A man who spent decades of his life living off the grid in the woods spoke about what made it all worth it.
Many people have had the desire to pack it all in and go live somewhere that feels disconnected from the trials and tribulations of the larger world.
One man who really did do that was Joe Hollis, who bought some land in the woods in North Carolina and spent the rest of his life building it into his own self-sufficient garden.
He was visited by YouTuber Peter Santenello, who he taught all about his life and his reasons for getting away from it all and living off the grid.
Joe Hollis spent decades living in the woods supporting himself by growing his own food (YouTube/Peter Santenello)
Originally from Detroit, Joe ended up joining the Peace Corps and spent three years living in Borneo and after returning to the US, found it a ‘culture shock’ to go back and see ‘this glut of stuff’.
He mulled over furthering his studies for a few years, but eventually decided he ‘didn’t really want to study’, adding: “I just wanted to live it myself.”
Learning about the land in North Carolina thanks to a hippy commune he’d lived next to in Detroit, they moved down but Hollis said ‘like most hippy communes it lasted a couple of years and kind of imploded’.
However, he stayed around and ultimately built his own home and farm out in the woods where he would live for the rest of his life.
He had his home and garden, and people would come and live in his garden and help him grow it. (YouTube/Peter Santenello)
Over the time, he built shelters for others to come and stay with him, and said he hoped that his farm could eventually grow into a little village of about eight people caring for it.
“When I talk about this stuff people’s first thought is all the stuff they’re gonna have to give up,” Joe said of the lifestyle off the grid.
“Whereas what I want to focus on is all the stuff you’re gonna get, all the positive stuff.”
He went on to say that his idea was ‘to transfer my needs from civilisation’ and go ‘back to fulfilling my needs from a direct relationship with the planet, with god’.
Having spent decades living out in the woods, Joe sadly died shortly after he appeared in the YouTuber’s video.
A GoFundMe set up to raise funds to help repair damage done by a fire to Joe’s home carried the sad news in November 2023 that he had been ‘diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer’ a couple of months previously and had gone into hospice care.
His Mountain Gardens website recorded that Joe died three days after that update on 9 November.
In a more recent GoFundMe, which you can donate to here, organisers explained that Mountain Gardens had been hit by Hurricane Helene and while all the buildings besides one tool shed were ‘miraculously spared’, a landslide hit the main garden and the paths around the place were damaged.