Off Grid Behaviors
Teaching and learning about the homesteading lifestyle with the dream of living off grid; at least partially. The journey has a huge learning curve, but well worth the rewards. While disconnecting from the grid completely is challenging, I have cut the cord from the television and other distractions that prevent most of us from achieving our true potential and purpose. I want to connect with others who have considered this lifestyle of finding ways to spend more time with the people we care about the most while living a healthier way to eat food you grow yourself and less stress from the infamous rat race.
Off Grid Behaviors
Staying warm off grid during the winter.
A thousand downloads later, we’re celebrating with hard-won lessons from real winter nights: the kind where a warm sleeping bag meets a 3 a.m. bathroom run and you learn exactly how much planning matters. This is a field guide for staying warm, safe, and sane when the temperature dips and the adventure calls anyway.
We dig into what actually keeps you comfortable off-grid—how to taper fluids and set up a bathroom plan so you don’t shiver in the dark, why sleeping bag “comfort” versus “limit” ratings are not the same thing, and how a good pad can matter more than a pricey bag. I share the gear that works without the hype, from outlet steals to thrifted finds, and break down smart layering with modern fabrics and reflective liners that beat bulky “puffer logic.” If you’ve ever tried to sleep at 6'4" in a cramped rig, you’ll hear practical tips for matching sleep systems to your body and your climate.
Heat is power, but also risk. We walk through kerosene, propane, diesel heaters, wood stoves, and electric options, with straight talk on ventilation, carbon monoxide alarms, and fire readiness. Then we get into builds: insulating an enclosed trailer with rigid foam, sealing drafts, and designing a modular layout when your space has to pull double duty with an ATV. Along the way, a cross-country Navy road story reminds us why it’s smarter to nap at a rest stop than push through fatigue, and a polar plunge tradition connects cold exposure to resilience, family, and purpose.
If you’re heading into colder months with a tent, a trailer, or an overlanding rig, you’ll come away with tactics you can use tonight and choices you can make this weekend. Join me, share your favorite cold-weather hacks, and help this community get better, safer, and more comfortable together. If this helped, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—it keeps the caravan rolling.
Hey folks, welcome back to the show Off-Grid Behaviors. My name is Barry Smith, and thank you for tuning in. This show is dedicated to those who are looking to find answers and solutions to their journeys, whether they're traveling, off-grid, homesteading, overlanding, camping, kayaking, or anything of that nature. First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for uh accomplishing what I reached today. I reached my 1000th download on this podcast. So I couldn't have done it without you guys. I really appreciate the support. Just a little lesson for everyone out there, just being consistent, whatever you do. You will definitely reach those goals, whatever you're trying to reach. Quitting is never an option for me, and I hope it's the same for you. Some of the things that helped me with this podcast was some of the landmarks or the goals that were set by Buzz Sprout. They kind of put like a carrot in front of you. Said, okay, you're at 250, you're at 500, only a few more to go, and on and on and on. So that was very helpful. And I encourage you guys to follow any type of process, whether it's something you write in your journal every day or seeking professional advice, whatever it is that you're doing in your journey, fitness, finance, health, education, or whatever it is, folks, just jot those goals down and follow through with them. So, first of all, it is right now the end of October, and we're going into the daylight savings time. That's gonna be next weekend when you fall back a couple hours or one hour, I'm sorry. And I want to talk about staying warm during these winter months. One of the worst experiences that I ever had in camping was when I had to leave my tent to use the bathroom. That was like, it was really and it's only near the end of February, beginning of March. So it wasn't like brutally cold. And I live in Georgia, so it's not like it was somewhere in the mountains. It's just something I wasn't prepared for. And those are some of the key things I want to talk about as well, as far as what you're accustomed to. We're gonna talk about things like sleeping bags and other sleeping arrangements throughout the next few weeks and next months or so. There have been times I had to sleep in my vehicle, planned and unplanned. For example, traveling across country when I was in the Navy from San Diego, coming back here to Georgia, I stopped in a couple places. Uh, a couple hotels, some look pretty shady. I can't remember a little place in Texas, but it was kind of creepy. And back then I didn't do as much planning as I do now. I don't remember what Google was or anything like this. This was back in 1999 when I was coming back from San Diego, my 10 and a half years that I did, United States Navy. So I don't recall what I used. I wanted to stop in San Diego, is what I recall. I remember San Antonio was playing in the NBA championship. So that was kind of my hard mind, but nonetheless, that didn't happen. It only took me about two and a half days to reach Georgia. I remember driving from California, quick stop in Arizona, then a stop