Medical issues are a serious concern, unless one just takes the approach that living free for as long as the body lasts is better than living unfree for a longer time.

Very cool. Not sure that the government there is any better than in the USA, so you could be invaded at their whim as long as they know where you are. The secret to the gulch was that defense was provided by natural secrecy (at least that was postulated in AS). If a gulch were established in this day and age, it would be attacked as soon as it was successful , and defense would be needed or it would be lost. You are lucky that your gulch is not a target.

This sounds wonderful and I am glad you were able to find/create such a place. I have In-laws that live in Santiago who state the government and country country in general is going hard socialist. What security do you have against them imposing themselves upon you?

Hearty Congratulations! 👍

We were planning on Hawaii, but now will have to investigate this a little better as to flight restrictions, the jab, and all that other restrictive requirement crap in our world today. Sounds great.

Interesting. How does one book a month there?

Very cool. I bet Chile is a good place for this...

DriveTrain, you have a nice bunch of good thoughts. Implementing them has always been a real problem, as most people don't have the slightest idea what exactly is wrong in the world. I am no genius, no super thinker with great ideas, but I can recognize something when I see it, and think through pros and cons. How to move our family, friends and neighbors to our understanding has been the big bugaboo in my life. I have succeeded with some, not so much with others and cut off at the knees by a few. I am in a good position for life-changing moves, most people are not and do not see any necessity for any such move. They have trouble figuring out who to vote for, what each candidate stands for, why that knowledge is so vital.
The education system is so badly damaged that it must be torn down and rebuilt at a local level. I think you have some excellent suggestions to accomplish that goal.
Constitutional amendments are easy to write but hard to become law. That battle may have to wait for later.
I would say the UN needs to be dealt with first and foremost. Get out of it, quit throwing our tax dollars at it, get that one world pile of s... off of our soil NOW, with force as needed. I really like the way you describe this step so graphically. Good, post, good ideas.

I think anything a person does that makes it more difficult for a government - which can only ever be: a group of other people - to surveil you, is a positive step toward reclaiming basic human rights. But as the comment from Term2 illuminates, without a full-blown defensive agency (read: government) of your own, no matter how remote your Gulch may be and no matter how benevolent the government in which it's situated, the fact remains that any thuggish government will retain the ability to destroy your property, your liberty and your life, at whim. With the advent and maturation of high technology surveillance methods, from these iBinkies and computers and other Borg-connected devices with which every one of us is surrounded, all the way up to satellites that can provide high-def video of a grain of dust settling on the snout of a standard-issue gnat from 10k miles up as well as penetrate the ground miles deep, there is literally nowhere on Earth you can hide. Unless of course you're in possession of your own leading-edge camouflage tech that's a hefty step ahead of the most advanced toys of the world's most powerful and well-financed intel organizations in existence. Which is unlikely.

So what is really needed is the same thing that's always been needed: Political leaders who are at minimum as radical and militant in fighting for reason, individual human rights, liberty and capitalism as the enslaver-ideologues are militant in the direction of irrationality, statist domination, slavery and collectivism.

For the record, we have four years' vivid confirmation that that person is not Donald Trump.

So far we - who have ethics on our side - have been losing by default. Which is contemptible.

We need leaders who are not just capable of such but are dedicated to innovating aggressive action in restoring Western Civilization and core Americanism. Everybody may have their own ideas - and hopefully you do and are constantly brainstorming for more - but what I personally would like to see, in general order of importance, are:

