A couple decided to ditch city life to live off-grid in a tent in the middle of the desert - and now recycle their poo and use the gas to cook. Whitney Newkirk, 33, and her husband, Trent, 26, upped sticks and moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, more than 2,000 miles away to Joshua Tree National Park, California, in August 2020.
The couple had travelled around US national parks in a trailer for a year, but decided to make a permanent move because they wanted to start a new remote life - after Trent lost his job as a mechanical design engineer during the pandemic. They "fell in love" with Joshua Tree National Park - made up of two deserts, the Sonoran and the Mojave - and bought a 2.3-acre patch of land for $8,000 in March 2021 to make into their new home.
The pair bought a custom-designed yurt and invested in a 2,500-gallon water tank. They get their electricity from solar panels and have a home biogas system - using food and even human waste to create gas, which they use to cook using their fryer and stove.
Trent works from home as a mechanical design engineer for a new company, while Whitney runs the couple's social accounts, where they document their off-grid lifestyle.
Whitney said: "I never miss civilisation, I love people, but I don't like large crowds. Now we just feel so much more financially free and closer to nature.
"Our journey so far has helped us gain so much knowledge and is incredibly fulfilling. There are still trials and tribulations as we continue on the build and move on to bringing back a desert eco-system to the outside.
"But I’ve never been happier to do it. Our happy times outweigh the bad ones by a million."
The couple live in a yurt which cost them $20,000 and required three months of design and planning. Whitney and Trent drove more than 14 hours to pick up the parts from a company in Cottage Grove, Oregon, before spending a further three weeks putting the structure together on their newly-acquired land.
They then spent another year renovating and converting the yurt into a liveable space with a bathroom and kitchen. Now virtually finished with their project, Whitney said she feels like she's on top of the world.
"The best way I can describe the feeling of when we finished was I literally felt like I was standing on the top Mount Everest," she said. "It felt like the tallest mountain in the world to climb, but getting to the top there was no greater feeling."
The desert-living duo aren't hooked up to the grid and get their electricity from solar panels that they installed themselves, with the full system costing $12,000.
Whitney said: "All of the solar equipment comes with 'how to' guides instead of hiring professionals. We started buying regular solar panels and batteries, before upgrading to lithium batteries.
"It can run everything normally. It doesn’t affect anything at all. Even at night when the sun isn’t shining it uses the battery bank. It's life-changing."
Water isn't an issue either, as their 2,500-gallon tank and pipe keep them going for four months before needing a refill from a water company.
"We have had to adjust to living with less water, but we're still able to shower and wash every day," she said. "We can do our dishes inside and have enough for our pets to drink as well. We do plan on digging a well, but it’s expensive and quite dangerous to do on your own."
They plan to install hot water in the coming months, as the desert lifestyle has meant they haven't needed it through the summer. The couple are able to use gas as well, after they splashed $1,600 on a home biogas system, which allows them to generate their own gas from food and human waste.
"Basically, a giant bag sits outside, and the pipes run from the bag to the inside," Whitney said. "The sun breaks the waste down and creates natural gas, which then gives you two hours of cooking gas and smells less than regular gas."
Thanks to a weekly farmers' market in the nearby town of Joshua Tree, Whitney and Trent are able to stock up on fresh and "high-quality" produce.
Whitney says there's also a Walmart further down the road for any other supplies they may need. Their hard work didn't come without any setbacks, however, with Whitney saying there was a time she thought it would never happen.
"There was a point where I thought we were crazy," she said. "Mainly because a heatwave happened when we started our build and affected the desert temperature to 115 degrees Fahrenheit. It's very dry, and you dehydrate very quickly.
"Our travel trailer couldn’t keep up with the heat. That happened for two months, and we thought 'we're not going to get this done'.
"So, we sat in Trent's truck during the day and built at night. Finally, we got it up, winter started to hit and, in the desert, it gets very cold at night during winter.
"We didn’t want to be hot again for next summer, so we spent winter saving so we could get air conditioning and two solar panel systems."
Whitney says they are now focusing on the outside with plans to build their own greenhouse to start cultivating and growing, as areas of the national park are "green and full of life". As well as a rainwater catchment system, with Whitney claiming they can sustain themselves for a year with rainwater with a good rainwater catchment system. They believe their move was a good investment as a neighbouring patch of land now costs $65,000.
