First of all, I was a weirdo before I moved to the forest. But now I'm a very happy weirdo.
I do have 4G (LTE) broad band, so Internet is almost everywhere I go.
I come from Stockholm but I live now on a trail called Sörmlandsleden, it's a 1000 km long trail and for the moment I'm pretty far south from Stockholm. But the trail never goes out "into the wild".
I also think that there is a right time for things. What I need now is to blaze forward with the coding. That's this phase.
I take swims in the lake and keep clean, shave once a week. Wash my clothes.. So when I do go into town to buy food or meet someone, I do not look like some troll. So meeting potential customers is not a big problem. I just have to get up really early in the morning to get there.. =)
I'm happy so many both here on HN and on The ListServe are interested in coding in the forest and giving support.
When winter comes I do not know what I'll do, but coding in the snow is not an option. But I will not surrender to any "normal" life until the startup begins to move, according to my earlier pledge.
Somewhat off-topic; but if you're wondering how this became a story on HN: it was submitted to the ListServe a bit over an hour ago.
The ListServe is a really cool email lottery where every day one person wins the chance to send an email to everyone else on the list, and the results have been nothing short of mesmerizing so far.
Given that they have >22k subscribers already, the chances of actually getting to say something in your lifetime are pretty low - assuming nobody else joins and there are no repeats, it would take over 60 years for everyone to get to post once.
That said, it sounds interesting, as a "15 minutes of fame lottery" at least.
I spent two years driving from Alaska->Argentina, living in my tent and cooking on my little camp stove.[1]
I'm a Software Engineer, so I did a few freelance projects along the way. It was perfect to get online somewhere, get all the stuff I needed, then drive out to the wilderness for a week or more while I coded everything up. I'd come back into a town, upload what I needed to and continue on my merry way.
In another life, long before taking up coding, I spent 6 months in the mountains of southern Spain (near Grenada) living in a Rainbow community where tepees were the lodging of choice.
Amazing experience, obviously not much "work" getting done ;-)...except for this English guy, lived in a crude stone structure on the range across the way from where the community was situated. Somehow he had electricity, either through solar panels or running a mega cable to the small village higher up the range.
Anyway, he was a programmer (this is in the mid-90s, BTW) working for a bank in England -- would mail floppy disks to his employer.
Looking back now, I salute him deeply, living on the edge (literally of a mountain range) hanging out with a group of 200+ crazy pot/shroom/lsd huffing hippies -- how he got any work done is beyond me ;-)
I had childhood friends living way out in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They had electricity and telephone service. On a pole at the bottom of their pasture was a directional antenna connected to a cordless telephone base station. One time we took a hike down the mountain, along the creek and up the other side. There was the homestead of the family who's telephone that was. They lived in a hexagonal treehouse and an old school bus. They had solar power and the handset connected to another home-made antenna pointing across the valley. The father was a programmer.
He wrote software for parking meters and used a hand-held GPS receiver to keep track of the ginseng he had planted in the National Forest.
I'm sure it's possible to sit in isolation and create a livable startup. In my experience, though, the best things professionally, such as bizdev deals, finding people to work with or making large sales, come from personal connections. That is, people that you've actually met.
I love the outdoors and I love to code as well. This sounds super fun and I'm kind of jealous of that lifestyle, but I'm not sure if it's a sound business decision.
Life is full of phases. I don't think anyone would recommend someone do this for all their life, but for a time and place, it might be the best decision ever made.
This is awesome. Personally, I occasionally daydream of "escaping it all" and coding by the ocean.
This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1].
In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3].
Boats provide some of the cheapest rent and best views in the Bay Area. Paid less than one year's worth of rent to buy a 42' motor boat and parked it over by Oakland where my monthly liveaboard slip fee is just over $500/month. If you need to be in or around SF and are trying to save on rent, I can't encourage people enough to try it out.
