By Erik Peterson, founder of Landopia. Full disclosure: I’m a land guy, not a developer or a real estate guru. I’ve sold several hundred owner-financed parcels across many states, and I’ve heard just about every plan a buyer ever cooked up for a piece of dirt. These are the 50 that actually fit rural raw land, not a lot in town.
You bought the land, or you’re about to. You’ve got the coordinates, maybe a fence corner and a two-track, and a head full of ideas. Then you start reading lists online and half of them are about opening a brewery or a self-storage place, which is not much help when your parcel sits an hour past the nearest Walmart on a dirt road.
Raw rural land plays by different rules than a lot in town. No city water, no sewer hookup, sometimes no power at the road. For most of the folks I sell to, that’s not a problem to fix. It’s the whole point. The trick is matching the idea to the ground you’ve actually got.
Weekend camper, hunter, homesteader, off-gridder, fella who just wants somewhere his kids can run without a fence in sight? You’re all covered here. Below are 50 things you can really do with a piece of rural land, split into what works from the first weekend and what waits until the deed is in your name.
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From the First Weekend
These work whether you’re still making payments or you own it free and clear. Nothing here needs a permit or a poured slab. Just go.
Get Out There
1. Camp on it. Pitch a tent, ring a fire pit with rocks, and spend a night where the loudest thing is the wind. The cheapest way to start using land is to go sleep on it.
2. Park the RV or travel trailer. Pull the camper out for the weekend and you’ve got a basecamp with a bed. Worth knowing what your county allows for camping, RVs, and tiny homes before you settle in for longer stretches.
3. Hunt it, or use it as a base camp. Five or ten acres won’t hold a whole elk herd by itself, but it puts you right next to the public BLM and forest ground where the hunt happens, with a familiar piece of dirt to come back to. Check the state wildlife agency for seasons and tags.
4. Set up a target or archery range. Where it’s legal and safe, your own land is the best range you’ll ever shoot. Build a dirt backstop and you’re set.
5. Ride ATVs, dirt bikes, and side-by-sides. Open ground and trails of your own beat waiting your turn at a public OHV area.
6. Stargaze. An hour past town, the sky does things city folks forget it can do. Bring a chair and a thermos.
7. Cut your own trails. A weekend with a chainsaw and a brush cutter turns raw ground into hiking, walking, or riding trails you’ll actually use.
8. Fish it, or base-camp to nearby water. If there’s a creek or a pond, great. If not, the parcel still puts the public lake twenty minutes from your camp instead of three hours from a hotel.
9. Rockhound and metal detect. Plenty of western ground hides agates, arrowheads, and the occasional surprise. Half the fun is in the looking.
10. Gather firewood and forage. Downed wood, mushrooms, and berries on your own land are yours for the taking. Just know what you’re picking.
11. Practice bushcraft. Land is the best classroom there is for fire, shelter, and the old skills, and the kids will remember it a lot longer than another screen.
12. Make it the family base camp. Reunions, first campfires, teaching a kid to steer the truck across a field. This is the use nobody puts on a spreadsheet and everybody remembers.
Put It to Work Without Building
13. Plant a food plot. A few hours with a disc and some seed gives the deer a reason to stay and you a better season.
14. Keep a few beehives. Hives are movable, low fuss, and you get honey out of the deal. Bees don’t care whether the road is paved.
15. Run a weekend off-grid setup. A portable solar panel, a battery, and a water jug will run a comfortable camp without a single permanent install.
16. Store your own toys. Park the boat, the camper, or the project truck on your own ground instead of paying for a storage unit in town.
17. Train and run your dogs. Open country is where a bird dog or a pup learns to work. No leash laws out here.
18. Watch wildlife and shoot photos. Hang a trail camera, learn the birds, catch the light at golden hour. Quiet land is a front-row seat.
19. Set a seasonal hunt camp. A wall tent and a wood stove for the season is a tradition, not a construction project.
Picturing this on a place of your own? See what’s available right now on owner financing, often around $100 down to get started.
Once You Own It Outright
A quick, honest note before this next batch. Most of our buyers are on owner financing, which means the land isn’t fully in your name until the last payment clears. Anything permanent, a well, a septic, a foundation, a real structure, waits until you own it outright. Camping and hunting and riding you can do this weekend. Pouring concrete comes after payoff. And whatever you build, check your county on zoning and permits first and know where your lines run with a real boundary survey.
Build On It
20. Build a cabin or hunting shack. The classic. A dry place to sleep turns a weekend trip into a home away from home.
21. Put up a barn, shop, or pole building. Cover for your gear and a place to work. It’s the first real structure most owners add.
22. Drill a well. Getting water on the land changes everything about what you can do there.
23. Install a septic system. Less romantic than a well, just as important once you’re staying overnight on a regular basis.