in Texas. And once I left Texas, it was smooth sailing from that point. It did get a little, I did get a little sleepy, in fact, around Alabama, Mississippi, somewhere like that. I just wanted to get home and kept pushing forward, which was probably not the safest thing to do. Note to sell, folks, if you ever feel tired and you just don't think you can make or you're struggling, your life is way more important than going a few extra miles. So whether you got to stop at a Walmart, Waffle House, all the places I have slept in. I have slept in a Waffle House parking lot, Walmart parking lot, rest stops, and other like those visitors' places between states. So problem with that for me is being at 6' almost 6'4 or 6'3 and some change. Living and sleeping arrangements have always been difficult for me, whether in the Navy, on the airplane, in the hotel, or just anywhere, but definitely in a vehicle at 6'4, and I definitely talk a little bit more about that later. But back to the topic of the bathroom in the wintertime. The last thing you want to do is break the seal wherever you're sleeping, whether it's a sleeping bag, a tent, or vehicle to use a bathroom. You know what you can hold when you're out camping or traveling. So the best bet is on the internet it says stop taking fluids in a couple hours before you get ready to go to sleep. Sonic, we don't always plan that. But if you ever have the experience that I had, you will not forget that ever in life. So if you're in a tent, have you some type of little porta potty by extreme measures? If you gotta use a Gatorade bottle for guys, and I don't know what women use, some of the little trinkets they use, but for the most part, I did not plan. I was with a friend of mine, Marion. We had a good time, and just in the middle of the night, two o'clock, four o'clock, had to go to the bathroom like twice and had to go outside the tent. Uh, it was nice and warm inside. We used like a kerosene heater, but again, just first time camping or first couple times, just didn't plan for that. So moving forward since then, that would never happen to me again. So don't break the seal on your sleeping bag or your tent. So while we're on that topic, how do you stay warm during the winter time? And only you know what your limits are. And again, being from Georgia, the southeast, it doesn't get super cold. And what we consider cold down here may be like nothing for people who live in, I don't know, Connecticut or New York or Wisconsin. So only new, only you know what's best. For example, there are certain things and ratings for sleeping bags. I can't even begin to explain or express how that works, but there are certain like three categories. And again, there's one that talks about survivalists, and a lot of things that you might see on those TV shows that we like to watch, those guys and girls, they know what they're doing, they know their limits and they know what they can handle. So only you know best. So when you go to some of your outposts or places where they're selling sleeping bags, ask them about that. I hope they can help you a lot better than I can. I'm no expert. All I know is I have a couple different ones. And in fact, I bought my last one from a goodwill. It was a North Face, and I'm I'm hung up on North Face. So it was a North Face sleeping bag, probably like a two or three season one. And I paid about eight dollars for it compared to like 300 or something like that, where you might pay for one in a retail establishment. So do shop around, do find out what works best for you and your body type. And one good thing about camping in the winter is that you can prepare with layers. In the summertime, you can't take off enough clothes if it's 150 degrees. However, when it comes to winter camping, adding layers, whether it's the thermal underwear, socks, shoes, the pants, the jackets. And in fact, I go to the outlet in Hilton Head quite a bit and pick up a lot of good deals with the Columbia stuff, the North Face stuff, and the fact having seen some stuff at what is it Home Depot and Lowe's, where they have like this solar or these other like heating elements inside the jackets. And they have some of that reflective material inside a lot of North Face and the Columbia gear that I picked up. And all things being equal, I remember when I was a kid and we had those big bubble jackets, right? So back then we thought they were really cool, but I don't think they really the size matters when it comes to these jackets. I've looked into certain jackets where at North Face and other outlets like that. I I never really understood at first why some of that stuff costs so much, but and it's definitely worth it. A$200 jacket that looks thin compared to a$50 perfect jacket that doesn't do anything. I pay the$200 every time. So when I go to Outlets, which I plan on doing in Hilton Head in December, I will stock up on some more stuff, whether it be North Face or Columbia or any of those places like that. A lot of good stuff, stuff that fits. And that's where I buy most of my stuff from Outlets. Now, let's talk about the traveling portion. The first couple times that I went camping was in a tent, a regular size, a regular tent, and we had a I want to say a kerosene heater in there. And those sometimes heaters like that scare me. And especially if you don't have a place for the the fumes to go out in. So we were just sitting there and it was pretty warm, but I don't know what the safety precautions were for that, and I don't think there's a place for the air to get out, but made it through clearly, and it did a really good job of staying of keeping us warm. And kerosene