Glad you brought him up. I learned about him reading his book about solo sailing around the world in a 31 foot boat. Good read even if you aren't interested in sailing. Free ebook here: http://www.arachnoid.com/sailbook/
I have to wonder though, is this a wise choice? If the product alone, e.g. the code, is what drives investment it surely is.. But I would guess that's only one of many factors. People are scared away from others that are too different when it comes to things like behaviour and clothing.
How long can he live in the forest before he's too "weird" to make meaningful connections to customers and investors? My guess is 2 days =/
Unless you're running a b2c SaaS, this might not be a good idea.
I'd expect the Swedish winter will probably make a significant impact on an end-date decision. This is super cool and doable now, but when it hits 0 and is light for 7 hours a day it may not be worth it.
Still - that's in 4-5 months - plenty of time to be hugely productive while keeping living costs to a minimum.
You ask "is this a wise choice" but I think in fact there isn't much of a choice.
If you want to work on your idea full-time, you need time. If you need time, you have to quit your full-time job doing something else. If you don't have income from your job, you can't afford an apartment.
One could argue you could try to get funding for your idea, but what if you want to make it free and open source and owned by humans rather than any specific corporation?
He does say "until my startup takes off". I don't think this is really that much different from the kid who kept sneaking into a big corp's office (was it YCombinator?) and sleeping under a table in a sleeping bag until he got caught.
He's also wisely doing this during a Swedish summer, where the daylight hours are so extreme that everyone's behaviour changes anyway (well, that's what we get here in England anyhow….)
Couldn't help but notice that his April entry refers to 'trying out new wilderness recipes', and his next May entry refers to 'a rough time with food poisoning'.
Haha, yeah.. But the food poisoning come from some nasty sliced pepper salami I had for dinner. (Can't even think about them..) That was one b a d day..... Luckily a friend of mine did a rescue mission and brought me some coke and salts in the evening.. =)
Now my coworkers can't think i'm the weirdest coder ever for moving to Montana...at least i'm in a house!
Also to offer a prospective, while this sort of thing does change ones ability to interact personally I've found that it is also a hugh boost for productivity...I can code for hours, go climb a mountain to clear my mind and then keep coding.
It also seems like Thomas has found a great way to get publicity depending on what his target demographic is.
This is really cool and I'm glad to hear of someone doing this. Having the time to learn and work is key. It's hard to make any real progress when you're still trying to maintain a social life and work full time.
An idea: It might be much much easier to simply move to Mexico or Thailand. You could live on around $200-300 USD per month if you made your own food and you'd probably be a lot more comfortable than living in the woods (though I think that's amazing in its own way too).
Does anyone know of any dev boot camps or coworking spaces in the "developing world" that I should check out?
Or India. I live in Udaipur and there are many people from US/Europe staying here for months. $300/mo will take care of both food and stay. You can even teach language to make some money. I know a few people who have been living here like this for last 6 years.
Currently doing something similar - not a coder though, I'm living on Rugen Island in Germany. Made my first fire last night (embarrassed to say I'm 32 years old) and it gave me a kind of satisfaction I've not felt for a long time.
Feeling a lot more creative out here - enjoying being reconnected to nature. Spent 3 months in Brooklyn earlier in the year - the contrast is unreal. For me living in the city feels so toxic now. I want to make this a more permanent living arrangement - that's my next goal.
I absolutely love this. I'm jealous. I've been thinking about doing this, even if just once per year for 1-2 weeks. Some type of personal code jam, a chance to fully focus on personal projects distraction free.
I just did some research into the solar panels, they look fantastic but they're a little pricey. (~1000$ each) A little more digging gives me the impression that one could fairly easily DIY similar solar panels for considerable less, though obviously at much less quality.
I'm from the south of Sweden and even I wouldn't like to be living in a tent come winter. He better stop coding and start building some proper shelter. ;)
Apparently the plant poisoning in the movie (and postulated in the book) weren't correct. If you read the Wikipedia on McCandless[1] research into how he died has made it clear that it was just plain old rabbit starvation[2].
Damn, I'm jealous... Coding, writing, or doing any sort of work is always better outdoors, on a beach or in a forest.
