Off-the-Grid Male Homesteaders Are the New TikTok ‘Trad Wives’—Here’s What Their Remote Lives Are Really Like

You might have heard about TikTok’s trad wives—women who espouse a traditional 1950s ideal of womanhood—but have you met social media’s “trad men”?

Trad men—who embrace old-fashioned masculine stereotypes like living off the land—have gained renewed interest thanks to the spate of male homesteaders sharing their off-the-grid lives on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.

Homesteaders are often motivated to get away from society, grow their own food, and live without modern comforts. Many of them promote a libertarian desire for freedom and deregulation and are looking to escape convention—an idea that’s attractive to many men who are driven to reconnect with their masculinity.

“The modern homesteading movement’s big idea is that, rather than trying to change the world collectively and publicly, people are trying to reshape their private sphere—their worlds, their homes, their own tiny network,” sociologist Jordan Travis Radke told New York Times. “They’re changing their lives, but they want other people to see it because they want others to follow suit.”

And people are following. Many of the top off-grid accounts have millions of followers. Ironically, some of these “trad men” fund their lifestyles through social media sponsorships.

Of course, living off the grid doesn’t have to mean eschewing all of life’s pleasures. And no matter where you live, you can still try to live sustainably, even if you have no intention of leaving modern life behind.

To learn more about this community of off-grid guys, here are six accounts to check out.

1. Nate Petroski

@natepetroski

4 years ago today I started homesteading #Narrowayhomestead #homesteadtoktok #offgridlife #theoneandonlyminion #aslandog

♬ original sound – Nate Petroski

Petroski and wife Jen live in rural West Virginia, where he runs a coffee company, a beard oil company, and if his TikTok profile is to be believed, is a beard model. Petroski says he’d love to eventually run a homesteading school for others who are looking to emulate his lifestyle.

2. The Infinite Cup

@theinfinitecup

Nothing like bathing in the rainforest #offgrid#offgridlife#offgridliving#spiritualjourney#5D#newearth#homesteading#offgridhomestead#tinyhometour#naturelover#theinfinitecup#kundalini#yogi#awakening

♬ Show Me How (Album V) – Men I Trust

Robert Breton was a supermarket cashier before he dropped the daily grind and began living in his van. Breton is the dreadlocked guy behind The Infinite Cup, an account of his life living in a tree house (yes, tree house) in a Hawai rainforest. He lives off of filtered rainwater and grows all of his own food.

Breton says his mission is to help people “escape the matrix and go beyond the limitations of our modern world by getting back in touch with nature.”

3. Off Grid Sean

@offgridsean

We so far made it 3 years Off Grid.. #simplelife #homestead #countrylife #offgridliving #peacefullife #solarsystem #geodesicdome

♬ Autumn Leaves – Timothy Cole

Sean Rogers of Off Grid Sean began his homesteading journey with then-girlfriend Jes in 2021. Rogers isn’t afraid to reveal the not-so-shiny side of homesteading—including the fact that his geodesic dome home isn’t climate controlled and can get horribly hot during the summer. A word of warning: Rogers has spent the past several months chronicling the search for his missing dog, which might be hard for some to watch.

4. 7 Kin Homestead

@7kinhomestead

Story Time!! What You Should Do First On Your Off Grid Property, How I Failed At This And How That Lost Us 8 Years Of Progress Over Night. #offgrid #offgridliving #offgridlife #offgridhomestead #homestead #homesteading #homesteadinglife #homesteader #homesteadtiktok #freedomchallenge #fightforfreedom #fightforourfreedom #millenials #millenialsoftiktok #millenialsbelike #changeiscoming #sourdoughbread #gardening #chickensoftiktok #solarpowered #tinyhome #problemsolved #problemsolving #solutions #ingenuity #frugality #simplicity #buyingland #buyinglandinusa

♬ original sound – 7KinHomestead – 7KinHomestead

Jason Rutland and wife Cari are the parents of five kids they raise off the grid in rural Canada. Though Jason seems to do most of the TikToking, the couple have written a book on how to emulate their lifestyle and take homesteading seriously. Jason seems to have a good sense of humor about it, though. When Cari asked whether having a beard is important to homesteading he tells her: “It’s, like, the most important thing—who wants to talk to a man without a beard?”

5. Justin Rhodes

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Justin Rhodes (@thejustinrhodesshow)

Justin Rhodes actually makes his living in part by offering guides on how to start living off the grid. Rhodes shares how he uses animals to help farm. One example is creating a “pigport“—a mobile pig pen where the piglets can help “till” soil. Another animal-driven farming method involves using a mobile chicken coop to fertilize his crops.

6. Will Survives

@willsurvivesyoutube

Day in the life

♬ original sound – Will Survives

Will Uhlhorn treats living off the grid as a challenge. Two years ago, he built a cabin on federal land in Oregon and says he’s now “banned from about 13 different lakes in Oregon,” so he moved to the mountains of New Mexico. But Uhlman wasn’t “satisfied with the difficulty level of that challenge” and is planning to live off the land this winter, despite having no gardening or hunting experience. Good luck with that!