I need to give you all a little more info, I'm just looking at locations and getting ideas. I know I want someplace close to the trail where I don't see the neighbors and have a few, to as many as 40 acres, off a public road and if possible with some of the things installed that snobuilder was lucky enough to get. If I end up with nothing and no power close by, I've thought about what my options would be so I was asking the question to see what other people have done. Part of the idea was also to start out with a "garage" that we could base out of for a couple years before building an actual cabin. In Houghton Co you can build a garage or storage building and not install power, or obviously septic or well. As soon as you want to build something to live in, if power is available you have to install a well and septic. Those 3 things can add up to a lot of $ right off the bat, so I was exploring all my options.
Good points about building in phases. Your time frame can be a consideration how you decide to buy and develop your property. I'd keep an eye on the edges of villages/towns/cities that are still losing population. There are places where whole blocks and neighborhoods have depopulated. Here is how it's worked for me. I found an abandoned house on a property that had some potential and had reverted to the state delinquent property tax auction. The house was in bad shape but small enough I could demo portions of it myself. The house was on about an acre with mature trees in what had been a mining company owned neighborhood. The mine is long since closed and eventually the lots were platted and the neighborhood annexed into an existing city. The houses were hooked to city, water and sewer although most were dilapidated or abandoned and over 25 years most were razed. I paid $350 for the property, the rest was "sweat equity" to clean up the property. The rest of the street is empty, you can see one neighbor only with all the leaves down. Over the course of 10 years I picked up three more bordering lots for reasonable prices. The remnant of the house has been made into a storage shed with the power turned back on. For now a camper provides housing and uses the power and sewer connection. The street is plowed regularly and I have about 5 acres a block from the trail with little indication you're "in town". If you can stand a little more red tape there are chances to find properties with no worries about building/maintaining the utilities for yourself. These shrinking cities would rather have someone build on every empty lot and hook up to the utilities but are realistic enough to take your payment for one hookup to run your camp, even though the bundle of empty properties around you provide the northwoods feeling you seek. Without spending much I've enjoyed developing my property and look forward to the day when I put up a cabin, the connections are already.
I also have an off the grid camp on 10 acres that I've kept deliberately simple. I can stay there for up to a week and need very little. It's two miles off a plowed public road but that's why I love it. Like others have said, dead quiet so I sleep very sound. If you buy a pack of bottled water and freeze them before going to camp, then split them into two coolers and use as ice they keep your stuff cold for many days with no mess, as they do melt you have ice water to drink.
My dad's camp is more fully developed with solar power, water collection tanks etc., it's plenty comfortable with not a lot of expense.
One last note, there is a garage-camp a couple miles down the road from my 10 acres (Houghton Co.). I know it has been repeatedly scrutinized by the building inspector to see if it functions as a garage or housing, a smoke stack? how many windows? I don't know if they were reassessed or not but they did draw attention. You might have better luck by going under the square footage if you want to start small, or with something mobile.
