Utah or Arizona?

[ab406]

Northern AZ or Southern UT, for homesteading? Still working, not retired. Looking for a place to go off-grid and kind of disappear. No covenants/HOA, any of that BS. Have been looking in the Williams, AZ area and Kanab, UT. Water rights seem a tough deal in that part of the world. Spent 20+ yrs in Montana. I think the long winters chipped away at our sanity, but we still like having 4 seasons.
Everyone has opinions. What’s yours?
Thanks.

 

[Terri9630]

We picked west central NM. 4 seasons, 25 miles to nearest town, 50 to next town. 90 miles to nearest "city" with a Wal-Mart. No jobs out here though unless your a rancher or teacher.

 

[Bacpacker]

Welcome to the forum. I'm not any help with your location choice

 

[Cnsper]

We picked west central NM. 4 seasons, 25 miles to nearest town, 50 to next town. 90 miles to nearest "city" with a Wal-Mart. No jobs out here though unless your a rancher or teacher.

You don't even have openings for vagabonds?

 

[ab406]

Howdy.

 

[Amish Heart]

Welcome from Kansas.
After living and growing stuff in New Mexico for over 20 years, I'm glad to have moved. It is difficult, not impossible though, to grow in the desert. Not too hard to raise animals there. But growing your own animal feed would be difficult. Water and weather are huge problems. I guess it would depend on what would be on your homestead. Utah would be equally difficult for the same reasons. What are you picturing on your homestead?

 

[ab406]

Welcome from Kansas.
After living and growing stuff in New Mexico for over 20 years, I'm glad to have moved. It is difficult, not impossible though, to grow in the desert. Not too hard to raise animals there. But growing your own animal feed would be difficult. Water and weather are huge problems. I guess it would depend on what would be on your homestead. Utah would be equally difficult for the same reasons. What are you picturing on your homestead?

I suppose being off-grid, with adequate water are tops. Maybe some chickens for eggs at first, and a small garden. If it grows into something bigger, great. Game to hunt on my own land would be awesome.

 

[Amish Heart]

Well solar would go well in Arizona or Utah. Water and gardening are huge problems. Not impossible. Why are you choosing the desert? Chickens will work in almost most states. We had no problem raising chickens, turkeys, ducks in the desert. And we did have our own well.

 

[hiwall]

Wells I think are a problem in some of the Williams, AZ area. Choose carefully.
And

 

[ab406]

Originally we were drawn to the Flagstaff area. We began looking farther north because of Arizona’s shifting political landscape. Utah is very favorable to homeschooling, firearms, and religious freedoms.

 

[Terri9630]

You don't even have openings for vagabonds?

Nope. Nowhere out here to get free food or housing.

 

[Alaskajohn]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[hiwall]

Originally we were drawn to the Flagstaff area. We began looking farther north because of Arizona’s shifting political landscape. Utah is very favorable to homeschooling, firearms, and religious freedoms.

We looked at Utah before buying our current house. Property taxes were higher there. Land was the same as all western states.
I agree Utah seems to be solid red. Utah does not allow constitutional carry.

 

[The Lazy L]

I was liking Arizona until I realized it was pinched between liberal New Mexico and California. I haven’t researched Utah.

 

[The Lazy L]

 

[ab406]

Utah’s Use of Force laws are pretty top notch, and there are no red flag laws (yet). In my experience, a Utah CCWP is a pretty coveted thing due to its reciprocity across the country.

 

[Spikedriver]

Everywhere has pros and cons. You could look at west Texas, Oklahoma, south Missouri, and parts of Kansas too. All those areas have fairly desolate parts in them and they're what you're looking for politically and weather-wise...

I've worked in Southwest Utah some. It's not real fertile there. Mostly range land. Any crops like corn and alfalfa were heavily irrigated and if you want to have any livestock you'll need either a lot of acres per head, or a good hay supply. Kanab is on the other side of the Wasatch Front from there though and may be better - or worse. I've never been there...

 

[VThillman]

None of you have mentioned Idaho. Wondering if subsistence farming is possible in the panhandle. Also wondering if the escapist militia stories are true.

 

[Amish Heart]

Never been to Idaho, but you'd do ok in the panhandle

 

[Duncan]

Northern AZ or Southern UT, for homesteading? Still working, not retired. Looking for a place to go off-grid and kind of disappear. No covenants/HOA, any of that BS. Have been looking in the Williams, AZ area and Kanab, UT. Water rights seem a tough deal in that part of the world. Spent 20+ yrs in Montana. I think the long winters chipped away at our sanity, but we still like having 4 seasons.
Everyone has opinions. What’s yours?
Thanks.

I lived in Arizona for forty years, and spent most of the past ten years exploring southern Utah. Northern Arizona has a very poor aquifer, as does most of the Colorado Plateau (in southern Utah). I bought a property in Seligman, AZ, near Williams and found out (too late) that I had to truck water in. Arizona is also growing very rapidly, is increasingly urbanized, with all that that entails.

Kanab is beautiful, which explains why it is hideously expensive. There are plenty of great little towns all along the Kanab-to-Richfield US 89 corridor, but again, no infrastructure to think of, higher and colder as you go north, and also very expensive, even for raw land. The Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument is one of the greatest places in the world to visit, but just too cold, remote, and expensive for us.

