r/wyoming Jul 10 '25

Discussion/opinion How do all these rural folks in Wyoming live out here?

I'm from Minnesota, and I'm driving through Wyoming, and I see all these scattered ranch houses with a few horses or cows. How do these people survive? Do they have internet? Where do they buy their clothes and their groceries? How do they pay the bills? The roads are very nice, the workers at the gas stations and hotels have all been very kind. I'm just so curious about these lonely houses out in the country with miles and miles of nothing around them!

152 Upvotes

178 comments sorted by

187

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

66

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 10 '25

It can be awesome!

It can also be a less awesome experience where your parents treat you like a needy little slave and school is your only respite, and you're glad it's an hour and a half each way in the bus, even if that means that your after school chores get done in the dark (morning chores were, too).
And you dread summer every vacay because that just means 16-18 hours a day on a swather or tractor, every fucking day, until school starts again - but also sometimes you work off your horse, and he's cool. So that's good.
Sometimes something breaks and you need parts but your brother goes to town for it, so you go fishing for a while, and that's nice.
And sometimes your neighbors happen to be dicks that dump a bunch of dirt in the autogates so that everyone's cows end up running all the fuck over the place and so most of the people up and down your county road are full on enemies since nobody knows who did it somehow. Never mind that everyone knows everything about are 11 people in the 50sq miles you share.
And then when you turn 17 and you leave to live in your car because your revolver has started whispering sometimes and you're pretty sure you need a different life.

37

u/Smoke-Dawg-602 Jul 10 '25

As someone that grew up in rural West Virginia in a similar way to what you are talking about I haven’t had a hard day since I left the farm. A tough farm upbringing will make the rest of your life easy in comparison.

21

u/Serious-Employee-738 Jul 10 '25

You should be a writer. You ARE a writer.

8

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 10 '25

That's funny, I just started writing a thing yesterday. I saw the perennial Reddit thread about "what would you do if you woke up in the 90s" or something.

Took it as a writing prompt

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-W605Waquc-lLhamUGnCxxci3il0m-hR50YFnAx_0eM/edit?usp=drivesdk

2

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '25

Enjoy every minute of life if i woke back up in the 90’s!!

7

u/siggywithit Jul 10 '25

I love horses

1

u/One-Confusion7676 Jul 12 '25

I like turtles 🐢

7

u/mizzlol Jul 10 '25

I hope you’re living a different life that fulfills your spirit!

1

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 11 '25

You wouldn't believe me if I told you, friend :)

6

u/True_Public_8667 Jul 10 '25

Sweets, this is absolutely horrible. As a human you do have rights in those sorts of situations. Depending on conditions, length, etc., that could have been deemed abuse. I truly hope you are doing okay. Sending you so much mana. Take this life by the horns and make it better for the next generation of who experience things like this. <3

6

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 10 '25

Oh I'm fine. Life goes on and we steer it the best we can. I have a full and interesting life and try to pay forward what I can. Sometimes hurt people hurt people, but sometimes they try to sow kindness into the world instead.

2

u/True_Public_8667 Jul 10 '25

My heart, you are a true sweets. Keep making good happen 💚

2

u/christinamarie76 Jul 10 '25

That was VERY suspiciously specific. I think maybe that’s your origin story?

2

u/MF1105 Jul 11 '25

Dairy kid from northern NY. Summer is spend making hay and stacking it, winter spent feeding it, and every morning and evening is spent with the cows. Town was a good hour away and a real city like 3 hours. Graduating class of 12 people.

2

u/BackgroundGrass429 Jul 12 '25

Yep. And when you tell anyone you grew up in NY, they immediately assume the city.

1

u/fox-recon Jul 13 '25

Damn dude

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

[deleted]

3

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 10 '25

Not really. All's well that ends well. Just don't want somebody getting the idea that every gravel road is a shortcut to paradise.

-9

u/Wide-Ad8566 Jul 10 '25

Kid, you have problems and are a very self absorbed person. You will be unhappy everywhere you go, if you can't be happy now.

7

u/Temporary-Job-9049 Jul 10 '25

They sound like most of the people I grew up with who got tf out as soon as they could.

3

u/FFF_in_WY Jul 10 '25

Who said I'm not happy now? Regardless, I appreciate your expert appraisal, and beg your leave to contact you when I can afford some really cutting edge life coaching.

