The best huts are quiet and clean (VW).
Who among us hasn’t imagined, if just for a moment, fleeing our mundane but hectic existence for a solitary plot of land in the quiet shadow of an unnamed mountain?
 
The feeling creeps up like an unreachable itch, something that can be scratched but never fully satisfied.

Backcountryarchive photo credit haukursigurdsson eastgreenland hr 06
Cabin Porn: Look at this beauty! Lakeside Cabin, Kulusuk, E. Greenland (vanwinkles.com)
A room without a view is also good for the inner journey to bliss (tcrphotos.ch/flickr.com).
Not all "private time" is created equal (SF).
In our increasingly connected world, we’re assaulted with unending streams of useless information and images of other people’s lives.

So it’s a common dream to imagine skyscrapers and corner delis dissolving into bucolic countrysides and days measured by something other than steps counted on a fitness tracker or thumbs up on a photo.
 
A foolish infatuation with those who’ve read Walden too many times, perhaps, as the meadow is always dewier in the morning. But the fantasy nonetheless lingers.
 
CabinPornCover
Like "food porn, "but we gawk at cabins.
Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere is  out now. It celebrates and fuels dreams of escape.

An ode to secluded structures based on the popular blog of the same name by Zach Klein, this book contains a curated collection of beautifully photographed cabins from around the world.

Peppered throughout are musings on the solitary life, discussions of the different styles of structures and instructions on how to build your own. Together with writer Steven Leckart and photographer Noah Kalina (the pictures are so vivid you can smell the peat moss and fresh sawdust), Klein has created a coffee table book for the restless, one that might lead some to see forth their own solitary visions.

But, mostly, it provides a chance for readers to live vicariously through those who are already out there. And sometimes, that’s enough. Here are some of the spots where we’d love to lay our heads. More + PHOTOS 

Daily Life of a Buddhist Recluse
Ven. Khantipalo (aka Laurence Mills), With Robes and Bowl: Glimpses of the Thudong Life
Control of the senses, contentment, restraint according to the path-to-freedom and association with noble friends who are energetic and pure in life, these are the very basis of the pure life for the wise recluse.
The ascetic who abides in the Dharma, who delights in the Dharma, meditates on the Dharma, and who bears the Dharma well in mind does not fall away from the sublime Dharma. — Dhp. 375, 364
[One who protects the Dharma is protected by the Dharma.] It is rather difficult to write about ascetics' daily lives [in the Thai Theravada forest tradition] as the conditions in which they live are so different.

However, there are certain features of this life which are general, and these may be taken as a basis for this outline.
 
The material which is presented in this and succeeding sections is composite in origin, some of it being experience heard from others and more again being stories told of others. Therefore, we shall speak of "the recluse" (bhikkhu) and present all of these varied sources under this anonymous label.
 
Buddhist cave, S.E. Asia
While doing this, it should be borne in mind that much of what will be said is quite common experience for those following the forest ascetic life.
 
Wherever the ascetic is -- whether in a cave, forest, or in some other solitary place -- that person's day begins early and with stirred-up vigor.
All is quiet except perhaps for the night-sounds of some insects and perhaps the swishings of bats. And at such a time, long before dawn, say 2:00 or 3:00 am, conditions are excellent for the practice of meditation. More
 
The Wayfaring Life
E.M. Hare (trans.) "Rhinoceros Sutra," Sacred Books of the Buddhists series, Pali Text Society
Put by the rod for all that lives,
Nor harm thou anyone thereof;
Long not for son -- how then for friend?
Fare lonely as [sword horn] rhinoceros.
Love cometh from companionship;
In wake of love upsurges ill;
Seeing the bane that comes of love,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
In ruth for all his bosom friends,
A man, heart-chained, neglects the goal;
Seeing this fear in fellowship,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Tangled as crowding bamboo boughs
Is fond regard for sons and wife:
As the tall tops are tangle-free,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
The deer untethered roams the wild
Whithersoe'er it lists for food:
Seeing the liberty, wise man,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Casting aside the household gear,
As sheds the coral-tree its leaves,
With home-ties cut, and vigorous,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Seek for thy [noble] friend the deeply learned,
Dharma-endued, lucid and great;
Knowing the needs, expelling doubt,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
The heat and cold, and hunger, thirst,
Wind, sun-beat, sting of gadfly, snake:
Surmounting one and all of these,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Crave not for tastes, but free of greed,
Moving with measured step from house
To house, support of none, none's thrall,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Free everywhere, at odds with none,
And well content with this and that:
Enduring dangers undismayed,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Snap thou the fetters as the snare
By river denizen is broke:
As fire to waste comes back no more,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
And turn thy back on joys and pains,
Delights and sorrows known of old;
And gaining poise and calm, and cleansed,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Neglect thou not to muse apart,
'Mid things by Dharma-faring aye;
Alive to all becomings' bane,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
As lion, mighty-jawed and king
Of beasts, fares conquering, so thou,
Taking thy bed and seat remote,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Poise, amity, ruth and release
Pursue, and timely sympathy;
At odds with none in all the world,
Fare lonely as rhinoceros.
Leaving the vanities of view,
Right method won, the Way obtained:
"I know! No other is my guide!"
Fare lonely as rhinoceros. More