Wildlife Preservation
One of the simplest things to do with your property is just to preserve it. It’s your land, and you have the right to protect it. You can designate an area to be free from hunting, camping, logging and even fishing. Some landowners are happy to simply buy land and allow it to return to its natural habitat. They can even farm a small area of it and leave the rest of the land to the wild, with plenty of trails for kids and dogs to explore! If you have any inclination towards environmental protection, this could be a great fit for the property you own.
Raising Livestock
If your property is situated in (or anywhere near) a farming community – there’s a good chance it could be used for raising livestock. Cows, pigs, horses, chickens, sheep, horses, goats… they all need a place to call home, and in some markets – grazing land can be easy money for landowners. If you’ve got a large tract of land that isn’t being used for anything else, why not lease it to a farmer in the area?
Education
Do you know how to live off the land? It may be possible to get a few clearances and use your land to teach kids and adults valuable life skills. It could be as simple as teaching individuals how to collect dry firewood, or as complex as building a small shelter entirely from natural resources. If you contact local Boy Scout or Girl Scout troops, you may also be able to offer your land to them for annual camping trips. Any kind of knowledge like that can be a valuable skill set to pass on to others, especially younger generations could be fair game. It could even be a profitable venture if you decide to charge a bit and run it regularly.
Off-Grid Living
People who go “off-grid” are those who want to reduce their carbon footprint, assert their independence and avoid reliance on fossil fuels. Many of these folks live away from society, and as the name implies – they aren’t connected to any public utilities. No electricity. No natural gas. No water. No sewer. Complete disconnect. People who choose this lifestyle typically have their own wells, septic tanks, solar and/or wind power and alternative sources of fuel. As a result, they can assert their independence and live without being tethered to expensive utility companies that run the show and determine the cost of living for most of society. If you’ve got a property without access to any public utilities, it could be a perfect fit for someone who wants to live off-the-grid!
Build a Self-Storage Facility
Self-storage facility projects can be a lucrative business or side-hustle. It was a fairly simple business model without a lot of complexity that comes with most businesses. If you own a parcel of land that is more than a few acres in size and zoned commercial, it could very well be an ideal fit for a self-storage facility. These types of projects aren’t cheap to build (most of them will easily exceed a million dollars construct from the ground up), but if it’s located in an area where there are no other storage facilities in the near vicinity – it could absolutely be a worthwhile investment.
Build an Outdoor Storage Facility
If you’ve got land near a metropolitan area, but perhaps not in the best location to build a multi-million dollar development, you could potentially use the property just as it is, and charge people a monthly or annual fee to park their RV, boat, trailer or other massive machinery in an outdoor setting. In most of these situations, a reasonably large fence or wall will need to be built (enough to obstruct the view from the road and keep trespassers out) a locked gate and a descent camera security system – but other than these standard aspects of any storage facility, there isn’t a great deal of development required to start cash-flowing from this type of land use.
Outdoor Photography Studio
One of the best places to get great photographs is in the outdoors. Lighting is an extremely important component of great photographs, and when the lighting is just right outside, it’s hard to beat the kind of quality it can produce. Most photographers are always on the lookout for good locations to shoot in the outdoors, so if you’ve got a parcel of land with good scenery, a good backdrop or other features that give it an interesting landscape – considering leasing it out or using it yourself for the purpose of an outdoor photography studio!
Outdoor Wedding Chapel
People are always getting married and potentially considering alternative memorable ways to have their wedding. One of the best alternatives is to get married in an outdoors setting and if the land has a water front or mountain view, its location would even be more desirable. Building a structure with open walls as the chapel would allow for views of the outdoor during the wedding and a second similar structure could be built for recreational activities such as for parties and get-togethers after the wedding. There are several wedding management services so if you get on their list as a venue they will be able to offer their clients more choices.
Adopted from the article 50 Creative Uses for Raw Land