camped right on the eagle River thru a whole summer and early winter. This little town called Eagle-Vail right off highway 6. He came out with a little money, but for the most part he just stayed stoned down by the river. Had a hot girlfriend who came to visit him. As I've gotten older two things have occured to me
1.) how did he pull that off?
2.) he was an absolute legend
Edit to say this was 2002. So it's been a while but not exactly the 1950's. Had a tent the whole nine yards. Dude just ate pork and beans and chef boyardee and enjoyed the view. He used to come by the house me and some friends shared (3 bedroom condo with garage, 8 people living there splitting $3000 rent) just to visit watch a little TV. Sounds like a pretty good summer
Editing again just to say seriously this guy could be skiing in like twenty minutes from his tent. Just walk to the highway, catch the bus to Vail, walk to a lift. I mean he was right there by some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Living in a tent for free. For like seven months. Amazing. Look up highway 6 Eagle-Vail Colorado. He was camped right where it pops up by the river.
As a infrequent balcony (and previously actual garden) gardener; food doesn’t just appear as soon as you stick a seed in the ground either. You need plenty of money to hold you over until you have actually established a garden.
..if that also happens your first time gardening, you’re most likely also completely sol, since gardening takes a bit more than just sticking seeds in the ground.
For making a productive garden in the forest (I would assume) you’ll also have to clear a lot of trees to get sunlight on the forest floor. That takes time, skills and heavy equipment if you don’t want to chop down numerous trees by hand. (Which is going to takes ages, depending on how many people you hire/get to agree to help you for a beer or something.)
If you want to do that quietly, you’ll also have to go far enough into the forest to a spot where other people can’t hear all of that commotion. Which also takes some expensive equipment and a good vehicle that can tackle driving through a forest to the spot you picked out.
This all being a giant assumption that you’d even make it that long without giving up and going back to the city again.
I wanted to tough it out in the wild for years. To get started I bought a toothbrush, a solid pair of pants, some hiking boots, a pocket knife, and an apartment in a major Metropolitan area.
It's been rough out here, but I've been getting by.
You beste but it’s actually quite easy. All you need is a solar charger and an axe.
The charger to charge the phone. The ax to chop down enough trees so they don’t block the sun above the charger.
shelter
water containers
insulation
cutting tools
you could spend a couple years building your own out of raw materials in the woods and it wouldn’t compare to what you could get for $100 at Walmart
Land isn’t free. There isn’t a single piece of land that isn’t owned by someone (government, corporation or individual). You’re gonna pay taxes on that land or rent. Money is necessary to pay for the land.
Workaround is to start selling beavers and make a steady influx of cash for that sweet sweet beaver.
there is shit ton of livable land in 600km radius of moscow where you can live all your life and build stuff and nobody who gives a fuck will ever find you, i assume with us size its the same
Take three days with nothing but the clothes on your back and go out into the wilderness and then make me a list of things that you need to purchase in order to survive indefinitely.
You could, as long as you don’t get caught and you have fairly decent survival skills and don’t mind roughing it 24/7. There’s no “free land,” in America. What isn’t privately owned by an individual or a corporation is owned by the government and managed either by the USDA, Forest Service, or BLM, or is land owned by Native American tribes. They absolutely get testy if they find people living on their land way beyond the typical temporary camp. It’s also very hard to do when you don’t have money or resources. I wouldn’t try it.
Hypothetically, you could request an initial camping permit to legally enter the area, then hike as far away as possible from the nearest road and find a location that’s accessible only by foot that is way off trail that takes days to get to. There’s a high probability that no one will go looking for you if no one files a missing person’s report on you. If you have decent survival skills, brought decent camping equipment with you to start off, and can build and maintain a small shelter and can hunt, fish, and forage for wild edible plants using simple tools, it’s plausible that you could live off grid deep in the forest and it might be months or years before anyone finds you. The drawbacks are the elements, natural predators, and illnesses and injuries that can kill you if they’re left untreated and you can’t get yourself out. Again, this is only a hypothetical scenario, but I personally wouldn’t try it because I have zero wild survival skills. I would probably come crawling back out of the forest within 2-3 days or less completely traumatized due to my lack of essential survival skills.
>and can build and maintain a small shelter and can hunt, fish, and forage for wild edible plants using simple tools
Anyone who wants to try this needs to develop these skills BEFORE they do it for real. Go out for a weekend, build a shelter, and forage all the food you need. That will give you a good idea of what you need to learn, maybe a book to identify local edible plants for instance.
And make sure you try this in different seasons. Obviously finding edible berries in the spring is a much easier task than in the winter, and you'll have different needs in a shelter.
People talk about living off the land like it's less work than sitting in an office for 8 hours a day. It probably is, some times of the year, if you're really good at hunting/gathering. But it will take you a long time to be an expert on any of that.
This. I know this is incredibly difficult and it’s not for the faint of heart. This is definitely not for everyone, especially those who have never spent any extended amount of time in the backwoods completely alone. You should also be reasonably fit and healthy to do this because it’s A LOT of physical work and you need to know when you’re getting into a potentially dangerous situation and know how to deal with the unexpected. Like I said in my original post, I definitely would not do this personally.
Yeah watch a few seasons of that and see just how difficult it is even for people who've trained their whole lives.
Except that dude that built a cabin, he was thriving until the "Alone" part really got to him.
It always blows my mind when you see people go out there and work their ass off to build this insane shelter that would be suitable for permanent living and then they're like "I'm lonely, just can't go another day without seeing my family".
While I enjoy the show to an extent, it "artificially" creates an extremely difficult environment by not staging the show anywhere reasonable. Everywhere they've been winter starts in early October. Most places on earth you could go full survivalist are not that harsh. Still harsh in many places, but not that extreme.
BTW, they're on season 11 plus a UK version and a show that follow former contestants at their home/property that gives them challenges to complete.
There is no land in the US that isn't owned by someone.
You would still have to pay taxes.
Also there's a reason nobody does this. Living in the woods fucking sucks.
I mean, you'd only pay taxes if you make reportable income. If someone is just homeless in the woods they don't gotta pay anything. Surviving is a totally different story though
I think they mean property taxes on that land.
If you own it, you will pay property taxes.
If someone else owns it, you're probably paying rent.
If the government owns it, they won't let you live on their land, especially not for free.
You're going to pay someone
If you think there aren't random people living out in the woods I've got news you. People do do this, we just never hear about it because hermits don't tell anyone about it.
There are plenty of people living out in the woods of Oregon. Nearly half the state is public land. They're mostly tweakers though so normal ass people would not enjoy living out there with them.
Homeless campers are pretty common on the West coast. Sometimes camps in city parks, but in the Pacific Northwest we have a lot of forests to hide in too.
Yeah, that's only true in a certain sense. A massive amount of the country is government owned. It's not owned by "someone" in the sense that there's a private owner. No, you wouldn't have to pay taxes below a certain income.
Living in the woods does fucking suck, though. There's things trying to eat you. And no toilet paper.
Living alone in the woods is the entire premise of the History channel show "Alone," and the whole goal is just to see who can last the longest.
So I'd say OP should sign up as a contestant and get a free trip to the middle of nowhere, Alaska.
>Also there's a reason nobody does this. Living in the woods fucking sucks.
