Hi, Rose. I've lived off the grid for 15 years and you can't fool Mother Nature!! Su Ba is right about the expense of solar. The sun may be free, but the cost of the equipment to make it work is very expensive. So is living off the grid. If it rains, or is cold and windy, dark out, and something goes wrong, you have to go out into it and fix it.
There are legal issues now about the difference between leasing solar panels through a solar company (big sales pressure because the laws could change, and being stuck in a 20-year contract) and owning the panels. Be sure to research what is happening in Arizona regarding leasing panels for 15 or 20 years and selling power to the grid. it's not working well for the homeowner. Look at the terms of a 20-year lease for panels, it's not really in your favor.
And the rules of real property still apply, location! location! location! If you haven't bought a lot of rural land, you may not quite find the right one the first time, so you want to be able to
sell it without difficulty. so don't just think of the place as somewhere you love. It needs to be somewhere other people would like, too. You will want it to be easily accessible for gravel trucks for the driveway, not too shady, not too close to neighbors with barking dogs, a southern exposure for passive solar heating, not too far from groceries and a drug store. Make sure they deliver mail on your road, and that the mailboxes can't be broken into. That's the *where* of it.
The "what" of it you can change, like the style of the house, home improvement, as long as the foundation is solid and it's not invaded by tree
roots, including the septic lines and tank. Those need to be free and clear. If there's a lot of ground water, especially in the winter, a basement can be a problem.
Water, water, and more water is the number 2 important thing. Don't let any real estate person tell you there's water there, or that everybody else has it (implying you ought to), or that you could harvest
enough fog to water a garden. You'll probably end up with a well, which requires a pump that has to run 24/7, and that's expensive for electricity. Pumps need replacing on occasion, and they aren't cheap. If the well caves in and swallows up the very expensive pump it might require a new well, also very expensive. It might be a good idea to have a water tank or two, and it might be required for fire regulations.
So try to get a legal house on a legal lot with a tested well that has a lot of gallons per minute in the fall, when water is the lowest. It can be exhausting always keeping track of the levels of the well, the levels of the solar batteries, the levels of the septic tank, the gravel on the driveway, the hornets in the ground, the flies and gnats on the composting toilet, the raccoons getting into everything,
Hopefully you'll like your neighbors, because they are your safety net. Our old friends came once out of curiosity, after that they were full of excuses about how far away it was.
You'll also need a cheap hardware store that is extremely well stocked within 30 minutes. There is nothing worse than needing to take up a half a day on the road just to come and go from needing DIY stuff.
Then you can slowly detach the dwelling, add solar, but you'll need to learn about electricity, DC and AC types of power. We downsized our refrigerator and it's on a timer. We have a
coffee pot that has a thermal carafe that shuts off the second it's done. We don't vacuum or use the printer if it's not a sunny day. You don't want to take the batteries down below half, so they will last a long time, and monitoring them is a constant thing, as well as maintaining their water levels.
Isolated places can be exciting in the summer, but in the winter they are sometimes exhausting, especially for the retired. If there are dirt roads involved, having a winch on the vehicle is important for pulling the vehicle out of whatever mess it might get into. Ice can form on shaded parts of roads that is surprising.
In California the fire department has to be able to get very big, very heavy trucks to the dwelling, turn them around and pass each other on the driveway, so there has to be large open spaces near the dwelling, 100-foot circles, and pullouts on the driveway.
If there is an old wooden bridge, or low spot in a creek to get over, to get to the house, the propane truck won't cross it, and fire department will require a new one to code. They might even red tag the dwelling until it is accessible. You won't want to spend $50,000 on a span of iron for a bridge that's to code. When property sells it triggers these kinds of code updates, that's why the preivious owners could live there without these conditions being enforced. So thinking that, well, it's been this way for 50 years, it ought to work for me.....doesn't work.
It's complicated, but if are a hard worker, a good learner, and want to be having a daily life that involves lots of taking care of basic needs, mud, bugs, snakes,
bees, rodents, high fences around gardens, and wonderful wild animals, beautiful surroundings, it can be very satisfying.