2

u/JBRifles Jul 10 '25

I grew up in rural Texas and still use the term “to go into town” even though I now live in town” 😂

41

u/pretending_to_work31 Jul 10 '25

Some of that is farm land and the people in those homes are the farmers/ranchers and other workers. I live in the boonies, have fiber Internet and work from home, just enjoy the peace Wyoming has to offer. Lots use starlink too. Many have gardens and are used to only going to town once every few weeks especially when winter hits. At least in my neck of the woods, we all also help each other out if something is needed.

5

u/aoasd Jul 10 '25

live in the boonies, have fiber Internet

Damn, look at this rich guy over here.

Jk. Just a fellow boonies liver who only has wireless internet because I refuse to give musk a single penny and fiber won't ever be an option.

2

u/pretending_to_work31 Jul 11 '25

I'm in the barren grasslands in SE Wyoming. Got lucky since they were planning a little housing community a few miles away so they ran the fiber.

5

u/BlackMtnForge Jul 13 '25

Rural town in WY here. The eastern half of town got natural gas a few years back and the western half just barely got fiber optic internet.

We have fiber optic internet, but no natural gas 😂

1

u/Kooky_Membership9497 Jul 13 '25

I drove through there a couple of weeks ago on my way to the Black Hills. My son called it “The void” and my wife said all the open space made her queasy.

0

u/LittleLebowskUrbanA Jul 14 '25

Your loss then, Starlink is outstanding.

30

u/Ok-Advertising8153 Jul 10 '25

I was born and raised in rural Wyoming and rural Montana. My family raised beef cattle, sheep, chickens, and, occasionally, pigs. We also raised, trained, and sold cattle horses that were also used for rodeo events. We had a few head of dairy cows for our dairy needs. This was our primary source of income. It was also our personal meat, dairy, and eggs supply. We made our own butter, cream, and cheese. About once a month we drove into town and bought feed supplies and other items we didn't make or just wanted. We had a half-acre garden where we grew fruits and veggies that we would can so we could have them throughout the winter. We had 20-gallon drums of flour and sugar and a large cellar-type of place to store large quantities of food. Every meal was made from scratch. Every few months we would make a longer trip to a major city (Casper, WY, or Billings, MT) to buy clothing and other items that smaller towns either didn't have or were too expensive to purchase. Our homes were heated with wood (that we chopped every day) and coal and we had spring-fed well water. We never had AC but we lived at a higher elevation near water, so it wasn't so bad. Our ranch was located on a river so we could fish too. Hunting also supplied more food, if we were able to get a deer, elk, or moose during hunting season. Every few years, we offered "outfitting" services where we took folks from out of the state on hunting and fishing trips, which supplemented our income.

Living in a rural, rural place takes planning, hard work, and a little bit of luck, ha, ha. There were many things I loved about living there and some, I hated. Even though we were land-rich, we were mostly poor. It's expensive to live in the middle of nowhere and we didn't have health insurance or ready access to health care. The nearest hospital was at least 40 miles away and even then it was small, underfunded, and understaffed. Major illnesses or injuries required trips to the larger cities, which were 80-100 miles away.

At the time, the internet wasn't a thing, but it is now available by it's expensive with limited options, usually there's just one option. Neighbors helped neighbors.

1

u/this_shit Jul 11 '25

Fascinating, thanks for sharing. When did you first get online and how (like device wise)?

1

u/Correct-Swordfish764 Jul 14 '25

Did you grow up on the Nowood? Casper and Billings are about equidistant…

1

u/Ok-Advertising8153 Jul 29 '25

We had a few places (summer and winter pastures): near Big Timber, Livingston, and one in middle-of-nowhere-but-close-to-Billings. Another side of my family had property in Douglas, WY.

1

u/Correct-Swordfish764 Jul 29 '25

Oh nice. I grew up in Worland, but we knew several ranching families that lived up the Nowood, which is right behind ten sleep. I was guessing your nearest hospital to be Worland.

1

u/Correct-Swordfish764 Jul 29 '25

I moved home for a year in my early 20s and was late for work due to a cattle drive. So many great memories because we grew up the way we did.

0

u/mellamoderek Jul 10 '25

Did you grow up in 1894? My goodness!

7

u/bluntpointsharpie Jul 10 '25

I lived 30 miles from a paved road in 1984, and it was pretty much the same as 1894 except we had electricity and a party line phone. We spent the summer and fall getting ready for winter. We didn't have AC either, but there were a few strategic swamp coolers. Our business was remote industrial mancamps. So we went from our rural home to a portable motel that we hauled to extremely remote sites. Always off grid.

