The Rugged Life: The Modern Homesteading Guide to Self-Reliance

A modern guide to self-sufficiency, homesteading, and building an independent life, from New York Times bestselling author, retired Navy SEAL, and survival skills expert Clint Emerson.

Clint Emerson is the go-to-expert for surviving the first minutes, hours, and days of a crisis. Now, in The Rugged Life, he moves beyond mere survival to explain how to thrive over the long-term-for months, years, or even a lifetime, by being self-reliant. And it starts with learning how to be a modern homesteader.

Modern homesteading applies purposeful living and pioneering knowhow (efficient home building, gardening, raising animals, hunting, being handy, situational awareness) to the challenges of today. It’s about pushing yourself a little (or a lot). Whether you decide to farm your own food and use waste from your toilet for compost, or retro-fit your home with solar and keep a chicken coop in the backyard or simply grow the salad for your dinner from your windowsill garden in a city, it’s up to you. You can homestead and a live a rugged life in a suburb or in the middle of your twenty-acre sanctuary. It’s all on the same spectrum.

With hundreds of step-by-step illustrated pioneering skills and projects, The Rugged Life is for everyone who feels they can use more adventure, freedom, and choice in their lives and is ready to get out of their comfort zone and try new, hard things. Taking on the Rugged Life means thinking about how you want to live and what you want for your family-and then being curious, confident, and committed enough to take on whatever is thrown at you.