Sounds like an adventure, and lots of fun. I frequently take long trips through the forest, back-country camping, but we do have bears, mountain lions, and the potential of blizzards in August (and laws that govern what we can and can't do in our wild spaces).
I hope your start-up is a success, and if it isn't, at least you'll have had an adventure and a story to tell (but I hope you success).
Good luck! I think it's a great way to live close to nature for a while. Camped once in the forest in Finland near a lake for a week with my gf, eating fresh fish every day and drinking spring water is awesome, can't wait to do it again sometime.
I also lived in a tent in London, in my garden, for 3-4 months (weekdays only) while my house was being renovated and extended - it's fine. I did it until November, in Sweden you'll want to move back indoors a couple of months earlier.
It is some of a problem. Especially because I must keep display strength to a minimum to save battery. But it works. I use the colorsheme morning (think its part of solarized) in Vim and let the sun hit the screen. And then when the screen gets to hot I move to the shade and use Jellybeans colorsheme.
I wish more startups would spend all of their time out of doors in outdoor offices. I keep wanting an outdoor covered workspace here in Texas, even when it's 100 Farenheit outside. I think offices dull the senses, and separate us from the world.
Agree on that. There is some overhead in making food and taking care of the camp but there is also another peace of mind that (we'll see if) could be good for your creativity.
But in either way, I feel very good on the inside now. No stress. Just harmony. Still getting a lot of things done.
[+] [-] thomasbacklund|12 years ago|reply
This was a nice surprise getting on HN =)
First of all, I was a weirdo before I moved to the forest. But now I'm a very happy weirdo.
I do have 4G (LTE) broad band, so Internet is almost everywhere I go.
I come from Stockholm but I live now on a trail called Sörmlandsleden, it's a 1000 km long trail and for the moment I'm pretty far south from Stockholm. But the trail never goes out "into the wild".
I also think that there is a right time for things. What I need now is to blaze forward with the coding. That's this phase.
I take swims in the lake and keep clean, shave once a week. Wash my clothes.. So when I do go into town to buy food or meet someone, I do not look like some troll. So meeting potential customers is not a big problem. I just have to get up really early in the morning to get there.. =)
I'm happy so many both here on HN and on The ListServe are interested in coding in the forest and giving support.
When winter comes I do not know what I'll do, but coding in the snow is not an option. But I will not surrender to any "normal" life until the startup begins to move, according to my earlier pledge.
Thanks!
ps. there are no bears around here.
[+] [-] macleodan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joyfield|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snambi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtrimpe|12 years ago|reply
The ListServe is a really cool email lottery where every day one person wins the chance to send an email to everyone else on the list, and the results have been nothing short of mesmerizing so far.
http://thelistserve.com/
[+] [-] wonginator1221|12 years ago|reply
http://thelistservearchive.com/
[+] [-] zdw|12 years ago|reply
That said, it sounds interesting, as a "15 minutes of fame lottery" at least.
[+] [-] alexholehouse|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
I'm a Software Engineer, so I did a few freelance projects along the way. It was perfect to get online somewhere, get all the stuff I needed, then drive out to the wilderness for a week or more while I coded everything up. I'd come back into a town, upload what I needed to and continue on my merry way.
[1] http://theroadchoseme.com
[+] [-] virtualwhys|12 years ago|reply
Amazing experience, obviously not much "work" getting done ;-)...except for this English guy, lived in a crude stone structure on the range across the way from where the community was situated. Somehow he had electricity, either through solar panels or running a mega cable to the small village higher up the range.
Anyway, he was a programmer (this is in the mid-90s, BTW) working for a bank in England -- would mail floppy disks to his employer.
Looking back now, I salute him deeply, living on the edge (literally of a mountain range) hanging out with a group of 200+ crazy pot/shroom/lsd huffing hippies -- how he got any work done is beyond me ;-)
Time flies...
[+] [-] jonah|12 years ago|reply
He wrote software for parking meters and used a hand-held GPS receiver to keep track of the ginseng he had planted in the National Forest.
