I don’t remember exactly what rabbit trail led me there, but at some point I ended up watching a video about a guy named Brent who bought an abandoned mining town in California. What really hooked me was the price: this entire 300‑acre town and a massive network of mines cost about the same as my single house on 1/6 of an acre. Imagine how different my life would be if we traded our house for something like this!
I didn’t want to spoil the story by jumping around, so I went all the way back to the beginning of his channel and watched roughly six years of videos. It was fascinating to fast‑forward through his adventure and see how both he and the town evolved over time. The journey has some huge highs and lows, but each individual video is a window into whatever challenge or project he was tackling at the time. It’s a mix of huge projects and small challenges as well as huge highs and deep lows.
This had such an impact on me that I ended up reading his book (minor spoiler: he writes a book) and I also got a copy of the Cerro Gordo book from the Images of America series. Reading a couple books might not seem that wild, but there’s more. We had already planned a summer road trip down to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon with other stops along the way. After getting Elijah hooked on the videos too and getting permission from Tyla, we adjusted our route so that we are planning to visit Cerro Gordo in August!
I realize that there are a million different YouTube holes you can get sucked down, but I have found this one particularly fun and interesting. You can check it out for yourself here: Ghost Town Living – YouTube. If watching the entire back catalog seems like a bit much, look for his annual summary videos like A Year Living In An Abandoned Ghost Town, Two Years Living In An Abandoned Ghost Town!, etc.