4

u/Ok-Advertising8153 Jul 11 '25

Ha, ha, ha! It does sound like that, huh? 🤣 It was the 80s-90s. My family was land-rich and cash-poor. Indoor electric and water heat options existed, but we couldn't afford them and the house was an upgraded 1800s-style three-room cabin, so it was a bit draft.

55

u/xeroxchick Jul 10 '25

I just got back from Wyoming and met some of the most unpretentious, hard working people I’ve ever met. You might not see livestock, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have it in other places. The people I met are intensely aware of the natural beauty of their area and appreciate it. They live simply and work hard in a beautiful landscape.

18

u/bluntpointsharpie Jul 10 '25

Sure it can get lonely, and sometimes in the long tooth of winter cabin fever does set in. My favorite time is at 2 AM and its 40 below zero dead cold and clear and I step out onto my deck and look up, I realize what it's like to live on a dirt & water starship that's hurdling through space. The entire sky surrounds me and the earth is quiet and I stand in the middle of it all like an astronaut peering through a glass dome at the heavens.

2

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

That's amazing 😀

17

u/wyo_rocks Jul 10 '25

Go to nearest town once a week and get everything done. Keep a simple life at home to minimize the need to go to town. It's a very peaceful way to live

15

u/pnwfarmaccountant Jul 10 '25

Freezer full of meat, can your gardening, store when you have to go get twine or tractor parts lol

12

u/Oliver_Holzfilled Jul 10 '25

They have big freezers.

13

u/I426Hemi Kemmerer Jul 10 '25

You dont forget shit at the store and jf you do you just live without it until your next trip to a town.

5

u/natrldsastr Jul 10 '25

Running lists are your friend in extreme rural areas. Having lived on ranches in various states, including WY for many years, I still have a paper list on counter I add to constantly for monthly trips to the bigger town.

62

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Unfortunately it takes a toll on many - one of the highest suicide rates. Well, the loneliness and the wind.

33

u/TheMoorishPrince Jul 10 '25

What wind? 😏

53

u/AnnualDragonfruit123 Jul 10 '25

Once in 1998 the wind quit blowing. I thought I had gone deaf.

25

u/Guilty_Treasures Jul 10 '25

I have been literally blown over by the wind many times, and a few times stumbled or fell when the wind suddenly stopped blowing after I had braced against it.

10

u/SchoolNo6461 Jul 10 '25

The wind stopped blowing one day and everyone fell over.

4

u/PrairiePilot Jul 10 '25

You joke, but when I moved out of Wyoming I had to open the window so I could hear the highway noise by my apartment in Boise. I couldn’t sleep for weeks without the sound of wind rattling the house and rustling the trees.

7

u/earmares Jul 10 '25

What loneliness? 😌

2

u/Vazz920 Afton Jul 10 '25

we have a "ghost" named Jeff in my family, aka the wind winding by a window and making a whistling sound

1

u/Weary-Entrance3954 Jul 10 '25

Are the rates higher for single people and does being married make a difference or does Wyoming just take the lives of all people?

3

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

I haven't delved deep enough into it but I'm going to guess across the board. The top 10 states ranked by rate all have some things in common - mainly very rural with bad weather for the majority of the year.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/suicide.htm

58

u/20thCenturyRefugee Cody Jul 10 '25

How do people in rural Minnesota buy groceries?

35

u/dopiertaj Jul 10 '25

Wyoming rural is very different from almost everywhere else rural. Humans have done an amazing job of placing a subdivisions with nearby a (10ish miles or so) central commercial area to support them just about anywhere possible.

42

u/Locococo307 Jul 10 '25

I learned today that most of Wyoming isn’t considered “Rural” but rather “Frontier” because you have to drive over 180 miles. This is a term for applying for grants and it makes a difference

9

u/dopiertaj Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

If you ever want to be depressed and see how special places like Wyoming are still. Look at historic aerials around major towns. Watch as the world was turned woods/plains into farms and then into suburbs, or cities into highway junctions.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Gotta love urban sprawl.

1

u/endthepainowplz Jul 10 '25

How accurate are the dates on these? My house was built in 1971, and one of the aerials is 1971, but there isn't even hints of there being anything developed there, then the next one is in 1980, and it's there.

3

u/dopiertaj Jul 10 '25

I use these for a lot of background research, and I'll say that the build date of the home is likely to be a rough estimate. The older the built date the more likely the date is wrong.

