Living "off-grid" - without mains electricity, water or sewerage - might sound like hell to a pampered city dweller, but it is a lifestyle that is attracting massive numbers of devotees, with many influenced by the example set by Scots.
Nick Rosen, a writer who travelled the UK in a camper van powered by vegetable oil to chronicle the lives of people living off the grid, has claimed that Scotland is a pioneer of the lifestyle.
Rosen released How To Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside The System, last week. It is the Domesday Book of a burgeoning subculture, documenting the bewildering mix of visionaries and eccentrics who have made the decision to become self-sufficient.
What he found were people living in traditional yurts, sailing the canals in boats or living in eco-friendly palaces with every modern comfort but none of the pollution or carbon emissions.
Around 100,000 people in the UK are thought to be living off-grid, with a possible 5000 in Scotland, although accurate figures are extremely difficult to come by.
Rosen said: "In Scotland, I came across the most successful off-grid community, in Scoraig south of Ullapool in Ross and Cromarty and the most beautiful house, near Skye.
"There is a spirit of independence that's quite special and there are also the crofting laws, so that whereas the property laws elsewhere conspire against living off-grid, it's true to say they're less destructive of that kind of life in Scotland."
Advocates of the lifestyle do not have to shun electricity altogether, but use small hydroelectric power systems, solar panels or windmills to generate it, meaning that many off-grid communities can still be high-tech, with fast internet connections and sockets for iPods. Private needs are met by composting toilets, while low-emission wood burning heaters warm up the water. There are even solar-powered kitchen scales on sale for the ecologically-minded epicure.
First embraced by hippies, off-grid homes are now built by a vast range of people, encompassing eco-warriors, hermits and even those who have been priced out of the housing market.
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