Three years ago we homesteaded to a place in Twin Falls County, in southern Idaho, on the Snake River Plain. We live in a rural area, so there are no CC&Rs, or HOAs, and we're zoned for animals, including goats, sheep, chickens, cattle, and pigs -- even though we only have an acre-and-a-half of land. We also have 2-½ shares of irrigation water, even though our well provides whatever we need for our critters and our garden.

Raw land is pretty cheap there; there is one of the most stable aquifers in the country, four-seasons climate, excellent volcanic soil (a bit clayey, although easily amended), and, even though you may be pretty remote, you're not more than a couple of hours away from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, D&B Supply (farmer's supply store), and a pretty good hospital.

And if it's important to you, Idaho is one of the reddest states in the Union. If you have any other questions or would like any other info, you can PM me here or email me at [email protected]

 

[The Lazy L]

None of you have mentioned Idaho. Wondering if subsistence farming is possible in the panhandle. Also wondering if the escapist militia stories are true.

Because the OP asked about AZ and UT?

 

[VThillman]

Because the OP asked about AZ and UT?

Ain't Idaho just over the hill and around the corner?

 

[Neb]

Utah’s Use of Force laws are pretty top notch, and there are no red flag laws (yet). In my experience, a Utah CCWP is a pretty coveted thing due to its reciprocity across the country.

The Utah CCWP can be had outside of Utah with approved training. The Princess and both have ours. The details are complicated since the rules in each state vary. And the Utah CCWP is not recognized in every state. I found myself in a sticky wicket in an unforeseen situation. I was headed west on the PA turnpike when a big accident occurred in the cleft were it crossed over the mountains and closed down the road completely. The detour took us down through Maryland wher the Utah permit does not apply. I couldn't get back into PA fast enough.



If you are open to other states...

SW PA and WVA have everything you said you looking for. PA has goofy state government but is mostly red. George Washington called a land of milk and honey when he surveyed it.

Ben

 

[viking]

None of you have mentioned Idaho. Wondering if subsistence farming is possible in the panhandle. Also wondering if the escapist militia stories are true.

The neighbor on our west side moved to the panhandle of Idaho a few years ago, they live at 2,500' elevation and were snowed in from time to time, not what I'd want but they seem to be happy.

 

[ab406]

I’m good with Idaho. I still call Montana home, and there is no winter like a Montana winter. I think my wife is done with it, after 30 years living there. So we are trying to find a compromise. I’d say 9 of 10 people I know in Montana suffer some kind of seasonal depression. 7-8 months of winter
does tend to wear you down. If I were a single man, however, I’d probably be in Alaska.

 

[ab406]

Anywhere west of the Rockies. You can count me out on the east coast.

 

[hiwall]

I’m good with Idaho. I still call Montana home, and there is no winter like a Montana winter. I think my wife is done with it, after 30 years living there. So we are trying to find a compromise. I’d say 9 of 10 people I know in Montana suffer some kind of seasonal depression. 7-8 months of winter
does tend to wear you down. If I were a single man, however, I’d probably be in Alaska.

I'm with your wife about the cold. We lived in Minnesota where we had 14 months of winter every year. You know when its winter and you get in your truck and because the it is so cold the seat is hard as a rock? I'm sure you do know. Well I got tired of it and we moved to Arizona.

We moved to the center of the state at about 4000' elevation. I liked it. In winter we would get snow sometimes and sometimes it would get down to the teens. In the summer sometimes it would get up to about 100* (just like it sometimes would in MN during the three days of summer). But my wife said it was too warm. Well obviously my first thought was to tell her goodbye but stupid me, I instead bought a different house for her in the mountains of Arizona.
Our new house has no air conditioning because it needs none. But it has heaters because it needs them! Yesterday morning it was 11* when I got up. I just brought my chair over to the heater and sat there until the afternoon when the outside temp got to 44*. I then braved the cold and went for a nice hike in the hills.
I think Arizona has a wider range of available temps than most states.

 

[ab406]

I like the sound of that hiwall. You say you’re in central AZ? We looked a little at Yavapai County. It sounds like good weather. To me, the only thing worse than 8 months of winter is 12 months of summer. Funny, I’ll be the first one to lecture about private property, but I sure would hate to lose my public lands for hunting and backpacking.

 

[The Lazy L]

...To me, the only thing worse than 8 months of winter is 12 months of summer. ...

For me a 80 degree winter followed by a warmup for the summer would be ideal. Wife likes her four seasons as long as she can enjoy the seasons from inside a climate controlled house.

 

[hiwall]

I like the sound of that hiwall. You say you’re in central AZ? We looked a little at Yavapai County. It sounds like good weather. To me, the only thing worse than 8 months of winter is 12 months of summer. Funny, I’ll be the first one to lecture about private property, but I sure would hate to lose my public lands for hunting and backpacking.

Our first AZ house was in Yavapai County. I was happy with the weather there. Now we are way over on the east side of the state at 7500' elevation.
Arizona has only 17% private lands. It is a great place for hiking. Not so good for for big game hunting because all tags must be applied for and there is a drawing.