Off-grid location finder

Shortlist U.S. counties for off-grid living. We combine federal data on natural hazards, flooding, wildfire, sunshine, rainfall, soil and growing season into one livability score. Weight what matters to you, rule out what you won't accept, and see which counties and states rise to the top.

Use it to shortlist, not to buy. These are county averages, and conditions change from one parcel to the next. Before you buy, check the parcel's flood zone on FEMA's flood maps⁷ and its soil on Web Soil Survey⁸, and read our guide to choosing land.

How the score works

For each factor, every county gets a percentile from 0 to 100 compared with all other counties, where higher is always better. The livability score is the weighted average of those percentiles using your weights. A score of 80 means the county beats about 80% of counties on the things you care about. If a county is missing data for a factor, it counts as average (50) for that factor.

Factor	What we measure
Natural hazard safety	Lower expected annual loss rate for buildings across FEMA’s 18 natural hazards: the share of building value expected to be lost each year.¹²
Flood safety	Lower expected annual loss rate for buildings from inland and coastal flooding.¹
Wildfire safety	Lower expected annual loss rate for buildings from wildfire.¹
Solar	More average sunlight reaching the ground (kWh per m² per day, all-sky, annual average).³
Water	More rainfall, averaged with lower drought losses to agriculture.¹³
Soil	Higher share of mapped land classed as prime farmland, including land that is prime if drained, irrigated or protected from flooding.⁴
Growing season	Fewer frost days a year.³
Fewer recent disasters	Fewer federal major disaster declarations since 2015, not counting COVID-19.⁶
Room to spread out	Fewer people per square mile.¹
Community resilience	Higher FEMA community resilience score: a county’s capacity to prepare for, absorb and recover from disasters.¹

FEMA's expected annual loss rate is the proportion of total value expected to be lost to natural hazards each year.² We use the rate rather than total dollar losses so that big cities don't look riskier just because they have more buildings.

What the score can't tell you

Your parcel. A county with high flood losses can still have safe high ground, and a mountain county can have very different sun and frost from one valley to the next.
Local rules. There's no national dataset of zoning, building codes, off-grid permits, rainwater rules or water rights. Call the county planning and building departments, and the state water agency, before you buy.
Cost. Land prices aren't in the score yet. USDA publishes state averages, and our startup cost calculator uses them.
Conflict and unrest. FEMA's index covers natural hazards only. Follow our news tracker for current events.

1. What matters to you

2. Rule out

3. Results

How the score works

What the score can't tell you

Sources