If you're yearning to quit the rat race and hunker down far away from civilisation, we've found some beautiful homes in the middle of nowhere to inspire you to take the leap.
From wilderness homes high in the mountains to isolated retreats on far-flung coastal strips, click or scroll on to take a peek inside these ultra-remote homes around the world...
Lac-Beauport is a small town in the Capitale-Nationale region of Quebec, Canada. On the shores of Lake Beauport and surrounded by mountains and ski slopes, the town has an estimated population of 8,200 people, spread out across almost 25 square miles (65sqkm) of pristine land.
Not a place for the faint-hearted, the region experiences extreme weather, with temperatures dropping as low as -16°C in winter, which is just 3.2°F. It's in this beautiful, remote region that this quaint mountain cabin can be found.
The cabin is named Le Lagöm, a Swedish word meaning "just the right amount". Situated on a stunning elevated plot overlooking the Saint Laurent River, the property is shrouded by towering trees and runs entirely off solar power, making it as sustainable as it is remote.
It rests just off a gravel forest path and an all-wheel drive vehicle is required to access it. The owners have begun offering it as a place for guests to stay and offer a shuttle service for those not brave enough to venture on the path alone.
Designed to immerse any occupant in nature, the contemporary cabin offers entire walls of glass, allowing for uninterrupted views as far as the horizon. The interior covers just 377 square feet (35sqm) and benefits from a lounge, a compact kitchen, one bedroom (located on a small mezzanine floor) and one bathroom.
There's also an outdoor deck, complete with a living area, hammock and yoga mats. In winter, you can simply curl up around the log-burning stove and take in the view.
The home's soft interior palette melts into the background, especially during winter when snow blankets the ground.
Plus there's plenty to do, including snowmobiling, mountain biking, hiking and snowshoeing on the area's various trails and passes. What could be better than pure immersion in nature?
Enclosed by soaring mountain peaks and endless sand, Pioneertown lies in the Morongo Basin region of California's High Desert and has a rather fascinating history. The town was created in 1946 as a “living breathing movie set". Positioned on 32,000 acres (13k ha) of desert land, Pioneertown functioned as an 1880s-themed town and various Wild West movies, including The Range Rider and Cody of the Pony Express were filmed here.
With the development of high-end movie studios, the location town soon became obsolete. Today, it retains its Old West charm and is home to fewer than 500 residents. This unique hideaway, in the heart of Burns Canyon (near Joshua Tree National Park), is just one of the properties you can find in this far-flung corner of California.
The remote, off-grid home known as The Glass Cabin is available to rent on Airbnb, offering visitors the chance to experience life in the High Desert. While you'd expect it to be hot and humid all year round, Pioneertown does experience cool winters and even sees snowfall.
Yet this property is the perfect place to be in all weathers. It's nestled on five private acres (2ha) and is an idyllic option for those "seeking serenity and connection with nature".
Accessible only via a four-wheel drive vehicle, the home is truly off-grid, with power supplied by solar panels and a private well providing fresh water all year round.
However, thanks to a recent renovation, the cabin offers all the modern conveniences you’d expect from a luxurious holiday home. Inside, the property is stunning, with an open-plan layout consisting of a lounge, kitchen, dining space, two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
That isn’t all, either. Outside, you’ll find a 270-degree wrap-around porch with a hot tub, looking out over the tranquil surrounding landscape.
There’s also a 'Cowboy Tub Soaking Pool' available during the summer months, a fire pit, an outdoor BBQ and dining area plus a stargazing deck. Guests can spend their days exploring the amazing natural environment around them.
Occupying a romantic and remote plot on the shores of Bishop’s Bay in Inverness-shire, Scotland, this remote luxury home has history, beauty and solitude in abundance.
The sprawling, near 4.45-acre (1.8ha) estate comes equipped with two buildings, Dunbeg House and two-bedroom Bishop’s Bay Cottage, as well as magnificent views all the way to Loch Leven.
The main residence, Dunbeg House, is a beautiful early 1900s Arts and Crafts villa with a study, movie theatre, piano room and wine cellar. Key design details include original limestone tiling, stained-glass windows, delicate millwork and log-burning fireplaces.
French doors in the drawing room lead out to the home’s balcony, which provides spectacular views. There’s also a standalone studio apartment complete with a games room.
Dunbeg House has five beautifully appointed bedrooms, while the master suite features an opulent ensuite bathroom with underfloor heating, a dressing room and a dazzling outlook across the water. Now, that's what we call luxury living in the wilderness!
Outside, you'll find a jetty and pier, so you can make a speedy escape whenever the need arises.
The idyllic waterfront garden even comes complete with a glass pod, where you can enjoy romantic evening meals and sunset drinks, all while soaking up the surrounding scenery. Bliss!