24. Set permanent solar or wind. Once it’s yours, a real solar setup takes the place fully off the meter.
25. Go off-grid for good. Put it all together, water, power, and shelter, and you’ve got an off-grid place of your own. Know what you’re signing up for before you cut the cord.
26. Set a tiny home or park model. A tiny home is a quick path from raw ground to a place you can actually stay.
27. Put in an RV pad with hookups. Pour a pad, run water and power, and the camper becomes a real seasonal home.
28. Pour a foundation for your future home. Plenty of buyers stage it: camp first, build later, live there eventually.
29. Fence it and hang a gate. Mark your ground and keep stock in or critters out. Just know exactly where your lines run before you set a post.
Grow It and Raise On It
30. Start a small orchard. Fruit and nut trees take patience, but they pay you back every fall for decades.
31. Plant a market or culinary garden. Grow more than you can eat and sell the rest to neighbors or a local restaurant.
32. Raise chickens. Eggs, meat, and the best alarm clock you’ll ever grumble about. Low cost, fast payoff.
33. Raise goats or sheep. Milk, meat, and brush control on four legs. A natural fit for a working homestead.
34. Run cattle, or lease the grass. A few head of your own, or rent the pasture to a neighbor who needs it.
35. Grow a Christmas tree patch. A seasonal crop that turns into a family tradition if you let it.
36. Try hemp or a specialty crop. Where it’s legal, low-maintenance crops can earn on ground that won’t grow much else.
Make It Pay
37. Lease the hunting rights. If the wildlife is there, hunters will pay for access, and you barely lift a finger.
38. Lease the grass for grazing. A rancher short on pasture is often glad to pay to run stock on yours.
39. Harvest or sell the timber. Standing hardwood is money. Cut it sustainably yourself, or sell the timber rights and let a crew handle the work.
40. Lease it for solar or wind. If the parcel sits where the grid and the sun or wind line up, energy developers pay to lease ground.
41. Lease space for a cell tower. A strategic spot can host a tower and a steady check for letting it sit there.
42. Put up a billboard. Frontage on a busy highway is worth real money to advertisers.
43. Grant an access easement. If a neighbor or a developer needs to cross your land, that crossing has value.
44. Rent it as a campsite or glamping spot. Other folks will pay to do exactly what you bought your land to do.
45. Rent RV and boat storage. Flat, fenced ground near a town or a lake makes for easy storage income.
46. Rent it to film crews and events. Scenic or unusual ground gets rented for shoots, gatherings, and the occasional wedding.
Hold It, Pass It, or Sell It
47. Just hold it. They aren’t making more land, which is a big part of why folks own it as a hedge. Sit on it and let it ride.
48. Keep it wild. Leave it as habitat, maybe pick up a conservation tax break, and let it be the one place that stays the same.
49. Pass it to your kids. Land is the rare thing you can hand down that they’ll actually thank you for. Set the ownership up clean and it carries to the next generation.
50. Sell it down the road. When the season of life changes, sell it for a profit. Raw land is patient money.
Common Questions About Using Vacant Land
What can you do with vacant land?
Plenty, even when it’s raw and rural. From day one you can camp, hunt, ride, stargaze, and store your gear. Once it’s paid off you can build, drill a well, farm it, or lease it out for income.
What’s the best thing to do with land you own?
Whatever fits the ground and your life. A wooded parcel near public land makes a hunting base camp, flat acreage suits a homestead or a grazing lease, and remote desert is a quiet off-grid spot.
What can you do with a small piece of vacant land?
A few acres is plenty for a weekend camp, a tiny home, a garden, a few beehives, or a place to park the RV. You don’t need a big spread to put land to use.
How do you make money on vacant land?
Lease the hunting or grazing rights, sell the timber, rent it as a campsite or for storage, or hold it and sell later. Most income uses need you to own the land outright first.
What can you do with raw land that has no utilities?
Most of the good stuff. Camp, hunt, ride, and run a portable solar setup from day one. Add a well, septic, and permanent solar once you own it to live fully off-grid.
Can you live on vacant land?
Often yes, once you own it and check your county’s zoning. Many owners start with an RV or a tiny home and build from there.
What can you do with land while you’re still paying it off?
Anything that doesn’t put something permanent in the ground. Camping, hunting, riding, food plots, and beehives are all fine on terms. Wells, septic, and structures wait until the deed is in your name.
Find the Ground First
Every one of these starts with the same thing: owning a piece of land that fits the plan. We sell raw, rural land across the West and South on owner financing, often around $100 down and a payment in the neighborhood of a phone bill. If one of these 50 ideas put a picture in your head, go see what’s open in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, or Texas.
A piece of land is just a pile of maybes until you go do something with it. Pick one off this list, point the truck that way, and find out what kind of owner you are.