Living Off the Grid in Portugal

“Maarten and I met at university in 2010, where we studied international politics, which took in policy, science and sustainability. Learning more, we realised that international systems can’t be changed from the inside, that the way we could make a marginal difference was in our personal life. So we decided to pack up and see what we could do.

It was an easy decision, but we needed to save money. Two years later, we bundled up our three-month-old child and moved to Portgual. We loved the weather and people there, so we moved around a bit, then found this area. The property is affordable and it’s beautiful.

This place was cheap but overgrown. We knew it had a well, but had to clear the land to see the trees. We restored it ourself and are now completely off-grid. We filter water from the well to drink, have a small solar system for electricity (and a backup generator for when it rains), a small router for internet while we cook on gas and heat with a wood stove.

We don’t need much money to survive, our YouTube channel provides our income. We’re working on restoring all the trees to make small batch olive oil and perhaps soap from that. We keep bees, so will build that up too.

Part of our parenting philosophy is ‘take them along’ it can be challenging to have your kids around a lot, but we teach them practical skills, Puck is good at hammering and sowing seeds. There are a lot of homeschooled children in the area, although we’ve decided to send ours to school. It’s great for the kids to be outside a lot. Their motor skills are noticeably better. When it’s really cold, they still want to be outside, so I just give them another jacket. They don’t need many toys, and if it’s really rainy, they still watch videos! It’s not that hard if you set up the basics. I’m a very big proponent of making sure you have a washing machine! Lots of off-grid families do it by hand, but having the basics set up makes life so much easier.”