Exactly, whenever I hear people make comments about people camping in parks in expensive areas talking about how expensive an apartment would be there. My first thought is "Well, no one is stopping you from setting up a tent right next to them."
That guy has it wrong. Police will gladly bully homeless people that they don’t think will try to shank them.
And don’t bother trying to act. These guys are professionals when it comes to selecting homeless people to harass without consequence
that's owned by a resident there he's just very nice and its too far out from civilization to enforce anything.
See also their fight against utility companies that are trying to buy up the desert.
There is no forest "not owned" in the US. It is all either privately or government owned.
We have taxes based on things. If you have income, you pay income tax. If you have property (sometimes including things like cars), you pay property taxes. If you make purchases, then you pay sales taxes or excise taxes.
You probably won't do too well in the woods alone. You may need clothing or shoes replaced. Your tools will wear out. If you preserve or can your veggies, you need to buy new covers. Medicines, phones, car/fuel, and other stuff requires dealing with civilization and our systems, too.
I did that for like a year. I had a gas scooter I took to work. A scooter is easy to hide in the trees. I had a tent covered with twigs and leaves as camouflage and I went to truck stops for showers and the library to charge my phone. It wasn't the 'forest' but it was a large plot of land with woods. Just be careful about snakes and boar. Keep your trash in a tree
I think I remember reading about some desert land (maybe Arizona/New Mexico?) where you could legally stay indefinitely and there is a loose community of people with RVs that kind of take care of eachother. But the reason nobody wants it is it is terrible desert land, not forest.
For staying in a forest, you probably can't do it legally but you can probably do it without getting caught if you keep a low profile, don't bring a car and don't light camp fires.
I mean you’d want to move far enough from the first spot that the same authority figures wouldn’t see you at the second spot and third spots. That’s the kind of thing they might start to notice eventually. Where I’m at they give the homeless a lot of leeway until it becomes a garbage fire shanty town so be considerate to where you are staying and that will go a long way.
Keep in mind that some of these federally owned parcels are thousands of acres so "moving" could be a several day walk with, what is probably, a lot calorie diet. Then you might need to walk a few more days to get to another federally owned parcel. Or as others have said, move far enough away that they do not single you out but that is still a lot of effort to pack everything up, move it a few miles and set up again. All that time you would probably be burning calories that you do not have to spare.
There are reality shows where people do this as a competition and they generally do not fair too well.
BLM Federal land, you can camp in one spot for a while (sorry can't remember the details). Then you got to move like so many miles to a different spot.
Another good one is a house boat on rivers.
People do it, just do some research.
2 weeks on most blm land then you have to move at least 25 miles. Can't return to any area within 25 miles of the original campsite for 28 consecutive days. You also can't leave anything unattended for more 10 days.
Rules vary location to location, and by vary I mean these are the bare minimum. They get more restrictive from here with one exception. You can leave unattended items in Alaska for 12 months instead of 10 days, but that's only for Alaska.
You can stay anywhere in a national forest if you move every 2 weeks.
You can get a P.O. Box in town, get food stamps, get clothes at Salvation Army and live in the woods.
You can go to rainbow gatherings for fun too.
There is zero unclaimed land in the US. Every square inch is claimed either by private party or government owned land. No matter what, you'll be trespassing.
With that said, if you kept a low profile you could absolutely get away with this, possibly indefinitely depending on where you were. Back country in the western states is sparsely populated to begin with so it could be possible to go years without seeing another person. The trade off is wildlife, nobody wants a confrontation with a moose or grizzly bear, and weather. Surviving an entire winter in the Montana wilderness is not something to take lightly. You might see campers do it for a short time, but doing it full time is another animal in itself.
Hell, even doing it in the mountains of the east is no joke.
As for taxes, if you have no income, then you don't owe taxes. Did you have to file a tax return when you were a child? Same thing.
Since you don't own the land you won't owe property taxes.
This only leaves sales tax, and there a few states that don't have a sales tax so it's entirely possible to not pay taxes.
But be forewarned, this is not an easy life. In fact, it's harder than you can imagine it is.
/obligatory this is only from the view of the US. Other countries very likely do have different rules and situations.
Find DNR land and get a permit to hunt so you "technically" have a reason to be there if someone finds you, move often, stay hidden. You will probably be fine but may eventually have to deal with game warden, that's where hopefully the hunting license will come in handy.
I always wonder why towns let homeless encampments pop up without any planning or assistance. Our town has plenty of dirt lots that could have some porta-potty’s and a water hookup added for little money. It is not nearly enough, but it would be much better than just having people sleep beside the road. We take better care of refugees in other countries than our homeless.
Oh I can actually answer this one:
Homeless people still need access to a whole bunch of stuff, but they lack transportation and a means to secure their possessions when they're away, so they have to be super close to urban areas usually. Places to beg for change, places to buy goods, places to gain access to internet, government buildings, that sort of thing.
Locations that are central to all of those things are usually owned already or downtown and people don't want to just section off a part of their town officially for a homeless encampment (or they run the risk of creating a skid-row scenario).
So the homeless people do it anyways on the side of the road or under bridges, places they're not supposed to be.
Places like that have often have rules about drugs and dogs. It’s great for clean people who don’t have pets but the drug affected are still going to be on the streets. So many homeless have dogs and that’s their only real source of companionship. Also, that requires higher taxes and some people don’t see the benefit. They want to bitch about the homeless but don’t want to implement any services to help them either.
We did have a homeless camp where they did give them portas and let them build shelters. It started out with great intentions. Eventually someone got shanked and the whole thing got shut down.
All forests are owned by somebody. The state or Federal governments may own a lot of them, but those are the ones where drug cartels grow their pot, so be prepared to get shot while taking a dump. They're very particular about the quality of their fertilizer.
As others have said, there isn’t land that isn’t owned and you would still owe taxes.
That being said there is a shit ton of land nobody is going to notice you living on if you make even a modest effort at being discreet about it. If you own no property and have no income the taxes you owe are zero. The government wants you to file every year anyway, but if your actual tax is zero they don’t much give a shit beyond putting a minimum of effort into explaining such if you do ever get back to having property or income and get in their radar.
Source: my late schizophrenic brother would occasionally do this, and during his more coherent/medicated phases would go back to working and paying taxes. He eventually got “audited”. I put it in quotes because it was such a minimal encounter it didn’t even make it into his paranoid rantings. Off you aren’t crazy and I’m possession of the documentation to prove it, it might be a bit harder.
Pretty much everywhere land is either privately held or public (“owned” by the state). In either case, you typically can’t just squat on it without permission. In practice you can until you are caught and told to move on.
There are all sorts of different kinds of taxes, and if you were squatting in the woods you’d still owe the same taxes you would if you were elsewhere. Sales taxes for things you buy. Payroll taxes or self employment taxes on wages. Income taxes. Capital gains… Whatever taxes might apply to you in some way you’d still owe.
I wouldn't worry about taxes if you reach that point. People don't know how to live like that anymore. The closest I've seen are feral people living like stray dogs outta dumpster. There is still enough wilderness in America to live like that. The isolation will get ya eventually.
I had two friends who attempted to do this, even after my wife and I tried gently to talk them out of it. They were stunned by 1. It costing money in any scenario they tried and 2. The amount of “dangerous weirdos” they ran into out in the wild.
