Coastal homesteading - where and how?

As I was walking around during my weekly park venture with the family dog, I got to imagining Indians living where I was walking, treading the very same soil that was beneath my feet. When I looked around today I got a sense of near perfection, if I had to pick anywhere at all to establish a place to live it would be precisely where the Indians were before they were deported.

It’s right along a lagoon, it has low wetlands and mangroves, ponds, it is probably the hilliest part of Florida I’ve seen, so offering a number of vantage points.

I cannot imagine buying undeveloped land along the coast at this point in history, but the resiliency of the ocean for homesteading is currently intriguing me.

It doesn’t have to be tropical like Florida, I think coastal regions anywhere, even northern coastal region such as Rhode Island would be pretty sweet. Tropics would make it far easier though due to the variety of fruit trees.

Are there any examples of sustainable coastal homesteads? I guess what I’d be looking for really is a car-free fishing town… I dream of being able to partake in homesteading Cuba.

I live 1.5miles away from the sea, but I think what you had in mind is beach front property, with a boat by the dock.  It does sound great, hop in your small electric boat, head downtown to get groceries/etc, then go back home. Plenty of fish and sea-vegetables to harvest and eat.  

The actual homestead would be an acre+ with the usual:
- 180 fruit and nut trees
- root and leafy-green vegetables, herbs and mushroom
- chicken/duck coop, 1/4acre pond for fresh water fish, 2-3 beehives
- greenhouse, outdoor living space (natural pool, outdoor kitchen/grill station, outdoor sofa+firepit+hammock, etc)
- and an off-grid home (well+solar-electric, septic, radiant floor heating, earth bermed, insulated, mostly powered by the sun)

Jeff Steez wrote:

Are there any examples of sustainable coastal homesteads? I guess what I’d be looking for really is a car-free fishing town… I dream of being able to partake in homesteading Cuba.

Cuba would be wonderful, although if it were to open up I personally would be looking for places in the mountains on the other end of the island away from Havana.  Personal choice.

You might want to research Bolivar Peninsula on the Texas Gulf Coast.  When Ike came through it made the community of Crystal Beach ground zero to a massive storm surge.  Anything not built to the more modern codes was washed away.  Lots of cheap property down there now.  It is walking/biking distance to the ferry run by the State's D.O.T where you could go into Galveston for 'civilization'.  

You have both the Gulf and the Bays.  Fishing is good.  Soil is very sandy, but can be improved by composting all the fish/shrimp waste the boats have to discard, along with sea weed that one can gather on the beach.  Not a walk in the park by any means, but one could make a nice homestead out there.  If a storm comes into the Gulf and is moving that way -LEAVE!  There are two ways off that sand bar, but once the water comes over the highway, cars are trapped.  A lot of people paid  for complacency with the lives.  

The Karankawa indians made this their Winter grounds, but migrated a big loop from the coast up to top of the coastal belt and back through the year.  They were foragers and not farmers; but made a life from the land and the sea.  

I found this driving tour of the Peninsula to give a better idea of the area.  

S Bengi wrote:I live 1.5miles away from the sea, but I, I think what you had in mind is beach front property, with a boat by the dock.

It does sound great, hop in your small electric boat, head downtown to get groceries/etc, then go back home. Plenty of fish a sea-vegetables to harvest and eat.  The actual homestead would be an acre+ with fruit and nut trees, chicken/duck coop, 1/4acre pond for fresh water fish, 2-3 beehives, root and leafy-green vegetables, with a off-grid home powered by the sun.

Anything walkable would be fine by me, I'd probably be willing to do 5 miles daily, to and from... I run that, biking it would be no problem, walking it would be a breeze to keep me young. Yes, it does sound amazing...

What size land do you work? I think I really need to get a kayak at least. The issue with me is of course the town is not compressed enough to access the natural water features on feet alone. This is why I said a sort of seaside village... I picture something rural in Cuba, Jamaica, of course any sort of coast though, but it's probably unbearably expensive to buy undeveloped coastal land this late in the modern world.

If in between the place I lived was 5 miles of wilderness with a path trodden by my own feet then that's a different story, totally doable. For now, it's covered in concrete, blistering hot without natural ventilation, exhaust ridden, and a likely place to become roadkill.