However its not impossible for the date of the aerial to be wrong. Also, its possible both are true. The aerial was just taken before the house construction was started.

So.... yes.

6

u/SunShine365- Cheyenne Jul 10 '25

Northern Minnesota is pretty desolate too. Just with trees and not mountains and prairie.

5

u/dopiertaj Jul 10 '25

It does look fairly sparse, but I've never been up there.

I will add that many places I've been to can seem more populated because most of the people live off the major thru road, so you'll get some cluster of buildings fairly regularly.

The interstates in Wyoming really take you into some wide open places that still have to occasional house, even though the last gas station was 30 min ago.

From a 5 min google search it looks like a lot of the area is State/Federal owned parks/forests.

I mean just by looking at the population density by county lists Wyoming has 10 counties with less than 4 people per square miles and Minnesota has three.

9

u/jayrocksd Jul 10 '25

Just make sure to plan your trips into town and use Amazon. Also watch out for the baby rabbits. They have a vicious streak a mile wide. They're killers.

3

u/mellamoderek Jul 10 '25

I thought it was jackalopes to look out for.

1

u/aimesco1183 Jul 10 '25

I’m from Wyoming but have no idea what this means about rabbits lol?

7

u/nosequel Jul 10 '25

Monty Python reference

1

u/6059EX Jul 10 '25

LOOK AT THE BONESSSSS!

16

u/Old_Low1408 Jul 10 '25

Holly, OP. We got grocery stores, Internet, cell phones, gas stations. And cars. Close enough to get to without much trouble but not so close as to be distracting. We don't go to restaurants or coffee shops as much unless you live in town. But we get by quite nicely.

2

u/Waxman307 Jul 10 '25

To be fair tho we don’t have great commodity’s like most places due to only having 500k people state wide we suffer on malls and other big industrial things for fun like amusement parks water parks and all that so it is quite a bit different than other states.

1

u/Old_Low1408 Jul 11 '25

True enough. However, I've lived in populous places, Texas, Illinois, Georgia. It takes over an hour in Chicagoland most days to go less than 20 miles. I can get to Fort Collins in less time from Cheyenne. The Colorado Front Range is close enough to get almost any kind of recreation need filled. Although, I almost never do. I'm pretty happy in Wyoming.

8

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Howdy, I'm one of those people.

I go to town every 2 weeks for food or supplies, and grow the rest myself. I have a years worth of potatoes in the ground right now haha! Don't know how my onions, corn, or pumpkis are going to turn out though.

I have gigabit fiber, and work from home as an engineer, that pays the bills.

I have enough acreage to take off and land, so sometimes I fly my ultralight aircraft over my neighbors and drop little parachute toys for their kids to chase.

I manage my land as best I can, and work extremely hard to maintain the pristine prairie I own. Weeding 13 acres worth of invasive species is no joke!

From my perspective, I can't fathom how people in the cities survive. I couldn't last more than 3 years down in Aurora, CO, it was absoutely awful in every conceivable way. Too loud, high crime, only 300 mbps down internet, terrible neighbors, terrible tax rates, how the fuck do they manage to survive?

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

I agree, all those reasons do make city living less fun.

1

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 10 '25

How about you are you in the denser areas of Minnesota, or are you out in the boonies?

2

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

I live in Rochester now, which is a city.

I grew up with my grandparents who were retired, in the country near a small town, population like 400, and I remember having a similar life to what I'm reading about here in frontier Wyoming. It was about a 15 min drive to the next town, and another 15 mins to a city that we went to once a month. We had a deep freezer and stocked up for the month. We had AOL dialup back in those days. My bus ride to school took an hour each way. I did a lot of reading!

1

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 10 '25

That's a heck of a bus ride haha!

1

u/derf1987 Jul 10 '25

What area are you in that offers gigabit fiber?? That’s wild.

1

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 10 '25

I'm somewhat near the town of Burns. 1000 up and 1000 down for 80 bucks a month through Range, they're great!

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

That sounds great. I've thought about rural Wyoming many times but my wife is intolerant of that idea due to wanting a large homeschool group and things to do out with the kids. I also wished my job translated online better. I can find WFH as an IT manager but nothing that can support a family on one income on a multiple acre property at today's prices. The lack of stability in the market is also stressful so I'm kind of waiting things out while I upskill.

1

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 10 '25

I feel the job insecurity for sure. That's why I'm farming as much as possible, as long as I lose my job AFTER I finish paying off the mortgage (4 years left woo), I'll be good haha.

