Fifteen years ago, Nick Rosen wanted to buy a little holiday home, and the most affordable option was a little shepherd’s hut up in the mountains.

“I found it was a really good way of life,” he told me in an interview last month, “that allowed me to unplug from the system and develop myself rather than worrying about work. I found something which had all sorts of benefits and seemingly no negatives. It’s cheap or free, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for my soul. And for all those reasons, I want to recommend it to other people.”

I found Nick’s story fascinating. A journalist, former professor, and long-time environmental campaigner, he now fills his days talking to people about living off-grid and providing them with the real support and information they need to make it work, via his website, Off-grid.net and a guidebook he has written, How to Live Off-Grid.

“This idea that you could wake up in a little cabin, light a few candles, light the woodburning stove, go out and chop some wood, seems like some sort of romantic dream that if you actually had to do it, up close, would be cold and full of spiders. But in fact when you get there, it really is just as romantic as the dream.”

My only experience with off-grid living was a week spent with a friend at a cabin in the West Virginia mountains. Each morning I’d wake up and get the woodburning stove going, trek up the hill to the pump to get water, and come back down to make coffee and fry eggs for our breakfast. Afternoons were filled with writing and reading, evenings with guitar playing and conversation and oil lamps. I found it incredibly satisfying.

Of course, chopping wood and carrying water are slower than stopping at Starbucks, and when you have to be on the subway at 8:30 am, not very practical. But what if your expenses were low enough that you could support yourself without going to work?

Going off-grid doesn’t appeal to everyone, but it certainly does to me. And there are benefits beyond simple enjoyment of being intimately involved in the details of taking care of one’s own needs.

“I’m not trying to argue that this is for everybody, and I’m not trying to tell everyone in America that they should go off-grid. But I am trying to say that it would be very good for the country if a few million households were off the grid. It would be good in terms of helping the environment, reducing energy consumption, reducing water consumption,” Nick says.

“And there’s also another important reason which is resilience. Everyone’s talking about energy security at the moment, the price of gas is going up, there’s food rationing just beginning with rice at least in America, and the idea that there could be a few million people who were self-sufficient for energy and possibly for food as well actually would make the country as a whole stronger. So there are actually good national reasons why it’s a good idea to go off-grid.”

Nick’s thoughts on going off-grid struck me as pragmatic as well as profound. As the world gets more top-heavy with bureaucracy, his tactic of working to change laws so that people can more easily take their destinies and livelihoods into their own hands makes a great deal of sense.

I also appreciated his language, filled with words like “possibility” and “decentralization” and “community.” You’ll notice he doesn’t talk about hunkering down in a bunker and waiting for the apocalypse. The model he presents—households working together in community to share resources, challenges, and information—is nothing less than the 21st century update of the pioneer concept.

Have a listen to my interview with him and check out his amazingly informative website and let us know what you think. Could you go off the grid? Why or why not? I think I could, but not in Brooklyn. :)