February 2026
Design Off The Grid With Kara Detwiller: An American Living Creatively In Rural Canada
Have you ever thought about trading it all in so you could embrace a slower pace in life?
Have you ever thought about trading it all in so you could embrace a slower pace in life?
Some of us might absolutely shudder at that thought.
Others are keen to – as the title of these essays suggest – forge their own path off the grid.
While a rare few, like my friend Kara Detwiller, never planned to be a small town, farm-loving girl…but ended up there all the same.
Kara was a writer at a marketing agency in Des Moines, Iowa in 2019 when she found her future husband in the most unexpected place: Reddit.
They started dating long distance (through COVID times) and eventually she moved to Rural Saskatchewan in Canada to be with him.
I couldn’t wait to chat with Kara about her story and what she’s been doing since she traded in convenience stores and midnight Door Dashes for farm life.
“It was really hard to shed my ‘employee’ mindset and release cultural expectations about work. I used to feel a lot of guilt and shame about the fact that I ‘only’ work ~20 hours per week. I thought that meant I was lazy or defective or not achieving my full potential.”
Finding the crossroads between passions
Kara says she’s always described herself as a creative, artsy person, which made choosing a major in college a bit of a problem.
She felt was at a crossroads.
“I couldn’t choose between English/creative writing and graphic design,so I decided to study advertising, because it seemed like a good combo of both.”
Kara’s first few jobs out of college were design-focused, but she ended up pivoting into marketing content writing and then copywriting.
“Right now, my ‘day job’ is freelance content writing, but I also write a newsletter, Wishful Working, and I’m drafting my first novel. I would love to someday have a career based on art and creative writing. I’m currently trying to figure out what that transition would look like.”
Meeting her Canadian farmer
I wanted to hear more about what led Kara from Des Moines to Canada, so I dove straight into that part of her story.
“After years on the dating apps, I decided to embrace the mantra I would jokingly repeat to my friends: Any app can be a dating app!”
Little did Kara realize how true those words would become.
While scrolling through personal ads on Reddit one day in 2019, she found one that really stood out to her and started messaging with a Canadian farmer. Soon, they were texting every day and making plans to meet up.
Then…COVID hit.
The U.S./Canada border closed and while that could have been the end of the story, it was only the beginning.
“We ended up dating long distance (and sight unseen) for about a year before meeting in person in January 2021. By the end of that year, we were married, and I was moving to his tiny hometown in rural Saskatchewan!”
“If it’s September and he’s out in a field harvesting lentils until 11pm, I might sit at my desk for a few hours in the evening and get some work done!”
Appreciating the slow down
As you might expect, Kara said it took a while to adjust to rural, small town living.
“Des Moines isn’t a big city, but I was used to quick Target runs and fast food and DoorDash and other city conveniences,” she laughs.
But while Kara says she still sometimes misses those conveniences, she’s also come to enjoy the slower pace of living. (And the lack of traffic!)
“I’ve also come to really love some of the farm activities, like helping with the big family garden and eating our meals out in the field during planting and harvest times.”
A creative day in the life
Like me, you might be curious what a “typical day” looks like for Kara so I asked her to walk us through her usual routine.
8am: Wake up without an alarm, usually around eight o’clock. “I eat breakfast and drink tea while doing the New York Times puzzles on my iPad.”
10am: “I’m not usually sitting at my desk until around 10am.” Kara makes a to-do list and eases into the work day by answering client emails. “Then I get into client work before I break for lunch.”
1pm: “After lunch, I do a few more hours of work and then will often take a break for a nap or to run some errands.”
5pm: Kara is working on a novel and tries to spend an hour or so on it in the morning or evening.
Kara let me know that although her freelance writing work is not seasonal in the same way as her husband’s farming work, she tries to be a bit busier when he’s busy.
“If it’s September and he’s out in a field harvesting lentils until 11pm, I might sit at my desk for a few hours in the evening and get some work done!”