Located in New York’s Thousand Island chain in Alexandria Bay, the aptly named Just Room Enough Island is known for being the smallest inhabited island in the world.
The adorable land mass is just 3,300 square feet (307sqm), roughly the size of a tennis court, and is entirely occupied by a small home, a tree, and some scrub brush.
Also known as Hub Island, the spot is one of 1,864 similarly tiny islands that make up the famous Alexandria Bay chain, many of which are so small that they can only accommodate a single tree or some greenery.
Just Room Enough is one of very few of these islands to actually be inhabited.
In the 1950s, the island was purchased by the Sizeland family, who renamed it ‘Just Room Enough Island,’ planted a tree, and built a summer cottage.
This took up nearly every available square foot of space, with just enough room left over for a few wrought iron benches and a small beach.
The Sizelands had hoped the island would make for a remote vacation home. Today however, while the home is still privately owned, it has become a major tourist attraction, with visitors flocking to the site in boats, hoping to get a closer look at one of the world's loneliest homes.
Believed to have been constructed in the 1700s, this traditional Welsh long house boasts stunning 360-degree views of complete isolation.
Yr Helfa, as the house is known, is situated in the foothills of Snowdon, and boasts true off the grid status with high-tech, self-sufficient energy sources.
A perfect blend of old and new, the home is constructed of ancient local stone, with a roof made from slate mined from nearby quarries. Inside, original features include exposed stonework, traditional fireplaces, and Welsh stone slab flooring.
However, its most recent owners have fully renovated the property, installing state-of-the-art technology to help the home remain off-grid, yet energy efficient.
These include solar and water solar PV, a biomass boiler, a gravity feed water with filtration and sterilisation treatment centre, biofueled underfloor heating, a smart-controlled, energy-efficient back-up generator, and even its own weather station.
In short, the home is the perfect blend of old-world charm and modern technology, allowing you to retreat into the remote Welsh countryside without having to sacrifice the comforts of 21st-century living.
Sit outside in the patio area, switch on the stone-built barbeque, and relax in the tranquillity of peaceful rolling hills as far as the eye can see.
This dreamy Late District house (you can just spot it in the trees) has been billed as the 'loneliest house in England' by British newspaper The Guardian and it’s not hard to see why. Three and a half miles (5.6km) away from the nearest road, Skiddaw House was built in 1829 by the Earl of Egremont of Cockermouth Castle.
Over the centuries it has served as a residential home, shooting cabin, a gamekeeper's lodge, and a rambler's bothy.
The home is situated in the middle of Skiddaw Forest, a good 1,500 feet (457m) above sea level, and is only accessible by foot, bicycle or 4x4. The home is not wired for electricity, TV reception, or internet but solar panels provide the necessary electric power.
Water can be sourced from a local spring and a wood-burning stove offers a sufficient heat source in the winter, combined with sheep fleece insulation. It's a charming place to step away from the world.
Given its extremely isolated location, this is hardly surprising. British writer Hugh Walpole once described the house as “one of the loneliest dwelling places in all the British Isles”.
In fact, he was so taken with its remoteness that he used it as the setting for a murder in his 1932 novel The Fortress. Buttressed by 3,000 acres (1.2k ha) of windswept, treeless moorland known as Back o’Skidda, the home certainly lends itself to images of eerie mystery.
The home is comprised of six bedrooms, six bathrooms, four reception rooms, and a spacious kitchen and dining area. The property has also been on and off the market, most recently with Mitchells Land & Property, for the last several years but has yet to secure a buyer.
For now, the home has been serving as a rustic off-grid hostel, where travellers can gather and share stories of their adventures before sharing one of the communal rooms available.
Once an early British scientific base in Antarctica, Winter Island was established in 1947 with the construction of a primary research building called Wordie House.
It is named after Sir James Wordie, a geologist and chief scientist on Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition, an historic attempt to make the first overland crossing of the Antarctic continent between 1914 and 1917.
The hidden home consisted of a kitchen, living room, generator shed, office, ‘dog room,’ and bathroom, and was constructed using building materials salvaged from a whaling station on the nearby Deception Island.
It was originally designed to accommodate up to four or five scientists at a time.
The hut was only operative as a scientific base until 1954, at which point the program was relocated to a new building on a nearby island.
The house remains a time capsule of its previous incarnation as a research station, packed with canned goods and coffee, tools, records, books, radio antenna, paint cans, books, typewriters, pots and pans, dishes and radio equipment.
Today, the site is a popular tourist attraction, owned and operated by the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust who had it restored and designated an Historic Site or Monument.
While no one lives in Wordie House today, we can only imagine what it must have felt like to endure a chilly winter on the isolated Arctic tundra back when the site was still an operational research facility!
