If you want to live close to nature, don't move to the countryside. Move to water bodies or mountains instead.

2026-05-05 14:45 UTC

Most countrysides look somewhat like that. At least the one i was forced to grow up in. Sure, there are lots of plants but nevertheless the land is ecologically dead because there’s only a few species (mostly 3 different subspecies of corn). Sure there are some trees but i think the trees feel as lonely as i did when i lived there. If you want to live in nature, go to the mountains or some place that has large bodies of water nearby (lakes, rivers, ocean). That’s where the actual life is. It’s because of a mixture of landscape reasons. Large flat areas are attractive to farming, so that’s what’s being done. On the other side, mountains are unattractive for that because the big machines can’t drive over uneven soil. Similarly, large waters host a ton of biodiversity because water is the origin of all life, and you can really feel that. Just give it a try.

Replies (7)

@mech@feddit.org 2026-05-05 15:37

>**Most** countrysides look somewhat like that. Ah, my daily dose of US defaultism. [This](https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/0e1967e3-f303-45db-bfe5-22df6a0249c8.jpeg) is what the countryside around here looks like. Also: > Just give it a try. is an incredibly privileged thing to say.

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@KC_Royalz@lemmy.world 2026-05-05 15:06

Have you priced places near bodies of water and mountains? Out of my paygrade

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@immutable@lemmy.zip 2026-05-05 19:53

My spouse and I bought 5 acres in rural Ohio. About 3 of it is wooded. We are actively converting the land back to wild prairie. We have tons of wildlife on our land, deer, rabbits, groundhogs, birds of all sorts, stink bugs (you take the bad with the good), and all sorts of creepy crawlers. We actively have worked though to rehabilitate the land. Started by seeding clover along with the grass to help with nitrogen and then are working with some people from our local library that help restore land back to its natural biodiversity. Not there yet but making progress after a year and a half. We let the leaves fall undisturbed to make breeding ground for insects and last summer as the days got long and hot we were treated with a brilliant light show of fireflies in the forest every night for a month or two. If you want to live in nature you can go to where it is or you can restore where you are.

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@Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 2026-05-05 15:34

Booooooo ![](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b328297b-6265-441f-9ace-d956dd38facc.jpeg)

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@northernlights@lemmy.today 2026-05-06 14:51

Anecdotal but around how you generalized a bit much: around here the mountains *have lakes*. And ski resorts. Houses that are good enough to not just be torn down and rebuilt from scratch go for more than my suburban house near the coast.

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@iceberg314@slrpnk.net 2026-05-05 19:23

But if you do get a decent amount of land in the country side like this, you can do alot of landscaping and turn it into something pretty. I grew up surrounded by farmland, but we had wide variety of trees, grasses, and plants on our particular plot of land

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@Malyca@lemmy.zip 2026-05-05 18:28

I'm lucky to live in a farming town in the Pacific Northwest. We've got farmland, forest and coast. You'll pay for it though, shit is expensive here.

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