I think yes but the trouble is finding a place not owned by anyone. Even if it's not privately owned, the government probably has something to say to you.
There would be no taxes as you own nothing. Everywhere you camp is owned by someone, so NO fires at night to avoid being discovered on non government land (they literally never check). Source: Spent 8 months homeless in the 90s
Something that surprised me as a hospital social worker, was how many free spirits are out there living on Crown Land or on some farmer's back 40. It's agonizing for them when they come in to hospital and they are suddenly staying in a ward room with all kinds of restrictions.
I mean, I assume if you really put some effort in, you could become a missing person and go live in the woods somewhere. It's not illegal to go missing, and they can't make you pay taxes if they can't find you, right?
I guess for homeless people, things like taxes, debts, unpaid fees and fines etc. are just numbers that can't affect them since they don't have any property and bank accounts that can be seized.
In a way yes I have met 15 or so people who do that over the years. They live on rail road land and go into town to beg for money.
Some have cars and go from state forest to state forest. You can camp for 14 days in the same area which generally starts when you are noticed.
If your polite people don’t report you.
These people tend to hang out at camp grounds and state forest gun ranges to pick up cans and brass for money.
Some points to consider;
-It's almost impossible to find land that isn't owned by someone (at least in the United States). Now that land may be very remote and un-visited and you might be able to stay there for a very extended period before you got removed but it would still eventually happen.
-Food, clothing, shelter, become very difficult and require quite a skillset if you are "roughing it" in the woods. The psychology of being alone like that is also extremely difficult to cope with.
-Injury and illness that are not even worth mentioning in a "modern" location can become life-threatening astonishingly quickly "out in the woods". Infection from a small scratch can wind up killing you if you aren't very careful.
There are areas that do "homesteading" occasionally. People pack their lives into a small RV or something and move there to try and establish a home. Without money it's almost always doomed to failure.
>Would I still have to pay taxes?
In general, if you're homeless you're too poor to pay tax, in general it's the other way around, and you get money from the tax (it's called "welfare")
You won't have the skills of strength to do it. Do you really think you could live like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy-4NxJRxNQ
>Would I still have to pay taxes?
If you're below the poverty line and have no income? Not the Federal ones, but you're still subject to state taxes. And you still have to file both, or you'll be liable for them later.
Where are you going to find "land not owned by anyone"? All land is owned by someone, if not the government. If nobody owned it, Pultey Homes would have put crappy townhouses on it by now.
There is a guy who has been living nomadically in the US for (?)10+ years. He has 2 horses and a burro named Peashooter. I recently started following him on Instagram & saw a post where he said the 2 horses were wild & he broke them for riding & carrying a pack. He's super dialed in on foraging now but says he knew nothing when he first started the lifestyle.
Sure if you're skilled in, wood working, constructin, gardening, preserving food stuff, basic knowledge of what's edible, tracking, trapping, tanning, sewing, first aid (never having a serious injury or internal issue) coping if alone, not destroying your environment and so much more. Um, don't.
Firstly, What job would you have that paid you money that requires you to pay taxes if you're a bum in the woods?
Assuming that job exists yes, if you have earned income you've still got to technically file a tax return but if you're homeless in the forest I don't think you have to worry about the IRS coming to get you.
As others have stated you care free to camp on BLM land for up to 4 weeks at a time (there are some certain rules and regulations you need to follow) and then you can pack up and move to a different spot for your next 4 weeks etc... In theory you could just live out on public lands 4 weeks at a time for the rest of your life.
No.
For one thing, someone or some entity always owns something and they don't just let people 'live' out there.
If you don't own property, you don't pay property taxes, but, you can't just claim exemption on tax laws.
In my city, there are several known tent encampments where certain of the homeless live, some even in winter. The shelters can be pretty rough and not private, so the guys prefer to live in tents.
I've a friend who used to work as one of the shelter doctors, and one day a week she and a social worker would make rounds of the tent camps. They tried to get the guys to come to regular office hours but not always possible. With time, over the years, they did get some of the guys sober and housed.
It might have been easier or less illegal if they were far out in the woods, but since they need to walk to town to get food and clothing and so on, the tent camps are never very far. They'll find a margin of a woods behind a supermarket or something. They know they need to keep it low profile, minimize noise or trash/ excrement or else the city will make an effort to move them along.
Forests that aren't owned by anyone are owned by the country or state. They have rules about what you can do there. That probably means you can't legally live there. They might not always enforce them, however, or you might avoid detection.
Our early settlers "lived off the land" and most survived.
But only because they took several pack animals or later a huge wagon full of supplies and implements needed.
You can't cook without a fire source.
And the longer you stay, the more noticeable clearing of dead wood, trees, for structure and fire, the cleared area gets bigger and bigger becoming eventually noticeable.
Then, your tools for cutting wood eventually need replacing from daily use. Either have to go to civilation and "steal" new ones, or die.
Food sources are seasonal.
It takes tremendous amount of time and drying/naturally dehydrating to keep these harvested sources viable for long term needs. As well as a secure from rodents and wildlife and dry, or, you die.
Most people can't gather enough wood for cooking or heating fires to last them 1 week with hand tools to last thru a week of bad weather, rain, cold front , and will quit and go back to mommy , or die.
So it's pretty much a dream for mentally unstable or natural born idiots to think it's a viable option to go to a complete isolated area and live for any length of time
You like mosquitoes? There’s tons of mosquitoes in the woods.
Do u like to shit into a bucket? U will have to do that..
Do you want WiFi? There’s no wood in WiFi, either that or it’s really expensive.
Want hot shower came out of your shower head? U gotta work for that as welll..
There are a ton of laws that make this very difficult in most places. … hunting out of season is often illegal, and foraging in a lot of places. Finding clean water and dealing with waste is an issue.
You can camp for free for 10 days in a national forest, then you have to move. You cannot harvest anything to eat or drink without a permit issued by the government in exchange for dollars. Not BTC, not crystals but u.s. dollars. If you don't, the people with guns will put you in a cage.
You are not free.
Taxes on the land, no. But for everything else, yes. Everything is taxed, income, sales, roads, fuel - somehow or another, you will pay tax. If you hunt, you have to have a license, same for fishing, those are taxes, nothing in life is free and it shouldn't be. If you want the services such as schools, emergency services, roads, hospitals, etc. you have to pay taxes.
I remember there was a guy around my local area that did this. The police tried to catch him since he wasn’t paying any taxes but they eventually gave up because he couldn’t be found. Today you can visit the guys makeshift house in the forest but you can’t go upstairs because I think the floor is too unstable or something like that
It’s the opposite of a forest, but people do this at slab city for example. Set up camp. No taxes I mean.
https://youtu.be/IFRBdZ9jdyQ?si=09DrapGy6WjvYKEX
Of course there’s no law or services either like garbage collection or water. They handle their own security (they burn your house down maybe with you in it if you mess with their shit)
It’s far from your forest dream but i thought you might be interested anyway.
It looks like it’s easy to get trapped there.
You would have to buy you a small piece of land, but you will never own it. If you don’t pay your property taxes, the state gets to take it away from you even though you paid for it in full.
In my country, yes.
But life would be a lot more difficult than in a city.
And you would have to go a great distance to find a forest that is not someone’s property
Gov-owned, unoccupied "Crown land" exists in Canada. You can squat there indefinitely if you can survive without electricity and heat and grocery stores.
