From Hollywood to a Homestead: How to Plan the Move Without Losing the Dream

You've certainly had that daydream: the traffic on the 101 isn't moving, the rent has gone up once more, and in some part of your mind there's a porch, a few chickens, and a morning which doesn't begin with a commute. Many people have this image. Few manage to turn it into reality — and those who don't usually weren't unsuccessful at homesteading; they simply failed when they moved.

Getting out of a place such as Hollywood and moving to rural land isn't a single decision; it involves forty different ones, all piled up on top of each other. Where is the water going to be? What kind of crops will grow in that soil? Can you afford not only the land but also the equipment and the six months it will take to work everything out? The physical aspect—moving all your belongings from a small apartment to a place that has a dirt driveway—you can leave to a company like Mario Moving Company; the rest is up to you and begins well before any of the boxes are even taped.

Know what kind of homestead you’re actually after

To ten different people, the term 'Homestead' has ten different meanings. Don't be deceived by a listing that features a charming barn; first consider honestly what kind of life you really want. Once you have that one answer, all the subsequent decisions—such as the size of the land and the climate and your budget—will be determined.

Ask yourself a few plain questions first:

• Why are you growing food—whether to eat it, to sell it or simply to stop buying tomatoes from the supermarket?
• Shall the animals be had from the very beginning, or will that become an issue in the second year?
• How much do you have to build up yourself, and how much has to be provided beforehand?
• Should the setup be completely off-grid, or is a standard power connection acceptable?
• So what is your actual figure—taking into account land, buildings, tools, and a buffer for the mistakes you haven't yet seen?

Answer honestly and half the bad land deals will sort themselves out; instead of looking at the 40 acres that you can't manage, you should start looking at the 5 that you can.

Set up the bones before you’re standing in mud

A mistake that is nearly universal is to move first and only later decide where the animals will go. Instead, remember that structures take longer to arrive and to be built than one might think, and the last thing you need is for the chickens to appear before their coop has been constructed.

If poultry’s part of the plan, sort your chicken coop early — lead times on the good kits are real, and a fox doesn’t care that yours is still flat-packed in a box. Growing’s the same story. If you’re serious about food, a greenhouse lets you start seedlings while the rest of the property is still chaos, and it hands you a full season you’d otherwise lose. Order the big, slow stuff before you leave. Not after.

A rough order of operations that actually holds up:

• Water and power first — everything else leans on these two, so confirm them before you sign anything
• Shelter for animals — coops, kennels, and fencing before the animals, never after
• Growing space — beds and a greenhouse so year one isn’t a total write-off
• Storage — a shed for tools, feed, and the gear you’ll pile up faster than you expect
• The house stuff — furniture and daily life, the part a moving crew handles best

It's intentional that the house is positioned at the bottom. You could sleep on a mattress placed on the floor for a whole week, but a goat won't wait about for its fence.

Then, and only then, deal with the actual move

After you have obtained the land and have arranged the basic things, the move into the house is the final major step—though in fact it's the simplest one, provided you don't put it off until the last minute and then panic.

City-to-country moves have their own quirks. You’re trading tight parking and an elevator for a long gravel road, a truck that might not fit where you pictured, and nobody down the street to lend you a dolly. A team that knows how to get out of a dense place like this — these Hollywood movers, for instance — takes the loading-in-a-red-zone headache off your plate, so you can save your back for the unloading. Because no one’s doing that part for you on the other end.

Before booking anyone ask the basic questions: are they licensed and insured? Do they give a firm quote or just an estimate that gradually increases? And what will happen if something breaks down during a four-hour drive over a bad road? The better your answers are the more calmly you'll spend the afternoon afterwards.

The part that matters

No one who takes this step ever looks back and wishes they had done it hurriedly; instead, they regret that they hadn't ordered the coop earlier, had dug the well deeper, or had told the family the truth about how difficult the first year is before they started experiencing it. Get the land in order and have the basic things underway before you move out; after that, the truck will be the simpler part—the dream remains sound, all it needs is a proper plan behind it, not just a porch in one's head.