Customer Reviews

Last Frontiers on Earth: Strange Places Where You Can Live Free

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This is a relatively good book dealing with alternative ways of life. It includes, among other things, chapters on living in Antarctica, on living in a boat, on living as a nomad, on living in a ghost town--etc. Although it's rather brief
in its treatment of each subject, it does include a short bibliography at the end of each chapter for those who would like to look into each option further, and it provides a pretty good overview of the subject.

Jon Fisher (who later expanded the "deserted island" chapter into his book, Uninhabited Ocean Islands, which was also published by Loompanics Unlimited), wrote this book in 1980 and 1985, about "Strange Places Where You Can Live Free." These places include: in the polar regions; on a floating platform on the ocean; on a boat; as a (walking/biking/motorcycle) nomad; in a secret cellar; in an abandoned ghost town; in the desert, etc.

Why would one do this? Fisher asks rhetorically, "Wouldn't you like to get away to some place where people would just leave you alone so you could live your own life and do as you please? Well, maybe this is the solution to your problems." But he also offers the caution, "Everything worthwhile has its price. You can have as much freedom as you want, if you are willing to pay the price to get it ... You can decide whether the prize is worth the price in your own situation."

Such "frontiers" are very varied in their degree of "practicality"; not many people could survive in Antarctica on their own, for example, but anyone could be a "walking nomad" for an indefinite period of time.

At the end of each chapter Fisher lists books with more details about the various frontiers he covers.

The book is very interesting reading, even if you never do more than DREAM about "getting away from it all..."

"Strange Places" is one of the most amusing books I have ever read. I think the title is misleading: this volume is not suggesting locations where one can abide without money. On the contrary, Mr. Fisher suggests purchase of a nuclear power station to make life more palatable while residing in the Arctic. The most realistic proposal is the one most likely to have been field tested by the author: tunneling under a house, and putting a couch in the hole.

I rank this book with Reich's "Listen Little Man" for sheer hilarity.