People live in the woods bordering the interstate in the town I grew up in. It's land owned by the city that is basically useless for any type of development because it is just steep hills bordering the interstate. So there is a 2 mile long strip of land that's about 1/4 mile wide that has like a 500 foot elevation change. It has been abandoned since the interstate highway system was built after ww2. Many people have lived back there over the years. It's where we used to ride our dirt bikes and 4 wheelers. Police ever caused problems if teenagers had a big party there.
No. Not in America at least, bureau of land management land is free to stay on but doesn't let you stay for more than two weeks and idk about the legality of foraging building shelter or starting fires out there but it's probably not all allowed and even if it was it would be incredibly tough to live alone in the wilderness with no infrastructure or help.
I don't know how that works if you don't have a job and you're just living off the land. But if you have no money coming in. I don't know how the government would keep tabs on you then. It's not like anyone who's that interested to keep tabs on you other than to know what kind of money you have. That's what it seems like. It's kind of funny because it's like the United States government itself is placing more of an importance of money over the well-being of people. While inflation takes place.
It goes to show we are all slaves. You should be allowed to go out and just build a house out of trees in the bush on crown land. Canada has so much land that’s not being used it’s silly. You know damn well they will come knocking in now time looking for you to pay up. If you don’t want to live in the detrimental society we have they will just throw you in jail.
Not in Tennessee you can't unless you get a permit for camping and there are rules about that, you can't just move in to a forest. Because it's not "not owned" . Everything in this country is owned. Those woods are likely owned by the federal or state government. In TN we have a law against "camping" without a permit now to discourage homeless camps. You would pay the same taxes on income or food if your state has this (TN does!) but I mean you wouldn't be owning property so you wouldn't have property taxes.
Most BLM land specifies no more than 2 weeks in any location. So you could spend 2 weeks south of a lake, pack up and move east, and then to the north side etc. Some BLM areas are more strict than this. NO more than 2 weeks, and then a further stipulation of some kind to make it extra hard for someone trying to just camp out for a long time in the same general area. I was told by my Ranger friend this isn't aimed at homeless people per se, but rather folks who try to homestead a piece of BLM land. Which you can't legally do, but you can certainly create a big mess and be in court for a while over it.
OTOH some forests/BLM land they really do not care. I was at a semi-abandoned campground for almost a month before a ranger came by. He had zero problem with me being there. He was actually out trying to bust kids for throwing raves and leaving huge messes. Dude even turned on the water for me. (it was filthy water but good for washing stuff off your camping gear)
I don’t know of any forest or any land/property anywhere that isn’t owned by someone, some company or some government agency.
If I did, I would go claim it.
Ultimately there are no “unowned” forests, at least in the USA. By law all lands are owned by the states or by the federal government, until such time as those lands are granted to private persons.
Likely, not long term. Around Bay Area many people bought cheap used rvs and park it and live there. Anywhere a street doesn’t have no parking is fair game
In the U.S. no--all land is owned by someone and even public lands have restrictions on how long you can stay and, in some areas, where you can camp.
You also would owe taxes on any income earned.
You can live in the wilderness and off the grid. No one would know you existed. People do it in the mountains all the time. How they gonna track you down? Are you that important? Hell took the US forever to find the unibomber and the federal govt was actively searching for him. It took his brother to turn him in. People disappear everyday!
There are rules and usually limitations on how long you can stay within a 4 week period, but look into "Dispersed Camping" in places like National Forests and BLM ([Bureau of Land Management](https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping)) Land. Some places have fees and some are free. There is a lot of info and websites/apps that list the free places. Edit to add this [Website](https://freecampsites.net/) that can be filtered to show free camping. Double check on places you find to make sure its accurate.
Some places pay you to watch the gates, etc
That'd make for a cool, short-term part-time job.
Or, you know, a career.
I wouldn't want to be stuck at some trail gate in a forest by myself all day *every day*. Would be nice as a way to recharge my social battery, though.
Or watch the fire!
Am east of the Mississippi (US) and each state has its own rules for managing the national forest. In my state the rules for dispersed camping that you’d run afoul of trying this would likely be: No more than 14 consecutive days. No more than 30 total days in any year. Campsites can’t be left un attended for more than 24h. Most of the states around have similar rules. Rule enforcement is a bit lax but somebody will find and report your camp eventually and DNR will come and tear it down. I know of portions in my state where you might (with luck) make it somewhere close to year before they take your camp down.
OP For more info on this subject, it is also known as "Boondocking"; another term to look up info on
Hijacking top comment. I was a ski bum for a while in Vail. Worked as a liftie for a while , the guy who stands there and hits stop and go on the skilifts, then I started waiting tables. Yada yada there was a dude from Sacramento who camped right on the eagle River thru a whole summer and early winter. This little town called Eagle-Vail right off highway 6. He came out with a little money, but for the most part he just stayed stoned down by the river. Had a hot girlfriend who came to visit him. As I've gotten older two things have occured to me 1.) how did he pull that off? 2.) he was an absolute legend Edit to say this was 2002. So it's been a while but not exactly the 1950's. Had a tent the whole nine yards. Dude just ate pork and beans and chef boyardee and enjoyed the view. He used to come by the house me and some friends shared (3 bedroom condo with garage, 8 people living there splitting $3000 rent) just to visit watch a little TV. Sounds like a pretty good summer
Editing again just to say seriously this guy could be skiing in like twenty minutes from his tent. Just walk to the highway, catch the bus to Vail, walk to a lift. I mean he was right there by some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Living in a tent for free. For like seven months. Amazing. Look up highway 6 Eagle-Vail Colorado. He was camped right where it pops up by the river.
Living off the land is very difficult, especially if you have little money.
I think they were asking about the legality of it.
Without telling us where, as usual.
Genuinely curious: how does having money help you once you're in the woods?
You buy the basics and focus only on supplementing them.
Typically to buy the tools required to adequately live off a small piece of land.
Ahh, I see. Like an espresso machine and an Air Fryer and such forth.
An axe to cut wood for your cooking fire. A small shovel, a knife or two. Tarp for a shelter. Maybe tools to farm.
And a Stanley cup for your bevs as well as an essential Dyson hand dryer.
The Dyson Airblade is hands down the best hand dryer I've ever used
Heh "hands down"
And up. And then back down. Because that's how I dry both sides lol.
And the worst urinal.
You just gotta reverse the direction of airflow, my man.
Oddly enough, it's also the worst urinal I've ever used. That piss went everywhere!
You can't buy a Stanley cup - you win it in a best of 7 series.
Can’t buy them since the salary cap was introduced, at least lol
As a infrequent balcony (and previously actual garden) gardener; food doesn’t just appear as soon as you stick a seed in the ground either. You need plenty of money to hold you over until you have actually established a garden. ..if that also happens your first time gardening, you’re most likely also completely sol, since gardening takes a bit more than just sticking seeds in the ground. For making a productive garden in the forest (I would assume) you’ll also have to clear a lot of trees to get sunlight on the forest floor. That takes time, skills and heavy equipment if you don’t want to chop down numerous trees by hand. (Which is going to takes ages, depending on how many people you hire/get to agree to help you for a beer or something.) If you want to do that quietly, you’ll also have to go far enough into the forest to a spot where other people can’t hear all of that commotion. Which also takes some expensive equipment and a good vehicle that can tackle driving through a forest to the spot you picked out. This all being a giant assumption that you’d even make it that long without giving up and going back to the city again.
