[tima101]

Similar story here. We traveled with my wife for 3.5 years. Then we built homestead on 30 acres of forest land in rural WA. Now I am 36 and we bought land in HI to build our second homestead. And it is from scratch again! Most of our income comes from freelance gigs. The last time I visited big city was over 10 years ago. No regrets here.

I think the best framework is to not compare yourself to others. And fear of change is a normal, ordinary feeling. Comparing to others makes no sense, just try to do things that YOU will not regret and things that make you happy in long term.

[foobarian]

How does raising kids work in this kind of regimen? How do you ensure they have a big social pool available to build peer relationships?

[Cyberdogs7]

Home schooling was a requirement for us. Having a social pool has never been a problem, as our kids learn to make friends really quickly and continue to keep in contact via g-chat and email once we part ways. Living like this, you tend to find lots of others in a similar lifestyle, so the kids are all very well adapted.

[tima101]

No kids for now but we are making plans. My wife is younger than me and we are planning to have kids in the next 1-2 years. Before we have kids we will decide and settle in one place. We will probably keep our second homestead since we are emotionally attached to it.

[JKCalhoun]

Love to hear any thoughts you have on homesteading in Washington state. Specifically, areas you think are good.

For some reason I am attracted to the south-eastern area that is drier. Forests say "fire" to me (and I also love the sun too much to be "enclosed" by a forest).

North and/or high altitudes say "cold" to me.

[tima101]

Yes, we are North-East, not far from Canadian border. A lot of snow, cold winters. We haven't lived in SE WA but visited the area you mentioned 3-4 times. The area between Pullman and, say, Kennewick. Way fewer trees, lower altitude but winters are less cold and less snowy. I would say there is no perfect place. Once you checked your main checkboxes, paradise is a state of mind, not place itself. You will have hot summers. We are at higher altitude, I have tractor primarily for snow but summers are much cooler. And we like cooler summers. This June was mostly at 68-75F, our german shepherd and I love it. I talked to a person from Texas and he mentioned 90-95F in May and 95-100F in June - no, thank you very much. We even bought land in HI at 3000 ft elevation to have 75F in summer and 72F in winter for the same reason.

South-East WA will have hotter summers, no shade from trees and every time we visited it was windy. having said that rolling hills are beautiful, farmers are nice, some healthy rivers for fishing. Pullman and Moscow have shopping and amenities.

[JKCalhoun]

Yes, but we are comparing ourselves to you right now and feeling the wanderlust.