- An aggressive top-to-bottom overhaul of American education, with an even more aggressive goal of complete privatization, a complete Separation of Education and State. I envision a future in which a.) homeschooling is de-regulated, de-taxed and encouraged to the point where it has become the norm rather than the exception, b.) neighborhood schools, also unregulated and untaxed, ideally run by known and trusted neighborhood parents, arise and flourish, for those lacking either the skill or time to homeschool on their own, and c.) a for-profit educational industry, similarly de-regulated, de-taxed and encouraged arises and flourishes, for as vast an array of school businesses as exists in car dealerships, insurance agencies, restaurants, athletic shoes, microbrews, house paints, clothing companies or any other commodity you can think of;
- An immediate drafting and shepherding to ratification of a new Constitutional Amendment which mandates that no event relating to "public health" or "public safety" shall be allowed to nullify any other clause within the Constitution, in any measure, and retroactively;
- An immediate drafting and shepherding to ratification of a new Constitutional Amendment which abolishes residential property taxation nationwide, on the basis of identifying this latter as a human rights violation - which in fact it is;
- An immediate drafting and shepherding to ratification of a new Constitutional Amendment which outlaws any government involvement in medicine - also on the basis of its being a human rights violation - with a push to get it outlawed worldwide on that same basis;
- An immediate drafting and shepherding to ratification of a new Constitutional Amendment which outlaws any violation of personal privacy - whether by private party or government agency, unless authorized via all relevant due process of law (i.e. a court-issued warrant on demonstrated probable cause of criminality);
- An immediate nullification and selloff of all "publicly"-held lands nationwide which are not situated directly beneath legitimate government buildings and facilities, and nullification of all ocean "reserves" confiscated by government;
- An immediate investigation into the United Nations' "Agenda 21" program which was hatched at the 1992 Rio Climate Summit and which has been allowed to proceed virtually uncontested ever since;
- An immediate withdrawal, de- funding and expulsion of the "United Nations" from American soil, a nullification of all treaties and edicts involving American interests enacted by that noxious organization since its inception, with all diplomatic pressure available being brought to bear on our allies to follow suit. Let that pack of amoral tyrants lob their world-domination schemes at each other across the shiny tablecloth of a greasy-spoon diner on Kiribati or Madagascar, while the rest of the world forgets they ever existed;

- to name a few.
.

Slightly tangential, but still related to the "Gultch" concept. Most people here are referring to their own little Gultch, where it's only they themselves and probably no one else (except perhaps family members) is involved. This is a great start but also has limited value in what one can achieve individually. Also being off the grid is not always optimum, Ideally the gulch should be able to replicate all the good stuff the grid has to offer, like a hospital, or jobs that pay well. In short larger projects (whatever that might be) require more people who are philosophically aligned.

I'm putting crude efforts in that direction which are outlined here at https://quberoot.wordpress.com/ . If you are interested please contact me after reading what I have put in the link. One thing that I can say unflinchingly is that it will take a lot of effort in building working relationships - something which admirers of Ayn Rand do not comprehend.

Summary, if you don't want to read the whole thing:
1) Get together with like minded people ( I have defined what like minded is).
2) Work on projects for mutual benefit.

As you can see there is nothing new about it really (partly the theme of Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged ) , but the big challenge appears that often relatively independent thinking people also come with their quirks, for example a near complete lack of effort in putting aside minor differences to co-operate with other like-minded people for mutual benefit. Independence of thought (which is good) tends to foster loner (which is bad) like tendencies.

Sounds excellent! How does Chile deal with firearm ownership?

Separately, what is all this "medical issues" fear? Do we really believe medical service is better in general than it would be in a Gulch? If so, I would point one to the the fact that medical payments are at least absorbed 60% by administrators and non-service providers. Find this kind of overhead in another service industry, and I''ll show you the hand of government.

With the spy capabilities of the current regime, Galting alone is a hard life. May I suggest a small town, a quiet town in a place away from big blue anything. Buying a home and land for a reasonable price, one by one becoming part of an already established community, may be an option for Galting in plain sight. Infrastructure is already in place, possibly a small hospital or medical center, local jobs that provide income, a place to grow and possibly sell food, build projects and do research ala John in the garret. We stay low, stay in touch, stay gray. Discovering a suitable candidate is one problem. The next problem is sharing that discovery without triggering a tripwire search engine.