Perched atop a rocky edge among the peaks of Mont Blanc in the French Alps, Refuge des Grands Mulets, sometimes called the Grands Mulets Hut is owned by a French club that promotes mountain sports and maintains places for people climbing or hiking, just like this one.
Sitting at an altitude of over 10,000 feet (3,051m), the steel-coated building is a meeting spot and place of rest for skiers and hikers exploring the slopes of the French Alps, but it has a wealth of history behind it.
The first Grands Mulets hut was allegedly built in 1853, then replaced in 1896. The current refuge standing was built in 1960 and inaugurated by Maurice Herzog, a famous French mountaineer.
This image dated between 1853 and 1875, shows how small and basic the original hut was. Not much in the way of ammenities! These days, it's a very different story...
Offering cosy beds and a well-stocked library for moments of tranquillity, the Refuge des Grands Mulets can now sleep up to 68. Open from late March to late July each year, there are four dormitories available to rest your head in.
People choose to stay at this unusually located dwelling as not only is it a direct route for skiing the north face of Mont Blanc, but also a more unusual choice for mountaineering.
It's far from the crowds and allows travellers to walk in the footsteps of Balmat and Paccard, the very first climbers of this impressive peak in 1786.
You might not consider living within the Arctic Circle, but this house was once home to the lighthousekeeper of Lyngstuva, Norway.
The tiny hut was built in 1922, originally to store the oil needed to light the lamp, but became the keeper's shelter from the bitter cold.
Although it's not known exactly when the lighthouse keeper moved on, the hut had fallen into serious disrepair by the time two German explorers found it in 1986 and decided it should be restored... well, that's one story.
Another tale is that the home was repaired in 1993 by two Berliners, who fancied painting it a lovely shade of red. Whaetever is true, today you can hike to the hut and lighthouse and stay over as it sleeps two to three people.
Guests that pass through tend to leave provisions for other travellers, so the cabin is usually well-stocked, by all accounts. Here's a photo of the interior, which is kitted out with a stove for heating and cooking, a table and chairs, and various useful items such as paraffin lamps, pens, books and a clothesline.
The ladder leads up to a loft area for sleeping that must be wonderfully toasty when the stove is blazing, but visitors have to bring their own bedding.
The German restorers are said to have imported all the necessary materials for the renovation project from their home country, no doubt at much expense.
But instead of hiring out the property at an exorbitant price, they offered it completely free of charge to passing tourists. In fact, you can stay rent-free in the home for as long as you like.
According to one traveller who has visited, some people have remained for long periods and written “deep philosophical stories in the guestbook”.
Would you be brave enough to live on the edge? Perched precariously in a rock outcropping on Bear Mountain outside Evergreen, Colorado, this remarkable home blends seamlessly into its surroundings.
The improbable property was constructed in the year 2000 and boasts views of the surrounding mountains which are as breathtaking as the staggering altitude of the house itself.
The eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom house spans 8,398 square feet (780m), with floor-to-ceiling glass windows throughout. It certainly makes the most of its remote clifftop location.
Best of all, there is plenty of outdoor living space with a large deck cantilevered out over the cliff face for alfresco dining in the sky.
The home also comes with plenty of bonus features including a home theatre, a gym, a games room, sunroom and best of all, a sunken hot tub overlooking the surrounding landscape. There's nothing like relaxing in your very own luxurious mountaintop spa.
The first floor includes a chef’s kitchen complete with an island and breakfast bar, all surrounded by glass walls to give the impression of dining in the sky. The living and dining rooms are built around rock outcroppings which make prominent natural features in both spaces.
While we can’t recommend this property to anyone with a fear of heights, it would certainly make a magical mountain escape for anyone looking to retreat far from the madding crowd into a rocky oasis.
Welcome to Base Camp. A remote place to from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, set on a mile of clifffront overlooking the Colorado River. Blink and you'll miss it: the lodge nearly blends completely into the landscape.
Living here you'll have your pick of activities, from hiking and kayaking to rock climbing, all below the seemingly endless skies of Moab, Utah.
The lodge offers two rooms, each self-sufficient with its own entrance, microwave and mini-fridge. There's a shared living room, dining room and kitchen area, though the best way to serve up a meal is under the stars on the outdoor grill.
This deep in the wilderness, you’ll get up close and personal with the great outdoors and its associated wildlife. Expect intimate encounters with bighorn sheep, mule deer, squirrels, chipmunks, ringtails, skunks, racoons, foxes and even a ‘security tortoise’, according to the Airbnb listing.
The décor is simple and pared back, but who needs complicated aesthetics when the surroundings are this beautiful?
The living and dining space are comfortable and use colours found in nature, with a touch of rustic charm (peep the buffalo horn above the arched entranceway).
With nothing but rocky mountainscape as far as the eye can see and set on thousands of private acres with no neighbours in sight, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect retreat from civilisation.
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