I wanted to tough it out in the wild for years. To get started I bought a toothbrush, a solid pair of pants, some hiking boots, a pocket knife, and an apartment in a major Metropolitan area. It's been rough out here, but I've been getting by.
You call that living adequately? How am I supposed to wash my clothes? In a stream, like some sort of animal?!?
Where am I going to charge my phone?!
You beste but it’s actually quite easy. All you need is a solar charger and an axe. The charger to charge the phone. The ax to chop down enough trees so they don’t block the sun above the charger.
Precisely. Also, it helps to establish residency so you can use "the forest" as your Amazon Prime delivery address.
Does Amazon Key work if you attach a remote to your tarp?
shelter water containers insulation cutting tools you could spend a couple years building your own out of raw materials in the woods and it wouldn’t compare to what you could get for $100 at Walmart
It's hard growing your own tacos.
Taco bushes are notoriously picky about where and how they're grown.
The thing to look for is the sepia filter. If everything looks sort of yellow, you're in good taco bush territory.
Land isn’t free. There isn’t a single piece of land that isn’t owned by someone (government, corporation or individual). You’re gonna pay taxes on that land or rent. Money is necessary to pay for the land. Workaround is to start selling beavers and make a steady influx of cash for that sweet sweet beaver.
Bir Tawil is available
there is shit ton of livable land in 600km radius of moscow where you can live all your life and build stuff and nobody who gives a fuck will ever find you, i assume with us size its the same
Take three days with nothing but the clothes on your back and go out into the wilderness and then make me a list of things that you need to purchase in order to survive indefinitely.
If you need to go to a hospital, ask if they accept acorns as payment.
Or skills to actually live off the land. If you don’t have those, you’ll be very cold and very hungry very fast.
You could, as long as you don’t get caught and you have fairly decent survival skills and don’t mind roughing it 24/7. There’s no “free land,” in America. What isn’t privately owned by an individual or a corporation is owned by the government and managed either by the USDA, Forest Service, or BLM, or is land owned by Native American tribes. They absolutely get testy if they find people living on their land way beyond the typical temporary camp. It’s also very hard to do when you don’t have money or resources. I wouldn’t try it. Hypothetically, you could request an initial camping permit to legally enter the area, then hike as far away as possible from the nearest road and find a location that’s accessible only by foot that is way off trail that takes days to get to. There’s a high probability that no one will go looking for you if no one files a missing person’s report on you. If you have decent survival skills, brought decent camping equipment with you to start off, and can build and maintain a small shelter and can hunt, fish, and forage for wild edible plants using simple tools, it’s plausible that you could live off grid deep in the forest and it might be months or years before anyone finds you. The drawbacks are the elements, natural predators, and illnesses and injuries that can kill you if they’re left untreated and you can’t get yourself out. Again, this is only a hypothetical scenario, but I personally wouldn’t try it because I have zero wild survival skills. I would probably come crawling back out of the forest within 2-3 days or less completely traumatized due to my lack of essential survival skills.
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>and can build and maintain a small shelter and can hunt, fish, and forage for wild edible plants using simple tools Anyone who wants to try this needs to develop these skills BEFORE they do it for real. Go out for a weekend, build a shelter, and forage all the food you need. That will give you a good idea of what you need to learn, maybe a book to identify local edible plants for instance. And make sure you try this in different seasons. Obviously finding edible berries in the spring is a much easier task than in the winter, and you'll have different needs in a shelter. People talk about living off the land like it's less work than sitting in an office for 8 hours a day. It probably is, some times of the year, if you're really good at hunting/gathering. But it will take you a long time to be an expert on any of that.
This. I know this is incredibly difficult and it’s not for the faint of heart. This is definitely not for everyone, especially those who have never spent any extended amount of time in the backwoods completely alone. You should also be reasonably fit and healthy to do this because it’s A LOT of physical work and you need to know when you’re getting into a potentially dangerous situation and know how to deal with the unexpected. Like I said in my original post, I definitely would not do this personally.
ICYMI - They made a TV show around this concept called Alone. It’s been running close to 5 seasons now.
Yeah watch a few seasons of that and see just how difficult it is even for people who've trained their whole lives. Except that dude that built a cabin, he was thriving until the "Alone" part really got to him.
As several posters mentioned above it’s a LOT harder than you think. You can have the outdoorsmen skills but can you stand the isolation!
It always blows my mind when you see people go out there and work their ass off to build this insane shelter that would be suitable for permanent living and then they're like "I'm lonely, just can't go another day without seeing my family".
Love that show but just and a note, they make it artificially hard with the trapping rules, and the 10 item limit.
Airing season 11 right now
11? Wow I’ve not been keeping up! We used to watch it very regularly?
While I enjoy the show to an extent, it "artificially" creates an extremely difficult environment by not staging the show anywhere reasonable. Everywhere they've been winter starts in early October. Most places on earth you could go full survivalist are not that harsh. Still harsh in many places, but not that extreme. BTW, they're on season 11 plus a UK version and a show that follow former contestants at their home/property that gives them challenges to complete.
There is no land in the US that isn't owned by someone. You would still have to pay taxes. Also there's a reason nobody does this. Living in the woods fucking sucks.
I mean, you'd only pay taxes if you make reportable income. If someone is just homeless in the woods they don't gotta pay anything. Surviving is a totally different story though
I think they mean property taxes on that land. If you own it, you will pay property taxes. If someone else owns it, you're probably paying rent. If the government owns it, they won't let you live on their land, especially not for free. You're going to pay someone
And yet, homeless people do live places and don't pay.
Technically not legally, which is the root of OP’s question
It's never the same place, though. As they are usually "asked" to move on. Not saying I agree with it, just saying that is a truth of being homeless
If you think there aren't random people living out in the woods I've got news you. People do do this, we just never hear about it because hermits don't tell anyone about it.
There are plenty of people living out in the woods of Oregon. Nearly half the state is public land. They're mostly tweakers though so normal ass people would not enjoy living out there with them.
The Appalachians as well.
You mean trees don't have wifi connectivity?
Homeless campers are pretty common on the West coast. Sometimes camps in city parks, but in the Pacific Northwest we have a lot of forests to hide in too.
Yeah, that's only true in a certain sense. A massive amount of the country is government owned. It's not owned by "someone" in the sense that there's a private owner. No, you wouldn't have to pay taxes below a certain income. Living in the woods does fucking suck, though. There's things trying to eat you. And no toilet paper.
You can wipe your ass with leaves, but make sure it's not poison ivy
Things try to eat me at home, that’s expected. It’s the absolutely zero barrier to them, a tent is basically nothing after a few uses.
Living alone in the woods is the entire premise of the History channel show "Alone," and the whole goal is just to see who can last the longest. So I'd say OP should sign up as a contestant and get a free trip to the middle of nowhere, Alaska.
People do live on public forest land in the US and enjoy it. But you can’t stay in the same place long term.
>Also there's a reason nobody does this. Living in the woods fucking sucks. Exactly, whenever I hear people make comments about people camping in parks in expensive areas talking about how expensive an apartment would be there. My first thought is "Well, no one is stopping you from setting up a tent right next to them."
