I love shows that relate to homesteading and prepping. Unfortunately, there isn’t a genre selection on Netflix or Hulu for prepping and homesteading enthusiasts. They’re all ready for you if you want to browse Disney flicks or find Broke Back Mountain, but nothing for people with a little bit of pioneer in their souls. Let’s be honest though, I’d probably hate their selection even if they had a genre for us.
So, here are a few shows I’ve found fun, that I’d put in the Preppers and Homesteaders genre if I was in charge. I’ll see if I can come up with a few more for future posts, but this selection will be a good place to start.
Tiny: A Story about Living Small
This documentary follows the efforts of a man pursuing his dream of putting a tiny house on a trailer on isolated piece of property with beautiful views. He spends a full year building the house, with the help of his girlfriend. The reason he puts the tiny house on wheels is to avoid issues with zoning laws.
The documentary features many interviews with people that already live in tiny houses. It explores the challenges, advantages, and social responses to tiny house living.
This approach to living may be advantageous to preppers or homesteaders that seek a residence while developing the agricultural potential of land in an area that does not lend itself to home construction.
The last 50 years have seen the introduction of extremely restrictive building laws even in the remotest of areas. Imagine what the early settlers of your area would have thought about the outlawing of their lifestyles. (“Sorry. Do you have a permit for that log cabin? No? You’ll have to tear it down or face a fine.”)
Food, Inc.
If any documentary can inspire you to grow your own food, this one will. Food, Inc documents the treatment of animals and food production now that the farming industry has gone corporate. Not surprisingly, food production in modern times results in less healthy meats, vegetables, and fruits showing up on grocery shelves.
Solutions to the factory treatment of food production include homesteading, hunting, or growing a garden. If you have the resources, buying from small farmers or grocery stores that are supplied locally can help you vote with your dollar for a different supply chain for our food.
Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment
This is a great documentary series for the prepper in your life. The first season starts out with nine ordinary people dropped in the middle of Alaska with only minimal survival training and a heap of supplies—some useful, and some not so much. Their goal is to get out of the wilderness on foot, … and alive.
The great part about this series is that you get insight into mistakes easily made in a bug out situation. If you’re a prepper planning to leave civilization behind for a while during the next local or global zombie apocalypse, then you’ll want to see what worked and what didn’t for this group.