Whenever I hear people speaking about anarchy from their comfortably heated and on-the-grid electricity-enabled houses, I have to laugh a little.

Talking about anarchy and living it are completely different things. There's only one free place left in the USA where no one pays rent and it's called Slab City. I camped out there during a trip across California several years ago and made a short video about my experiences.

Slab City is completely off the grid, meaning there's no running water, no trash pickup, no electricity, no police force, no mailing addresses.

No one pays rent and no one pays taxes, either. It is the textbook definition of anarchy and it's the last place in the USA where you can experience it. I've spent time in ecovillages which were off the grid, but even in ecovillages, there's usually a governance structure in place. The state of California owns the land on which Slab City lies and people have been living there for free since the 1940's. In Slab City there's a wild mix of people composed mostly of: snowbirds, retirees, mentally insane folks, runaway teens, ex-cons, anarchists and people just at the end of their ropes for a myriad of reasons. There's very little crime there and people report that folks go out of their way to be nice to one another. Everyone I met there seemed quite hospitable.

There's a town called Niland which is very close to Slab City, which is where everyone gets their supplies. During my visit to Slab City, I spent the majority of my time giving away my hand-made postcards. Here are the Slab City residents to whom I gave my postcards:

This is Builder Bill, who's pretty famous in Slab City

My boyfriend and I visited Slab City during one of the hottest months, June. We slept in a tent and at 6 am in the morning, our bodies began to sweat, which woke us up. After we woke up, we were invited to have coffee with some Slabbers (people who live at Slab City). I remember being assaulted by giant bluish-blackish bottle flies that were the size of mice. The Slabbers told us they stung really bad like horseflies. Those flies looked like they were from a sci-fi movie. Luckily I didn't get stung by any.

Slab City lies next to Salvation Mountain, which was built and painted by an outsider artist named Leonard Knight.

I had planned our trip to include experiencing the famed talent show at Slab City. It was wild, for sure. I remember a teen boy slouched in a disintegrating sofa, smoking weed while an older lady and her man danced on an empty stage. Old men wearing nothing but black underwear stood watching the couple. It was blazing hot, so no one really took notice of what anyone was wearing or not wearing.

My boyfriend played in the talent show and I spent the remainder of the evening filming him and other Slabbers. There was so much to take in. Here's the video I made of the experience, which also includes Leonard Knight at his mountain:

I heard that there was some possibility that the State of California might try to sell the land. The last I heard was that the Slabbers were trying to raise money to buy it themselves. If you are ever in California, you should definitely make the trip to visit Slab City, which is about 140 miles away from San Diego. I'd recommend visiting during any season except summer. When we visited in June it got up to 115 degrees F. That wasn't a great move on my part. Anyway, I'll leave you with a photo of me walking up Salvation Mountain which lies right next to Slab City:

VICE MEDIA did a documentary film about Slab City, Living Without Laws. I met tons of weirdos, but not the snake herder.

All images created by @stellabelle

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