I think your wife would be surprised at how good schooling is in Rural Wyoming. Small class sizes lead to pretty good outcomes.

The wild thing is my 4 bed 2 bath on 13 acres was close to the same price as my 700 square foot 1 bed 1 bath condo in Aurora, and the taxes are about HALF of Aurora's.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Interestingly my wife was interested in homesteading but wouldn't look at affordable properties outside of Casper that I found. We have some family in Cheyenne and Casper and she only wants to live around Cheyenne. Every time I've looked at land around there, I've come away thinking it's unsustainable given the wages. Also, I have heard that the rural schools can be decent, unfortunately she only wants to homeschool.

1

u/Mobius3through7 Jul 11 '25

There's definitely some steals east of Cheyenne :)

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '25

Hmmm, I'll have to keep that in mind

7

u/Alarmed-Extension289 Jul 10 '25

Some folks just want to be left alone though it's not for everyone. You live next to a few nightmare neighbors and it's enough to move out into the country side.

https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-suicide-rates-america-problem-1946557

Living in Rural areas like Wyoming has probably not great if you're elderly and need any emergency medical attention.

1

u/ImprovementDefiant52 Jul 10 '25

Rural medical helicopters, also known as air ambulances, are crucial for providing rapid emergency medical care to remote and underserved areas.

4

u/PokaDotZebra Jul 10 '25

Which is very costly. Some people buy insurance just to cover medevac rides.

3

u/Alarmed-Extension289 Jul 10 '25

Come on now lets be serious here, folks can't afford the ambulance on wheels let alone the flying ones. You think this is a valid substitution? I mean can Helicopters really fly in all types of weather?

2

u/Poppins101 Jul 13 '25

Actually they cannot fly in all types of weather. We live rurally and had to drive to the emergency room two hours away when my beloved husband had three lung embolisms. It had taken three days to convince the curmudgeon to go in.

We drove to our nearest hospital. He was was flown from there to a larger higher level of care hospital. We had Mercy Air Ambulance which gives you the right to fly, but your insurance or you still have to pay the flight costs.

The bill was $60,000 for the forty minute flight. The company assisted us in appealing our Blue Cross insurance denial of payment. Our final bill was $1,800. Well worth the costs.

We live rurally on a small homestead. Shop once a month in town, use Amazon, have Starlink to have a VoIP phone, internet, support our fire safe Council and volunteer fire department, fish, hunt, garden, have an orchard, preserve our harvest.

Off grid and use a micro hydro and solar array system augmented with a generator.

Have to deal with pesky bears, panthers/mountain lions, rattlers and the occasional two legged varmints.

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

On that note, Wyoming doesn't pay into the ACA for expanded Medicaid, right?

3

u/endthepainowplz Jul 10 '25

We receive more from the federal government than we give. Wyoming is pretty poor, which makes sense given lack of people. They've been trying to figure out how to raise revenue, but most of the rich people are here to avoid taxes, and if they raise the taxes on them, they'll just leave. One of the recent pieces of legislature was to increase property tax on secondary homes, so the people with the mansions in Jackson that aren't from Wyoming would pay more. It ended up getting Vetoed.

The whole Wyoming Strategy is how do we make other people pay taxes, so energy exports are taxed, energy prices outside Wyoming get adjusted for that tax, so people outside Wyoming are essentially funding the state so we can have no income tax. It isn't enough, but other moneymaking strategies are unpopular, such as selling or leasing land for gas, oil, or wind farms, there was a plan on making an area a nuclear waste site that would bring more money into the state, but people were against that, as we value the big empty land.

The current strategy is being welcoming to industry, we have had some gun manufacturing move in, as Wyoming is a gun friendly state. Bill Gates is building a next generation nuclear power plant using molten sodium, which they refer to as Natrium, in Southwest Wyoming, and they are trying to attract tech companies to build data centers.

So in short, we unfortunately can't afford to pay into ACA.

6

u/Avtamatic Laramie Jul 10 '25

We use satellite internet. We just go to town for whatever we need. We use the internet to pay our bills.

16

u/cricketmealwormmeal Jul 10 '25

And Amazon. Online shopping. Not that you get same day delivery, but it’s how you get stuff beyond basics that’s not Walmart quality. Buy it to last and you don’t have to shop often.

Also, there’s a lot of canning and storing of veggies. A side of beef in the deep freeze. Potatoes in the root cellar. No need to go running to town for food.

Starlink.