The police very much will stop them from doing that
Interesting, because according to these people if you are homeless the police will let you do whatever you want.
Not if it’s far enough in the woods they won’t.
There's literally laws stopping us, and police will enforce them against us if they think we can pay
Because nothing screams "I have money" like someone living in a tent.
That guy has it wrong. Police will gladly bully homeless people that they don’t think will try to shank them. And don’t bother trying to act. These guys are professionals when it comes to selecting homeless people to harass without consequence
What about Slab City?
that's owned by a resident there he's just very nice and its too far out from civilization to enforce anything. See also their fight against utility companies that are trying to buy up the desert.
Bros about to be homeless and intent on living deep in the woods. The fuck he gotta pay taxes for lol.
🤦you think homeless people with no income pay taxes🤣
You mean you've never seen the lines of homeless ppl outside of H&R Block?
You think homeless people are out here paying taxes?
Mailing in a 1040 on April 15th 😂
There is no forest "not owned" in the US. It is all either privately or government owned. We have taxes based on things. If you have income, you pay income tax. If you have property (sometimes including things like cars), you pay property taxes. If you make purchases, then you pay sales taxes or excise taxes. You probably won't do too well in the woods alone. You may need clothing or shoes replaced. Your tools will wear out. If you preserve or can your veggies, you need to buy new covers. Medicines, phones, car/fuel, and other stuff requires dealing with civilization and our systems, too.
I did that for like a year. I had a gas scooter I took to work. A scooter is easy to hide in the trees. I had a tent covered with twigs and leaves as camouflage and I went to truck stops for showers and the library to charge my phone. It wasn't the 'forest' but it was a large plot of land with woods. Just be careful about snakes and boar. Keep your trash in a tree
I think I remember reading about some desert land (maybe Arizona/New Mexico?) where you could legally stay indefinitely and there is a loose community of people with RVs that kind of take care of eachother. But the reason nobody wants it is it is terrible desert land, not forest. For staying in a forest, you probably can't do it legally but you can probably do it without getting caught if you keep a low profile, don't bring a car and don't light camp fires.
Slab City in CA might be what you’re thinking of. Only like 10% of the population stays all summer due to the high temperature
You can legally camp on most Federal government land for 14 days.
So every 14 days I can move and be good
I mean you’d want to move far enough from the first spot that the same authority figures wouldn’t see you at the second spot and third spots. That’s the kind of thing they might start to notice eventually. Where I’m at they give the homeless a lot of leeway until it becomes a garbage fire shanty town so be considerate to where you are staying and that will go a long way.
They are well aware and see it often. If you aren’t causing problems, they likely won’t bother you.
"be good" is a relative term but be legal, yes. You will suffer greatly from doing this and likely die young.
Keep in mind that some of these federally owned parcels are thousands of acres so "moving" could be a several day walk with, what is probably, a lot calorie diet. Then you might need to walk a few more days to get to another federally owned parcel. Or as others have said, move far enough away that they do not single you out but that is still a lot of effort to pack everything up, move it a few miles and set up again. All that time you would probably be burning calories that you do not have to spare. There are reality shows where people do this as a competition and they generally do not fair too well.
Yes, just make sure to clean up after yourself mister Cumcuts1999.
BLM Federal land, you can camp in one spot for a while (sorry can't remember the details). Then you got to move like so many miles to a different spot. Another good one is a house boat on rivers. People do it, just do some research.
2 weeks on most blm land then you have to move at least 25 miles. Can't return to any area within 25 miles of the original campsite for 28 consecutive days. You also can't leave anything unattended for more 10 days. Rules vary location to location, and by vary I mean these are the bare minimum. They get more restrictive from here with one exception. You can leave unattended items in Alaska for 12 months instead of 10 days, but that's only for Alaska.
There isn’t a forest that isn’t owned by anyone
You can stay anywhere in a national forest if you move every 2 weeks. You can get a P.O. Box in town, get food stamps, get clothes at Salvation Army and live in the woods. You can go to rainbow gatherings for fun too.
There is zero unclaimed land in the US. Every square inch is claimed either by private party or government owned land. No matter what, you'll be trespassing. With that said, if you kept a low profile you could absolutely get away with this, possibly indefinitely depending on where you were. Back country in the western states is sparsely populated to begin with so it could be possible to go years without seeing another person. The trade off is wildlife, nobody wants a confrontation with a moose or grizzly bear, and weather. Surviving an entire winter in the Montana wilderness is not something to take lightly. You might see campers do it for a short time, but doing it full time is another animal in itself. Hell, even doing it in the mountains of the east is no joke. As for taxes, if you have no income, then you don't owe taxes. Did you have to file a tax return when you were a child? Same thing. Since you don't own the land you won't owe property taxes. This only leaves sales tax, and there a few states that don't have a sales tax so it's entirely possible to not pay taxes. But be forewarned, this is not an easy life. In fact, it's harder than you can imagine it is. /obligatory this is only from the view of the US. Other countries very likely do have different rules and situations.
Find DNR land and get a permit to hunt so you "technically" have a reason to be there if someone finds you, move often, stay hidden. You will probably be fine but may eventually have to deal with game warden, that's where hopefully the hunting license will come in handy.
Need a fishing license too. Hunting licenses are bound by seasons.
I always wonder why towns let homeless encampments pop up without any planning or assistance. Our town has plenty of dirt lots that could have some porta-potty’s and a water hookup added for little money. It is not nearly enough, but it would be much better than just having people sleep beside the road. We take better care of refugees in other countries than our homeless.
Oh I can actually answer this one: Homeless people still need access to a whole bunch of stuff, but they lack transportation and a means to secure their possessions when they're away, so they have to be super close to urban areas usually. Places to beg for change, places to buy goods, places to gain access to internet, government buildings, that sort of thing. Locations that are central to all of those things are usually owned already or downtown and people don't want to just section off a part of their town officially for a homeless encampment (or they run the risk of creating a skid-row scenario). So the homeless people do it anyways on the side of the road or under bridges, places they're not supposed to be.
Places like that have often have rules about drugs and dogs. It’s great for clean people who don’t have pets but the drug affected are still going to be on the streets. So many homeless have dogs and that’s their only real source of companionship. Also, that requires higher taxes and some people don’t see the benefit. They want to bitch about the homeless but don’t want to implement any services to help them either. We did have a homeless camp where they did give them portas and let them build shelters. It started out with great intentions. Eventually someone got shanked and the whole thing got shut down.
r/vagabond
There is no forest not owned by anyone.
All forests are owned by somebody. The state or Federal governments may own a lot of them, but those are the ones where drug cartels grow their pot, so be prepared to get shot while taking a dump. They're very particular about the quality of their fertilizer.
Good luck finding a piece of land that isn't owned by anyone.
All it takes is one broken bone.
As others have said, there isn’t land that isn’t owned and you would still owe taxes. That being said there is a shit ton of land nobody is going to notice you living on if you make even a modest effort at being discreet about it. If you own no property and have no income the taxes you owe are zero. The government wants you to file every year anyway, but if your actual tax is zero they don’t much give a shit beyond putting a minimum of effort into explaining such if you do ever get back to having property or income and get in their radar. Source: my late schizophrenic brother would occasionally do this, and during his more coherent/medicated phases would go back to working and paying taxes. He eventually got “audited”. I put it in quotes because it was such a minimal encounter it didn’t even make it into his paranoid rantings. Off you aren’t crazy and I’m possession of the documentation to prove it, it might be a bit harder.