When I asked Kara what the biggest challenge was in tailoring this creative life that sits outside the expected norm, she told me:
“It was really hard to shed my ‘employee’ mindset and release cultural expectations about work. I used to feel a lot of guilt and shame about the fact that I ‘only’ work ~20 hours per week. I thought that meant I was lazy or defective or not achieving my full potential.”
A lot of that likely had to do with a more experienced freelancer once telling Kara she wouldn’t be able to sustain a freelance business without working more.
But he was very wrong!
“I’m still working 20-hour weeks, and 2025 will be my best year yet, income-wise.”
“Matching, and now exceeding, my former full-time salary while working 20-hour weeks? That’s financial stability and time freedom.”
Defining success and living her values
Kara says success, to her, has three main facets:
- Financial stability
- Time freedom, and
- Creative expression
“Matching, and now exceeding, my former full-time salary while working 20-hour weeks? That’s financial stability and time freedom.”
But Kara finds the third facet, creative expression,harder to fulfill.
“I enjoy my client work, but B2B content writing is not very creatively fulfilling. I need creative side projects, like my newsletter and my novel, to feel truly successful.”
Kara also keeps herself creatively busy by dabbling in hobbies, including drawing, poetry, printmaking, sewing, digital art, and more.
I asked Kara whether her definition of success has changed since leaving the U.S. and her answer didn’t surprise me at all:
“Yes, definitely!”
Kara says, “Getting married and moving to rural Saskatchewan caused the opposite of lifestyle inflation — lifestyle deflation, maybe?”
And by marrying someone who doesn’t work a regular, 9-5 job, either, Kara and her husband have a lot of lifestyle options that aren’t available to most people.
“That freedom and flexibility demands you think hard about what you actually want to do with your time and money.”
At the end of the day, Kara is most appreciative that she has control over her schedule and is able to indulge her creative whims more often than when she was an employee.
She’s also big on connection, “That’s why I want to share more of my art and writing — it’s amazing to share a seemingly insignificant thought or experience from my life and have another person go, ‘Oh, so it’s not just me!’”
Advice for other creatives
So what is Kara’s take on which tools, products, etc. help to stay creative and grounded?
It turns out you don’t need much when you’re surrounded by nature and spend a healthy amount of time feeding your creative soul!
“I try to keep my business fairly simple, and I don’t like to have a lot of subscriptions. That said, I swear by Moxie, a project management platform designed specifically for freelancers and small teams. I also just love my home office space full of books and art.”
So what advice would she give to someone else craving this more intentional (or unconventional) creative life?
Kara says, “There’s a quote I love from Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing:
‘Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.’
Life is busy. The perfect conditions to start that project you’ve been daydreaming about? They don’t exist. You can keep saying ‘someday’ you’ll do it, or you can just start it now.”
And you can bet your bottom dollar, Kara would go back and take the same path if given the chance to do so again.
“I feel a lot of peace about where I’m at now in my career and life and relationships. It has been a wild and unique path, but I’m so grateful for where I’ve been and where I’m going.”
“I feel a lot of peace about where I’m at now in my career and life and relationships. It has been a wild and unique path, but I’m so grateful for where I’ve been and where I’m going.”
Fun questions for Kara
Q: If your life had a soundtrack, what are three songs that would be on repeat?
- Let the Good Times Roll – Ben Rector
- Whatever Keeps You Going – Donovan Woods
- I Wanna Dance with Somebody – Whitney Houston
Q: Do you have any favorite rituals that keep you feeling grounded?
I suppose my slow mornings drinking tea and doing the NYT crossword are a type of ritual. I want more rituals, though (haha)!
Q: What is a creative trend you are glad to leave behind these days?
Hustling, grinding, and all forms of striving for someone else’s definition of “success.” (AMEN, right?!)
Q: And what creative trend are you excited for?
I love that all things analog are taking center stage right now. I’m seeing so many snail mail clubs popping up, for example. I think people are longing for authentic, offline experiences in the midst of all the AI slop. I know I am.