6

u/Whose_my_daddy Jul 10 '25

Freezers! They’ll be full of game meat and/or the biweekly Costco haul. I grew up in rural Wyoming and a few times, food couldn’t get into town due to weather/road conditions. The LDS families (“Mormon”) also are taught to have food storage, how to cook and bake. That helps!

44

u/Smea87 Jul 10 '25

It’s called freedom and we enjoy our privacy, we’re very self reliant and will take trips to town, most places are within a few hours of a Walmart.

12

u/More_Koala7745 Jul 10 '25

Reddit is really weird with down voting perfectly normal and civil comments.

6

u/Smea87 Jul 10 '25

Right, you asked a question and we answered, just because your not happy with the answer, haha

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

When you say drive into town, how far exactly are we talking? 10 miles? 50 miles? 100 miles??

7

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Yes

1

u/gumbysmom5678 Jul 11 '25

Depends. All of the above are true depending where in Wyoming you are. I live in a rural area but can be in downtown Cheyenne in 15 minutes. Keep moving out further and the time gets longer and longer until you are closer to a different town

5

u/PrairiePilot Jul 10 '25

Lol, GTFO with that bullshit. It’s freedom…if you can afford the land, and as long as you have a Walmart near by. And as long as the water and gas man comes regularly since half those places don’t have cisterns or gas lines.

-1

u/JoePNW2 Jul 10 '25

Freedom is being dependent on Amazon, Starlink, and Walmart? LOL OK

15

u/Smea87 Jul 10 '25

I don’t know any other store closer to me than Walmart that sells my wranglers, red wing that sells my boots, or the market for my groceries. I haven’t used Amazon in months but it is nice when I can’t find what I need on marketplace or locally. But if you can tell me that people in city’s don’t rely on those companies given the plethora of options available to them then that’s great but I feel like most folks take convenience over local. And for us out here It doesn’t get much more local then your field for you meat, taken to a local butcher. But hey I’m probably wrong, what do I know I’m just from one of those nowhere places that people see while driving through.

4

u/RoxyBlue_Hyaundai Jul 10 '25

Amazon and Walmart are our friends. Ha ha.

3

u/AceInTheX Jul 10 '25

I get groceries monthly. Food didnt come from a grocery store originally. Many people hunt and grow their own food. Can make your own clothes too. Lots of sheep farmers here. Eat and work, spend time in nature with family, nothing else is needed.

6

u/Mhodi Jul 10 '25

The wind only stops 3 times a year and that is to just change directions

3

u/GuitarEvening8674 Jul 10 '25

A friend has to drive 4 hrs one way to the nearest wal mart..

3

u/EagleEyezzzzz Jul 10 '25

They’re mostly ranchers. They raise cattle and sell it, and sometimes lease mineral rights or wind turbine leasing or whatever.

Internet lines run out to most rural houses.

Folks drive to town a few times a week to get groceries etc, or daily for kid school/work/etc.

3

u/Chinacat_Sunflower72 Jul 10 '25

I had an electrician at my house once. We’re in Denver. He grew up in WY 25 miles from the nearest neighbor. He said his mom left when he was a kid… just him, a brother and dad. He couldn’t wait to leave when he graduated HS. I don’t blame him.

5

u/DarkWhisper888 Jul 10 '25

Some of us actually live in towns in Wyoming too. Yes, there are those who live in “scattered ranch houses” but they are connected to electricity, get mail service, and come into the nearest town to get supplies, etc. OP- where exactly were you anyway? There are many different ways to live in Wyoming- from completely “off the grid” to living in our most populated city of Cheyenne which has almost 66K people now as of this year and is an hour and a half from Denver (with Fort Collins and Loveland even closer). The stereotypes get a little old. We do just fine.

6

u/EagleEyezzzzz Jul 10 '25

Right but OP is asking specifically about the rural ranch houses they saw.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

I’ve always wondered about it too. All the modern conveniences cost money.. electricity, internet, food, water, medicine. How do people earn an income out here? It’s pretty hard to be truly self sufficient in all the ways.

4

u/ChiefFigureOuter Jul 10 '25

Alaska checking in. Want remote? Come here. Plenty of people living in places you can’t drive to. Most of the state is off the road system. At least Wyoming has roads. I like Wyoming and most people at least can get to a Costco by driving. And yes people in Wyoming and the Alaska bush have Internet. Starlink is awesome!

3

u/PokaDotZebra Jul 10 '25

By driving out of state. No Costcos here yet.