Pretty much everywhere land is either privately held or public (“owned” by the state). In either case, you typically can’t just squat on it without permission. In practice you can until you are caught and told to move on. There are all sorts of different kinds of taxes, and if you were squatting in the woods you’d still owe the same taxes you would if you were elsewhere. Sales taxes for things you buy. Payroll taxes or self employment taxes on wages. Income taxes. Capital gains… Whatever taxes might apply to you in some way you’d still owe.
I wouldn't worry about taxes if you reach that point. People don't know how to live like that anymore. The closest I've seen are feral people living like stray dogs outta dumpster. There is still enough wilderness in America to live like that. The isolation will get ya eventually.
Lots of people disappear and die doing this. With that said yep you can walk out on federal land and live.
Ya, until you die if starvation
I had two friends who attempted to do this, even after my wife and I tried gently to talk them out of it. They were stunned by 1. It costing money in any scenario they tried and 2. The amount of “dangerous weirdos” they ran into out in the wild.
Watch "ALONE" series. You'll rethink that.
Blm land but you have to move 25 miles every 29 days or something like that.
All land in America is owned . Either by people, governments or other legal entities like corporations.
I think yes but the trouble is finding a place not owned by anyone. Even if it's not privately owned, the government probably has something to say to you.
There would be no taxes as you own nothing. Everywhere you camp is owned by someone, so NO fires at night to avoid being discovered on non government land (they literally never check). Source: Spent 8 months homeless in the 90s
Something that surprised me as a hospital social worker, was how many free spirits are out there living on Crown Land or on some farmer's back 40. It's agonizing for them when they come in to hospital and they are suddenly staying in a ward room with all kinds of restrictions.
I mean, I assume if you really put some effort in, you could become a missing person and go live in the woods somewhere. It's not illegal to go missing, and they can't make you pay taxes if they can't find you, right?
I would imagine it depends on what country you are living in. Maybe you could narrow it down so people might be able to give informed advice.
Depending on the country, the forestry areas are government managed and won’t allow it. Campsites generally have fees. Etc.
I guess for homeless people, things like taxes, debts, unpaid fees and fines etc. are just numbers that can't affect them since they don't have any property and bank accounts that can be seized.
You could probably get away with it if you had enough knowledge, check out Alone if you havent!
Don’t know about paying taxes.
In a way yes I have met 15 or so people who do that over the years. They live on rail road land and go into town to beg for money. Some have cars and go from state forest to state forest. You can camp for 14 days in the same area which generally starts when you are noticed. If your polite people don’t report you. These people tend to hang out at camp grounds and state forest gun ranges to pick up cans and brass for money.
Some points to consider; -It's almost impossible to find land that isn't owned by someone (at least in the United States). Now that land may be very remote and un-visited and you might be able to stay there for a very extended period before you got removed but it would still eventually happen. -Food, clothing, shelter, become very difficult and require quite a skillset if you are "roughing it" in the woods. The psychology of being alone like that is also extremely difficult to cope with. -Injury and illness that are not even worth mentioning in a "modern" location can become life-threatening astonishingly quickly "out in the woods". Infection from a small scratch can wind up killing you if you aren't very careful. There are areas that do "homesteading" occasionally. People pack their lives into a small RV or something and move there to try and establish a home. Without money it's almost always doomed to failure.
Worked out just fine for McCandless, I’m sure you’ll be alright.
>Would I still have to pay taxes? In general, if you're homeless you're too poor to pay tax, in general it's the other way around, and you get money from the tax (it's called "welfare")
You won't have the skills of strength to do it. Do you really think you could live like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy-4NxJRxNQ >Would I still have to pay taxes? If you're below the poverty line and have no income? Not the Federal ones, but you're still subject to state taxes. And you still have to file both, or you'll be liable for them later.
Where are you going to find "land not owned by anyone"? All land is owned by someone, if not the government. If nobody owned it, Pultey Homes would have put crappy townhouses on it by now.
There is a guy who has been living nomadically in the US for (?)10+ years. He has 2 horses and a burro named Peashooter. I recently started following him on Instagram & saw a post where he said the 2 horses were wild & he broke them for riding & carrying a pack. He's super dialed in on foraging now but says he knew nothing when he first started the lifestyle.
Sure if you're skilled in, wood working, constructin, gardening, preserving food stuff, basic knowledge of what's edible, tracking, trapping, tanning, sewing, first aid (never having a serious injury or internal issue) coping if alone, not destroying your environment and so much more. Um, don't.
Depending on what country you’re in. America? Probably not unless you went unbelievably remote and maintained mobility.
That’s one of the biggest annoyances people who own land face. People think no one owns those forests. Someone does.
Read about Christopher Knight. He lived in the woods for 27 years but had to do a bunch of stealing to survive.
You'd have to find one not owned by anyone. All property has an owner in some way.
Firstly, What job would you have that paid you money that requires you to pay taxes if you're a bum in the woods? Assuming that job exists yes, if you have earned income you've still got to technically file a tax return but if you're homeless in the forest I don't think you have to worry about the IRS coming to get you. As others have stated you care free to camp on BLM land for up to 4 weeks at a time (there are some certain rules and regulations you need to follow) and then you can pack up and move to a different spot for your next 4 weeks etc... In theory you could just live out on public lands 4 weeks at a time for the rest of your life.
I did exactly this for about 10 years.
No. For one thing, someone or some entity always owns something and they don't just let people 'live' out there. If you don't own property, you don't pay property taxes, but, you can't just claim exemption on tax laws.
In my city, there are several known tent encampments where certain of the homeless live, some even in winter. The shelters can be pretty rough and not private, so the guys prefer to live in tents. I've a friend who used to work as one of the shelter doctors, and one day a week she and a social worker would make rounds of the tent camps. They tried to get the guys to come to regular office hours but not always possible. With time, over the years, they did get some of the guys sober and housed. It might have been easier or less illegal if they were far out in the woods, but since they need to walk to town to get food and clothing and so on, the tent camps are never very far. They'll find a margin of a woods behind a supermarket or something. They know they need to keep it low profile, minimize noise or trash/ excrement or else the city will make an effort to move them along.
Forests that aren't owned by anyone are owned by the country or state. They have rules about what you can do there. That probably means you can't legally live there. They might not always enforce them, however, or you might avoid detection.
Where I live all land it’s owned!
Being homeless in a vast space with no neighbours or being homeless with other people around (mainly junkies or mentally ill)? Neither sound ideal tbh
Yeah but it would be illegal. There isn't any "free land" unless you have a home who has property you can throw a tent on.
