We Bought Land in Colorado!
Exciting news on the Dirtbag journey! Mr. Dirtbag Daoist and I bought 5 acres of vacant land on the Western Slope of Colorado!
If the regular American dream is a house with a white picket fence, the American vehicle nomad dream is to buy a plot of empty land to park your rig on. This is easier said than done, as the US has many regulations that govern what you can do on your own land. RVs are often not allowed to be parked year round. This however, varies from county to county, so researching the rules of what is and isn’t allowed is an involved process.
I’ve been aware for a while that Southern Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona all have counties with little to no regulations. But our land search really started early this year in Baja, Mexico.
Why did we want land?
We’ve been traveling full-time for over three years, almost exclusively around the American West. We love the lifestyle, but as I’d also found while backpacking long-term, travel becomes its own routine. Each new place is less exciting because you’ve seen and experienced so much already.
In fact, Mr. DD and I didn’t set out RVing to see all the sights- we just wanted to chill in the desert and live inexpensively. We certainly accomplished that, but with living on public lands comes 14 day stay limits, which means we often move at the breakneck pace of every 2 weeks or less. Even digital nomads abroad generally stay in apartments for a few months at a time and THEY complain of travel burnout. The more often you move, the more you pay (for gas, travel expenses, etc), the more you have to plan, and the more often your life and everyday routine gets upended.
I’ve been happy with this for a long time, but lately I could tell I was getting an itch, and not the kind you need a cream for. I was itching for change, a bizarre compulsion for someone whose entire surroundings change every fortnight. But I wanted change from that particular type of change, change from all the change, if you will.
But not a house. Oh god, definitely not a house. We were inspired by other RVers who bought cheap property in Baja and so when we traveled down there for a few months, I started very demurely looking at land listings. We even visited a few, but despite all of Mexico’s wonderful jankiness that would allow us to do whatever we want, we found that the market was already pretty saturated with Americans and prices where we wanted to be reflected that. So, we headed back to the US for our summer plans.
Colorado, who knew?
Ah, Colorado, that undiscovered gem of a state. Why does no one else know how cool it is here? I jest, of course. We’ve been through Colorado a number of times, but those stays often revolved around the Front Range (Denver, Boulder, etc) and that area really doesn’t do it for us.
This summer traveling through Colorado was actually going to be our last hurrah in the US. Tired of US culture, politics, prices, and homogeneity, we were planning to split our future years between Baja (with the rig) and other international destinations (backpacking). So I decided we should swing through one of the last bits of the country that still interested me, the Western side of Colorado.
Well boy howdy. We arrived in early May and settled on the top of a mountain as we explored the nearby areas. And we instantly fell in love.
Why do we love it here?
Southwest Colorado combines high desert with low alpine to create a gorgeous, unique environment that sits at a high enough elevation to stay relatively comfortable in the summer and also hosts miles and miles of natural beauty. Canyons, mountains, mesas, ancient ruins, forests, rivers, and hot springs all make up the landscape and there’s no end to outdoor activities here.
Culturally, we love the mix of rural isolation with happening, artsy mountain towns. This region is an epicenter of bluegrass and folk music, so Mr. DD (a professional bluegrass fiddler) is in heaven, with multiple jams a week and the ability to play with lots of talented, welcoming musicians. For my part, there are many galleries, art festivals, and a creative community to get involved with.
It’s also a popular thoroughfare for RVers, which means lots of our friends on wheels come through this area every year and we can easily host and spend time with them.
The magic of this area, for us, makes up for the things we don’t like about the U.S, has the community we’d have to build all over again if we lived abroad, and features what the West does best- vast wilderness.
Living Off-Grid
The land we bought is classified as vacant, though there is some development in the way of a gravel road and driveway, a shed (to become our music/art studio) and a well. We were actually fortunate enough that the seller, a wonderful, friendly guy, was also an RVer who lived with his rig on the land and had the same sort of scrappy sensibilities that we do (we were able to meet during the buying process and hit it off right away). Everything he put on the land was useful because it means we could immediately start boondocking on it, living as we have been on public lands.
The well has a pump that needs to be powered, which the seller did via generator. We are in the process of getting it up and running with a large solar setup, expanded from our normal RV solar, thanks to now having the space for large residential panels.
Finally, we also upgraded to a composting toilet in our rig, so that we don’t need to install a septic system. With all of these systems in place, we are completely and comfortably off-grid, as we’ve been living for the better part of the last three years, but even less dependent on outside resources. Most importantly, the land has no HOAs or covenants.
Olympus
Our five acres are on top of a small hill that lets us look out over the river valley and across the horizon to mountain peaks. Because of its epic 360 views and the feeling of grandeur that height allows, we’ve dubbed our tiny mountain Olympus (I think this makes Kipling Zeus?).
But the greatest feature is the sky. I’ve grown used to open sky that reaches from horizon to horizon and fills your entire vision with clouds and colors and stars. I pine after a Big Sky view the way others might an ocean view. Olympus does not disappoint. Sunrises brush purple across the mountain peaks and sunsets are something we often drop everything for and simply gaze at until the last pinks and oranges slowly fade from the clouds. At the top of the hill, you can watch the moonrise over distant trees on one side and turn your head and watch the sun slowly drop behind the mountains on the other side. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the majesty of the skies here.
Back to the Land
My favorite part of RVing has been living in nature. When we live off-grid, we are accountable for all our resources, our input and our output. I feel so much closer to understanding my place in the world, feeling like I have so much more agency in how I live my life, not just flowing through the systems other people have built.
‘Owning’ a piece of land (still a strange, debatable concept to me) lets us get to know it intimately; the weather patterns that blow through, the soil we’re on top of, the plants and animals we share this space with. It feels so personal and like trying to understand a new friend, with all the quirks and personality a little hill can have.
Not long after buying the hill, we discussed parts of its slopes and agreed we wanted to move dirt from one small upward slope to build out a downward slope and increase our level footage on the top of the hill (more room for RV friends!). We had a contractor come out and give us an eye-watering quote. Not long after, I just started shoveling the little hill. I quickly discovered I really liked shoveling dirt. Mr. DD joined me shortly and we discovered we both really like shoveling dirt and we could excavate the slope ourselves, by hand. It takes longer, but it feels really good and so much more personal. I also now really like moving rocks and harvesting bark from dead trees to make mulch and all these other dirty manual chores that get me into the ground.
Sometimes frugality and choosing discomfort for discomfort’s sake can bring the quality of your life down, but surprisingly again and again, I’ve found that it can lead to new discoveries of personal strength and ability.
Does this mean we’re done traveling?
No! Without a stationary home, I still consider myself a nomad, but more on the schedule of seasonal nomads of old. When the snow has melted and it’s warm enough to live in our rig outside, we’ll come back to the land until winter starts to set in again. During the colder months, we’ll be traveling still, either abroad, in the Southwest, or Baja.
For us, having land is the best of both worlds, a place to do things besides travel and a forced departure to keep us in other corners of the globe. It’s a low maintenance home base that we can do as little or as much as we want to with and don’t have to worry about it when we’re away. In the meantime, we just love being here.