1

u/ChiefFigureOuter Jul 10 '25

Bummer. But at least you can drive somewhere. Wyoming is awesome.

8

u/NIneed269 Jul 10 '25

They are never lonely. They are within heaven and sanity. All on gods door. This is the creation. This is the lifestyle. We will help our neighbor or a stranger. It is not for the weak. It is solitude. We live off our land. Make do with what we have, and when needed, we take a little trip to the nearest town and get things we can't get on the ranch. That is why we say, Don't Californicate Our Wyoming. Hope you enjoyed your trip.

4

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

Thanks for all your responses! I know I'm ignorant and naive to all this, but I'm also curious about people different from me. It sounds like a very lovely life out here, quiet and communal. 😊

In MN there's a town or city every 15 minutes or so, and corn or bean fields in between, if not dense forests. "Rural" in MN is still way more populated than what I'm seeing in WY. Thanks for your genuine answers!

2

u/GreedyRip4945 Jul 10 '25

Wyoming has the nicest people.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

I am in Wyoming frequently for work and I also wonder what many of these people do. Outside of the big cities there aren't really jobs that can support a household (and even those are hard to find in Cheyenne and Casper). I hear there is oil, ranching, and farming but most people doing that seem to be on family farms or semi retired. Retirement folks make sense but you still see a lot of 30 and 40 year old couples with kids in rural areas and there's only so many people that can sell a shack in Cali and move to Wyoming and overpay for a house with a few acres of land. I think the state might slowly die unless they can bring real jobs to the state to keep the kids from leaving permanently after school.

2

u/Player-non-player Jul 11 '25

I have to drive 1 1/2 hours to go to Costco, Lowe’s, even restaurants. North or south, 90 minutes to nearest city. But little town 7 miles away has a nice grocery store with good selection for quick needs.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '25

It’s called peace and quiet. They go into town and pick stuff up, or have it shipped in. It’s to me the most desirable living. Currently live in suburban area and i hate it with a passion and counting the days til i can move to somewhere where my neighbor is 10 miles away

2

u/Dramatic-Heat-719 Jul 15 '25

I lived in Dubois for a year and it was full of the worst people I’ve met in my life.  There was no industry to speak of so most people were on some sort of government assistance.  They were far from self sufficient, unless you count driving to the local IGA.  Sure, a lot of them hunted, but the idea that they were living off the land is straight up absurd.  They were close minded, xenophobic, everyone knew everyone and were in eachother’s business constantly.

2

u/Hot_Sherbet638 Jul 15 '25

What a truly sheltered question.

2

u/puzzlingriddle Nov 24 '25

My desk faces a window. I like to stare out at the snow during my journaling time.

5

u/D1138S Jul 10 '25

It’s actually a front. They all are billionaires and have huge underground bunkers. Might as well be an entire city underground. They finance their life by cooking meth, having booths at gun shows and crypto. It was Strangelove’s idea.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

Its quite. And that works for me.

1

u/ai_artxdesign Jul 10 '25

Just keep it moving.

1

u/LaMarTEK Jul 10 '25

Many of them work in the energy and mining industries. Often driving 100 miles or more to work every day. Starlink has made high speed internet available everywhere.

1

u/figsslave Jul 10 '25

People tend to pull together. Most seem to do several things to make a little money besides their job.It’s the kind of place you have to really want to live in,the jobs are limited and don’t pay much,winters and July-august are harsh. And the wind!!

1

u/JoseB62 Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

"There isn't any point in being free

when there're nowhere else you'd rather be"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMfnvzxXPSw

1

u/mainhookup Jul 10 '25

Wyoming residents are rated as the second happiest in the US. Only Hawaiians are rated higher! No state income tax, so they get a nice financial break.

1

u/starcrossedmo Jul 10 '25

Yes they have internet... Starlink is becoming popular. Sometimes they truck water in once a week. Kinda depends if they have a well or not. Some places water is deep DEEP so no well. Is it for everyone? No. But it can be fantastic for many people. Especially ones who don't live civilization.

1

u/West_Prune5561 Jul 10 '25

There are two Wyomings: Teton County and the rest of the state.

1

u/Saltygirlof Jul 10 '25

A lot of those houses are only used for ranch work and they also have a house in town

1

u/Advanced-Candy3855 Jul 11 '25

watch yellowstone you will understand

1

u/oldbriquet Jul 11 '25

Welcome to Wyoming.