[+] [-] cygwin98|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhuckestein|12 years ago|reply
I love the outdoors and I love to code as well. This sounds super fun and I'm kind of jealous of that lifestyle, but I'm not sure if it's a sound business decision.
[+] [-] duck|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arjuna|12 years ago|reply
This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1].
In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3].
[1] http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer
[3] http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/cottage_computer_programmi...
[+] [-] thentic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mehmehshoe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizzlon|12 years ago|reply
I have to wonder though, is this a wise choice? If the product alone, e.g. the code, is what drives investment it surely is.. But I would guess that's only one of many factors. People are scared away from others that are too different when it comes to things like behaviour and clothing.
How long can he live in the forest before he's too "weird" to make meaningful connections to customers and investors? My guess is 2 days =/
Unless you're running a b2c SaaS, this might not be a good idea.
[+] [-] alexholehouse|12 years ago|reply
Still - that's in 4-5 months - plenty of time to be hugely productive while keeping living costs to a minimum.
[+] [-] shurcooL|12 years ago|reply
If you want to work on your idea full-time, you need time. If you need time, you have to quit your full-time job doing something else. If you don't have income from your job, you can't afford an apartment.
One could argue you could try to get funding for your idea, but what if you want to make it free and open source and owned by humans rather than any specific corporation?
[+] [-] vickytnz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DennisP|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobrausn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasbacklund|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] micro_cam|12 years ago|reply
Also to offer a prospective, while this sort of thing does change ones ability to interact personally I've found that it is also a hugh boost for productivity...I can code for hours, go climb a mountain to clear my mind and then keep coding.
It also seems like Thomas has found a great way to get publicity depending on what his target demographic is.
[+] [-] kpennell|12 years ago|reply
An idea: It might be much much easier to simply move to Mexico or Thailand. You could live on around $200-300 USD per month if you made your own food and you'd probably be a lot more comfortable than living in the woods (though I think that's amazing in its own way too).
Does anyone know of any dev boot camps or coworking spaces in the "developing world" that I should check out?
[+] [-] nileshtrivedi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] processing|12 years ago|reply
Currently doing something similar - not a coder though, I'm living on Rugen Island in Germany. Made my first fire last night (embarrassed to say I'm 32 years old) and it gave me a kind of satisfaction I've not felt for a long time.
Feeling a lot more creative out here - enjoying being reconnected to nature. Spent 3 months in Brooklyn earlier in the year - the contrast is unreal. For me living in the city feels so toxic now. I want to make this a more permanent living arrangement - that's my next goal.
[+] [-] tyleregeto|12 years ago|reply
I just did some research into the solar panels, they look fantastic but they're a little pricey. (~1000$ each) A little more digging gives me the impression that one could fairly easily DIY similar solar panels for considerable less, though obviously at much less quality.
[+] [-] INTPenis|12 years ago|reply
I'm from the south of Sweden and even I wouldn't like to be living in a tent come winter. He better stop coding and start building some proper shelter. ;)
[+] [-] thomasbacklund|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] volaski|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlwarren|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErikAugust|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfjkl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizzlon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avalore|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zimahl|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
[+] [-] ljf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mikeb85|12 years ago|reply
Sounds like an adventure, and lots of fun. I frequently take long trips through the forest, back-country camping, but we do have bears, mountain lions, and the potential of blizzards in August (and laws that govern what we can and can't do in our wild spaces).
I hope your start-up is a success, and if it isn't, at least you'll have had an adventure and a story to tell (but I hope you success).
[+] [-] dharma1|12 years ago|reply
I also lived in a tent in London, in my garden, for 3-4 months (weekdays only) while my house was being renovated and extended - it's fine. I did it until November, in Sweden you'll want to move back indoors a couple of months earlier.
[+] [-] adlpz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasbacklund|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] czbond|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasbacklund|12 years ago|reply
But in either way, I feel very good on the inside now. No stress. Just harmony. Still getting a lot of things done.