Originally Posted by
Aqua_Andy
I was listening to our local public radio station a while ago, the article was about living car free. I have been thinking about it since. The article made living car free sound like a Utopian lifestyle, but all these people seemed to live sheltered lives in a city. Does anyone here live car free in a rural area? I tried to think about what my life would be like with out my automobiles and decided that my life would have to drastically change.
Shortly after moving to western Wisconsin for a job, I concluded that buying property was more effective than continuing to rent. This left my spouse and I with a dilemma: do we purchase a house in town, within walking/biking distance of everything, or do we buy a house with acreage out in the country?
Living in town won out, in large part due to our desire to avoid driving. The rural lifestyle is appealing - we like the idea of quiet, self-sufficiency, and generally having a break from too many people. We'd likely be 15 - 30 miles away from work, groceries, and hospitals (and obviously without access to services like public transit or taxis). Heating fuel, water, and waste/trash disposal could probably be handled without a vehicle. Getting to work would be a fun road ride for 8 months out of the year. Winter was the deal-breaker: the area is hilly, and getting up and down steep, winding, unserviced roads in the snow and ice in the dark is difficult even with a vehicle - hazardous if not impossible on a bicycle.
I'm glad that Rowan responded. I'm hoping that other previously and currently car-free/rural folks share as well, as there have been some on this subforum in the past. I personally could not do it in my current location, with my current employment situation, and my current tolerance for what I consider hazardous as opposed to merely difficult. In other words: my lifestyle would need to change in order for me to consider living rural without a vehicle.