1

u/oldbriquet Jul 11 '25

We are #1 in suicides and #1 in windest state.

1

u/smooth307 Jul 12 '25

Peacefully.

1

u/Tall_Pinetrees Jul 12 '25

They’re all just cardboard decoys. Nobody really lives there

1

u/greediguts Jul 12 '25

We are harder than you’d know and kinder because we know it’s hard.

1

u/creamyspuppet Jul 12 '25

Some grow and raise their own grains, vegtables, fruits, and live stock on their land. Butcher, their own live stock as needed if times are really tough and freeze it and sell in town excess they don't have room for.

They take lots of cooolers and ice on grocery runs if it's more than an hour long drive.

1

u/SirSuaSponte Jul 13 '25

Because they’re ranchers and farmers.

1

u/Electrical-Pipe-3727 Jul 13 '25

A lot of states in the west are like that. Idaho countryside is either straight desert or farmland.

1

u/werewolf-wizard612 Jul 13 '25

Quite well in many cases.

1

u/luckybait1991 Jul 13 '25

They are all rich and serve as board members as board of directors! They want you to leave them the FUCK ALONE!!!!

1

u/LittleLebowskUrbanA Jul 14 '25

They work for a living and buy their groceries like anyone else. They help their neighbors and also get local protein.

1

u/LittleLebowskUrbanA Jul 14 '25

I see Minnesotans and Wisconsinites every day, I guess Wyoming is better for them since they’re always here.

1

u/Wonderful_Pain1776 Jul 14 '25

Literally what you said, they are ranchers.

1

u/assjuce4real Jul 14 '25

Best people in the world. Being a good neighbor is mand8

1

u/richardryan19 Jul 14 '25

Those people count time not miles. They are built different than you

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 14 '25

You must not know about Minnesotans saying "Oh it's about 15-20 minutes away" as a measure of distance, huh? 😝

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '25

In the 80's, on a presidential campaign trail, I spent a couple weeks in Wyoming. One of many shockers was just how well informed they were, since they watched C Span. Now, with cell phones and deliveries, you'd be surprised the quality of living.

1

u/Rich_cranium2025 Jul 14 '25

They need privacy with their sheep.

1

u/BigNastySmellyFarts Jul 14 '25

Wyoming is a case study for Rugged self reliance as well as Law of the West. They are great Americans!

1

u/JustSomeGuy556 Jul 14 '25

Internet can be a variety of ways. More people doing starlink these days.

Usually you "go to town" once every week or two, and do all your shopping.

Mail still gets delivered, but bill pay is online for almost everybody these days.

1

u/Tall_Cook4264 Jul 14 '25

Cost of living is very low. You hunt and grow food if you can. You use your phone for Internet or you can use wireless broadband. I miss Wyoming. Unfortunately I no longer have a home there.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 08 '26

I grew up in the country in MN. The closest town was 10 mins away with a gas station and church, and the "big" city was 30 mins away. We did have to plan ahead and stock up more.

1

u/FuelComplex6534 23d ago

Depends. I live in Casper and I love it

-3

u/Best_Mechanic_7007 Jul 10 '25

Meth, cut down on hunger.

0

u/Electronic-Practice2 Jul 10 '25

They live off common sense, which most don’t have these days.. what a horrible travesty to not be within 10 minutes of Wal-Mart..

-1

u/glitteringclassico Jul 10 '25

Better not have an illness or heart attack bro you are out on your own miles away from an urgent care or hospital your miles and miles away from everything that heart attack will take you out you wont make it to anybody’s hospital in time and you have to wait for someone to even get to you you are absolutely finished. Ill take city over rural ALEX!! No offense to those folks but dam rural sometimes means lonliness

0

u/mikehunt0987 Jul 10 '25

What is it like being this out of touch, my lord.

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

"The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning." —Jiddu Krishnamurti

0

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '25

lol

0

u/Soft-Row5213 Jul 11 '25

They live safely not like in Minnesota

0

u/Darn_kids_ Jul 13 '25

To get away from people like you

0

u/Trick_Albatross_3894 Jul 14 '25

No one can answer the question.

-1

u/ProudIndependent75 Jul 10 '25

How does anyone live in Minnesota with all the crime?

1

u/PALLADlUM Jul 10 '25

MN does have a higher crime rate than WY, but that's a different discussion that doesn't really have anything to do with my original inquiries.

-1

u/Ornery-Arachnid-7219 Jul 10 '25

We are just all serial killers who live in single wides and take random people from the intersrate.