I currently live in Chicago. I am almost financially able to move and I'm considering buying land to build a homestead. I've read many articles and watched my videos bit I'm struggling with weeding out the bad info from the good. What sources of information do you use? Is this a content area that wpsn would consider adding a show/creator for?

what type of "homesteading" are you wanting to do? are you just moving out of the city to the outskirts with a acre or two? or are you going all out cabin in the woods or getting a farm. what are you wanting to do?

I'm still early in deciding what I want to do. I've found a couple places with about 40-50 acres of wooded land. I want to clear enough to build a house and start growing my own food. If I can convince my wife I would like to start raising my own animals in the next few years. Probably start with a mix of meat/egg chickens and expand from there.

Yep, convincing your wife is key. i went from 2 acres in NE Florida to running almost 320 acres here in NC, clearing land is a challenge, but it can be done with a excavator, dozer and a tractor. but it a big time commitment, with someone on the dozer and myself in my cat 320fl we cleared about 1 to 1 1/2 acres a day of cutover. but most of mine was already pasture land when i bought it.
chickens are a great place to start. i would not worry about getting meat birds. i would start with a buff breed. my reasoning behind that is meat birds are known lay smaller eggs and your wife and kids are not going to let you kill there chickens. so why get them "right"
if you with leghorns " egg layers" you will get eggs everyday with out fail, but they will not sit on the eggs to hatch. buffs are big enough to eat if times get hard, lay nice big brown eggs and will sit on them to hatch chicks.
bro, i have been doing it all since we moved in 2017 chickens, hogs, cattle, growing stuff in the garden. baling hay to sale and feed the cows, but the major thing is i could not do it alone it take the whole family being on board. it a big decision everyone as to be in it to win it to make it work

here are some thing to think about when your looking at land.
1. are the trees marketable? can you get someone to cut the trees and pay you for them?
2. what is the lay of the land? is it rocky or wetland? is it clay, sandy or loom soil
3. can you get power or other utilities there? in some states its illegal to 100% off grid
4. how much is buildable land? will it pass a perk test?
5. is there a legal ride of way to the land?

Hello George, I am building a homestead in the south west suburbs of Chicago, if you would like to connect, and visit, please reach out.

Greetings George! New to the network and new to homesteading (about 2 years new) and I'm more than willing to be a resource. Here's the trickiest part: There are some wrong answers, but most of it is preference. You don't homestead "right" you homestead in the way you WANT and in the way you can MANAGE. But there are some non-negotiables.
1.) If you are married, both you and your wife need to be onboard. Not 'yeah sure, I guess' onboard, but like "I'm not sure about everything, but let's do this together" onboard. You will need the full engagement of your team to do this. Kids...not so much. Hear them out, listen to their concerns, but my experience is that if your kids are under 15, and (God willing) homeschooled, they will find farm life 100 times more fun than bumming around the burbs. If public schooled, it WILL be a culture shock. Which brings me to
2.) Act like a refugee. You are not 'from there' you do not 'know things' you have fled to a foreign land and you need to learn that culture with humility. Join a church. Get involved. Quickly. Men will quickly learn what your value is (building stuff, playing instruments, welding, etc.) and you will find your place in that community.
3.) While you're enculturating, talk to LOT's of people. The land you now own is not a video game level. It's a unique PLACE has a history going back to the very fossils you'll find in the rocks. Nobody on Youtube can tell you what it takes to make that land produce...but your neighbor probably can.
4.) Don't take on too much at once. Over-committing is where homesteading goes to die. Honestly, that is one reason why I'd recommend buying a house that is already built. It will be cheaper in the long run (materials are high, and labor is actually higher still, and hard to find) We know people that bought and built at the same time we are, and they are still building...and in the meantime, I built a 1000 sq/ft pole barn...by myself. They have had contractors ghost them, and a host of issues. They are not from around there, and when you are anonymous in a world where everyone has known everyone for generations, screwing you over is not a big concern for some. I get the desire for a just-right-dream-home, but maybe decent shelter is enough.
5.) Remove 'off the grid' from your vocabulary. Your goal is not to be a lone gunman. It is to be a vital piece in a resilient community that already existed BEFORE you got there. You're biggest challenge is not self-sufficiency. Rather it is proving to and already self-sufficient community that you are the sort of people who they want in their ranks.

Oh, and call the sheriff of the county you're looking to move to and ask about what common crime issues they deal with. Sheriff's are dour and cynical people, and if you want the story stark and grim, they will tell you what the realtor won't. And trust me, where you go, there WILL be crime, cuz people live there, and people sin. But is it the sort of crime you can handle?

hope 🙏

Good advise ! Go slow and think though ! always look at land on a bad Day ! if like 👍 !