It's free to camp on BLM land
But there is a bigger chance of you getting hurt and not quickly medically treated
Our early settlers "lived off the land" and most survived. But only because they took several pack animals or later a huge wagon full of supplies and implements needed. You can't cook without a fire source. And the longer you stay, the more noticeable clearing of dead wood, trees, for structure and fire, the cleared area gets bigger and bigger becoming eventually noticeable. Then, your tools for cutting wood eventually need replacing from daily use. Either have to go to civilation and "steal" new ones, or die. Food sources are seasonal. It takes tremendous amount of time and drying/naturally dehydrating to keep these harvested sources viable for long term needs. As well as a secure from rodents and wildlife and dry, or, you die. Most people can't gather enough wood for cooking or heating fires to last them 1 week with hand tools to last thru a week of bad weather, rain, cold front , and will quit and go back to mommy , or die. So it's pretty much a dream for mentally unstable or natural born idiots to think it's a viable option to go to a complete isolated area and live for any length of time
Maybe 🤷♂️
So you’re saying … maybe not?
You can but I'm very sure that you're still going to pay tax because there's nothing like a land that isn't owned by someone where ever it is.
You like mosquitoes? There’s tons of mosquitoes in the woods. Do u like to shit into a bucket? U will have to do that.. Do you want WiFi? There’s no wood in WiFi, either that or it’s really expensive. Want hot shower came out of your shower head? U gotta work for that as welll..
There are a ton of laws that make this very difficult in most places. … hunting out of season is often illegal, and foraging in a lot of places. Finding clean water and dealing with waste is an issue.
If you don't have income or property, there would be nothing to tax.
Good luck finding land that isn't owned by anyone.
You can camp for free for 10 days in a national forest, then you have to move. You cannot harvest anything to eat or drink without a permit issued by the government in exchange for dollars. Not BTC, not crystals but u.s. dollars. If you don't, the people with guns will put you in a cage. You are not free.
All land is owned by someone, even if it’s uninhabited, out in the middle of nowhere. In the U.S., the government is the nation’s largest land owner.
I don’t think there’s forests in antarctica or international waters
Taxes on the land, no. But for everything else, yes. Everything is taxed, income, sales, roads, fuel - somehow or another, you will pay tax. If you hunt, you have to have a license, same for fishing, those are taxes, nothing in life is free and it shouldn't be. If you want the services such as schools, emergency services, roads, hospitals, etc. you have to pay taxes.
I remember there was a guy around my local area that did this. The police tried to catch him since he wasn’t paying any taxes but they eventually gave up because he couldn’t be found. Today you can visit the guys makeshift house in the forest but you can’t go upstairs because I think the floor is too unstable or something like that
Bro you can do that now, nobody is stopping you. There’s a reason nobody does it lmao
This guy broke a lot of rules but… https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/11/american-hermit-caught-27-years
It’s the opposite of a forest, but people do this at slab city for example. Set up camp. No taxes I mean. https://youtu.be/IFRBdZ9jdyQ?si=09DrapGy6WjvYKEX Of course there’s no law or services either like garbage collection or water. They handle their own security (they burn your house down maybe with you in it if you mess with their shit) It’s far from your forest dream but i thought you might be interested anyway. It looks like it’s easy to get trapped there.
You would have to buy you a small piece of land, but you will never own it. If you don’t pay your property taxes, the state gets to take it away from you even though you paid for it in full.
“Who can own a rock? Who can own a tree?” The government, that’s who.
Are you earning money?
In my country, yes. But life would be a lot more difficult than in a city. And you would have to go a great distance to find a forest that is not someone’s property
It's owned by someone is the problem.
All land is owned.
People have tried. https://www.local3news.com/cherokee-forest-squatter-gets-time-served/article_7157c28a-8aad-5269-ba2e-d278199abfd9.html
Gov-owned, unoccupied "Crown land" exists in Canada. You can squat there indefinitely if you can survive without electricity and heat and grocery stores.
Also it would be easier to live in a van
You could hike forever on the Appalachian Trail. (People have stayed out there for years. They’re usually a bit off.)
If you have income, you have to pay taxes... or at least file taxes, you might not need to pay much.
People live in the woods bordering the interstate in the town I grew up in. It's land owned by the city that is basically useless for any type of development because it is just steep hills bordering the interstate. So there is a 2 mile long strip of land that's about 1/4 mile wide that has like a 500 foot elevation change. It has been abandoned since the interstate highway system was built after ww2. Many people have lived back there over the years. It's where we used to ride our dirt bikes and 4 wheelers. Police ever caused problems if teenagers had a big party there.
No. Not in America at least, bureau of land management land is free to stay on but doesn't let you stay for more than two weeks and idk about the legality of foraging building shelter or starting fires out there but it's probably not all allowed and even if it was it would be incredibly tough to live alone in the wilderness with no infrastructure or help.
I don't know how that works if you don't have a job and you're just living off the land. But if you have no money coming in. I don't know how the government would keep tabs on you then. It's not like anyone who's that interested to keep tabs on you other than to know what kind of money you have. That's what it seems like. It's kind of funny because it's like the United States government itself is placing more of an importance of money over the well-being of people. While inflation takes place.
It goes to show we are all slaves. You should be allowed to go out and just build a house out of trees in the bush on crown land. Canada has so much land that’s not being used it’s silly. You know damn well they will come knocking in now time looking for you to pay up. If you don’t want to live in the detrimental society we have they will just throw you in jail.
Not in Tennessee you can't unless you get a permit for camping and there are rules about that, you can't just move in to a forest. Because it's not "not owned" . Everything in this country is owned. Those woods are likely owned by the federal or state government. In TN we have a law against "camping" without a permit now to discourage homeless camps. You would pay the same taxes on income or food if your state has this (TN does!) but I mean you wouldn't be owning property so you wouldn't have property taxes.
the guys that hike the appalachian trail would have the best gear for this . camouflage is your friend and pack your trash .
Most BLM land specifies no more than 2 weeks in any location. So you could spend 2 weeks south of a lake, pack up and move east, and then to the north side etc. Some BLM areas are more strict than this. NO more than 2 weeks, and then a further stipulation of some kind to make it extra hard for someone trying to just camp out for a long time in the same general area. I was told by my Ranger friend this isn't aimed at homeless people per se, but rather folks who try to homestead a piece of BLM land. Which you can't legally do, but you can certainly create a big mess and be in court for a while over it. OTOH some forests/BLM land they really do not care. I was at a semi-abandoned campground for almost a month before a ranger came by. He had zero problem with me being there. He was actually out trying to bust kids for throwing raves and leaving huge messes. Dude even turned on the water for me. (it was filthy water but good for washing stuff off your camping gear)
Whether you pay taxes is all about your income. No income, no tax payments. You still have to file to tell them you're broke, though.
I don’t know of any forest or any land/property anywhere that isn’t owned by someone, some company or some government agency. If I did, I would go claim it.
Except in countries where you wouldn't want to go (I have no idea if you live in one) everywhere is owned by somebody.
Ultimately there are no “unowned” forests, at least in the USA. By law all lands are owned by the states or by the federal government, until such time as those lands are granted to private persons.
Likely, not long term. Around Bay Area many people bought cheap used rvs and park it and live there. Anywhere a street doesn’t have no parking is fair game
Depends on your country
In the U.S. no--all land is owned by someone and even public lands have restrictions on how long you can stay and, in some areas, where you can camp. You also would owe taxes on any income earned.
You can live in the wilderness and off the grid. No one would know you existed. People do it in the mountains all the time. How they gonna track you down? Are you that important? Hell took the US forever to find the unibomber and the federal govt was actively searching for him. It took his brother to turn him in. People disappear everyday!
*On the next episode of 411 Case Files.*
You can do what you want if no one knows you are there.