Freeliving

Freeliving is a lifestyle oriented toward autonomy and self-sufficiency, with individuals or households seeking to reduce dependence on mainstream housing, commerce, and state services. It encompasses a spectrum from temporary experiments to long-term or lifelong commitments, and overlaps with movements such as simple living, homesteading, and off-grid living.

Common practices include off-grid housing, renewable energy generation, water collection and treatment, waste composting, food production, and repair or repurposing of materials. The lifestyle often emphasizes frugal budgeting, minimal consumption, and practical skills such as gardening, food preservation, basic carpentry, and self-care.

Motivations vary: autonomy, environmental sustainability, critique of consumer culture, or philosophical beliefs about governance and property. Communities and online networks provide information and mutual aid, but the lifestyle can face challenges such as land access, zoning and building codes, sanitation regulations, safety concerns, and social isolation. Economic viability often depends on flexible work, trades, remote employment, or multiple income streams, with some practitioners balancing paid work with periods of self-sufficiency.

Historically, the modern freeliving movement traces to back-to-the-land and environmental movements of the mid-20th century, broadening with off-grid and tiny-house trends and the rise of nomadic and digital-lifestyle cultures in later decades. Common forms include traditional homesteads, off-grid cabins, van life and mobile dwellings, tiny houses, and intentional communities that emphasize self-reliance and sustainable living.