is one way, and of course, there's always electrical heaters, electric heaters, and I used that when I was in a in my 10 5x10 enclosed trailer. I used that little heater, it was plugged into an inverter, and it wasn't super warm in there, but I was wrapped up pretty tight. Again, from what you're laying on the sleeping pad to the interior walls. So before that, before I actually insulated that trailer, it was uninsulated without anything, so it made it a little bit more cold than it should have been. So after that experience, of course, I insulated with some of the little pink, maybe inch, two inches of the foam, the styrofoam style, not the other cotton or the other foamy stuff, but more of the one and a half inch, two-inch foam boards. Those work really well. So I'm still in the process of insulating that trailer. I think I've done most of it, but I keep going back and forth about how to do the back. The reason being is I still travel with my ATV at times, and I don't want to close off the back with the kitchen until I really have decided that I'm gonna do something else with the ATV, whether store it in another building. But that has been the back and forth. I actually I laid it out, I measured it, I looked where my my stove would be, my refrigerator, and all those things to go along with water, sink and everything else. But at this moment, I don't travel that much with it, so I haven't made that final decision to actually turn that into a kitchen. But perhaps next summer I'll do that. But right now, I'm still planning on doing some winter camping, and that's gonna be with the overlanding trailer that I'm in the process of building right now. Other heating solutions include things like wood burning stoves and diesel fuel. I read about people who were going over land with van life, and I guess they put like a diesel heater inside of their vans. And I also read about people using those uh diesel fuel heaters inside maybe a cabin of some sort. I also read about the wood-burning stoves and how that operates. And I've seen where the guy did a DIY build where he made it really nice, had the exhaust pipe going out through the ceiling. So I thought it was a pretty amazing uh feat, and perhaps that's something I could do later. But currently I was using a one of those little small buddy heaters, and it wasn't the the warmest. I think it just kind of does a small area. But I think with the the building being insulated, me wearing enough stuff, it got the job done. But anything more severe than what we do here in Georgia, I think we'll need something bigger, and I think a wood burning stove would probably be more sufficient than that little buddy heater. But whatever you do, folks, safety first, safety, safety, safety. Always have something that's gonna alert you of any type of fumes or other harmful gases. Keep your fire extinguisher nearby and do that. Last but not least, and when I go to Hilton Head every year, I do my annual polar plunge. I started this about three years ago, and it just is very invigorating. So as I talk about how to stay warm during the winter months and camping, I find myself jumping into an ocean at the end of the year every year. So this is the time of year when I start, I don't know, getting my body accustomed to cold weather, doing cold showers, training outside, and just getting in shape. So those are some things, and I don't know if you guys have ever done much of the polar plunges, but it's just something that I dedicated that to in honor of some relatives, my mom and my father, who I lost to colon cancer. I lost my brother to HIV, I lost a niece to sepsis. So I've lost a lot of people due to certain things, and I dedicate these plunges to them and others that I care so deeply for. So as we come to the year's end, we go into November. As I mentioned, they like saving starts for us next weekend. And as we go into the crisis with people and jobs and the loss thereof, there's nothing more important than family, spending time with friends and family doing anything that you enjoy. Money is not everything. Trust me, we've all been there and done that, and that's my goal as I go on this journey is to get away from that whole digital cord attached to the office, attached to the phone. And funny enough, I'm talking about digital disconnect while I'm on the internet. But nonetheless, this is my voice for helping those and encouraging those who also seek that type of journey. I also wanted to learn more from you all who are doing it. And none of us are experts at this point because it could change day to day. So if you would please, if you see a message or a way to inbox me, I'd love to correspond. Send me some of your links. I'm not one of those people who worry about spamming my email or anything like that. I would love to hear from folks if I've given you some good information that they could help you. And I also like to learn more for you guys as well. Again, friends, family, good health as we come to the here at the end of the year, and just hey, enjoy life, get out there, do something adventurous, travel. I mean, some of you all have beautiful places you can see just right in in your in your area, hometown, within the state, or just a few states away. As I get prepared next summer, I do want to travel out west. I don't know how far I'm gonna get. I know at least to Texas before I come back and and and places in between. So get out there and do something. Next episode, I'll talk a little bit more about this overland trailer that I'm building and stay safe out there. Thank you again for the 1,000 downloads. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.